Fa-word: encountered in NPR news today

[David Barnhart]

In April, basketball superstar Kobe Bryant of the Los Angeles Lakers was
fined $100,000 by the NBA for calling a referee the Fa-word.  In May, Joakim
Noah of the Chicago Bulls was fined $50,000 by the league for hurling the
anti-gay slur at a fan.

. Sticks and stones may break one's bones, and words themselves may not
hurt.  But the Fa-word sure does seem to accompany some violent behavior. To
many people, gay and straight, it has become another in a long line of
unacceptable, unsavory and unnecessary epithets.

"Yes," says Hank Stuever, a TV critic at The Washington Post.



Linton Weeks, "The Fa-Word: An Insulting Slur In the Spotlight," Around the
Nation on NPR [National Public Radio] (Google News), May 28, 2011, p not
given

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