Whyever _never_?

[Wilson Gray]

On Mon, May 14, 2012 at 9:01 PM, Jonathan Lighter
<wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com> wrote:
> "1" sounds sort of OK, Â but "2" sounds much better.
>
> In other words, I'd probably never say "1."

I am forever in your debt!;-)

The other day, I heard a song about what things would be like, if they
weren't the way that they are. It contained the line,

"Tupac would still be _tapping ass_."

Once upon a time, hearing someone - especially a woman - say that
would have had me looking around for the Four Horsemen. Now, it seems
strange that I ever thought that it was strange to hear it used on
some random TV show. Hell, I'm no longer bothered by the use of
"nigger" in the presence of - or even by! - white people. All thing
being equal, of course. Remember the scene in the (in)famous movie,
"Kids," where the white protagonist joshingly asks his equally-white
buddy, "What you doing, looking at my mama's tittie, nigger?" I was
cool with that.

But the "peculiarity" of that use of _never_ … As the ELO sings, "I
can't get it out of my mind / Oh, no, no, no, no, no."

Youneverknow.

For those interested, I'm preparing an essay on the pejoration of
_fuck over_. But don't wait up. It's been hanging fire since
Thanksgiving and will be of no greater interest than my present
oeuvre.
--
-Wilson
-----
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"---a strange complaint
to come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
-Mark Twain

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