F-words are my favorite.
By Liz Biggs
If I had to choose a ride or die letter, I would choose F. All the best words begin with F. Fall (my favorite season), football, family, friendship, fun, frivolity, freedom, fearless, fabulous, fire, French fries, fandango, float, funk, female, fascinating, ferocious, fly, fertile, fragrant, fantastic, foolish, fanfare, fickle, frolic, fudge, feckless, flower, festive, feelings, fussbudget, flit, flutter, fetish, forget-me-not, fellatio, flaccid, frantic, fast, feign, fashion, France (my favorite foreign country), finery, fluid, frenzy, flurry, footwork, fleabag, flabbergasted, funicular, flow, fastidious, forthcoming, faithful, fidelity, fluid, finger, fluorescent, Friday (my favorite day), fortuitous, funny, fumble, free-falling, fellowship, Festivus, and forever are a few that come to mind.
It is no wonder that when George Lucas created Star Wars, the Force was the mysterious metaphysical (M is my second favorite letter) power in his fiction franchise. To maintain my cosmic balance and energy, I always try to stay on the light side of the Force. Stay away from the dark side, or you will have a futile future.
Frugal is the Rodney Dangerfield of F-words — “it don’t get no respect.” I was raised to be frugal by a mother born in 1929. It is painful for me to spend money. I’ve shopped online, but more often than not, I fret at the checkout/pay button, so everything just stays in the cart. The good news is I hate owing money, so my sister knows to book the trips when we travel — I struggle to click the button to book anything, but will gladly pay what I owe. Frugal people don’t like debt.
My children haven’t always appreciated my frugality. So many times they asked, “Why can’t we order a beverage besides water when we go out? Please can we have a Sprite?” (No, because that’s your college money going down the drain.) My youngest would come home from a friend’s house and say, “Why is everything in our house so old? Why can’t we buy all new stuff? We let her paint her room a pale neutral color and get a new rug and dresser, but the rest of the house is furnished like a groovy ’60s vintage museum sprinkled with a few fantastic curb-alert finds. They don’t like to admit it, but my frugality has rubbed off on a few of my children, and they have saved enough to buy their first homes. So give this F-word some respect.
What is my absolute favorite F-word, you ask? Well, of course, it’s the one that can’t be printed here. The OG F-word. The GOAT of F words. The one you holler loudly when you drop a can of peas on your foot, but can be romantic if you whisper it softly in your lover’s ear. What other word is a quintessential curse word but also a verbal aphrodisiac? Certainly not the SH-word, although I have yelped that one when dropping a can of peas on my foot.
I love the versatility of my favorite F-word. F’n bril (brilliant) is British slang for something extraordinary. Richard Roxburgh, the Australian actor who plays barrister Cleaver Greene in “Rake,” made the phrase f-me famous. And there are so many variations: f-you, f-off, f-yeah, f’d up, WTF, for f’s sake, f’it, zero f’s given, stfu, stop f’ing around, f’d over, and abso-f-ing-lutely. It feels as if this word has undergone a metamorphosis — once upon a time, it was a rarely said bad word, but now it is a welcome member of our current culture and lexicon. Kind of like tattoos.
Here’s wishing everyone a fantastic, festive, fun Thanksgiving holiday. I’m thankful for the letter F. Maybe next month I’ll write about M.
