[Ads-l] "motherfucker" goes mainstream

Laurence Horn laurence.horn at YALE.EDU
Tue Mar 28 20:02:37 UTC 2017


> On Mar 28, 2017, at 3:56 PM, Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
> 
> Gourmet Anthony Bourdain advertises his new CNN season with a spot that
> shows penguins, then shows Bourdain bundled in a day-glo parka approaching
> a barber's pole set in a polar desert.
> 
> All the revered travel-&-chow host says is, "Bottom of the world,
> mother******."
> 
> But read his lips.

Or read his books and draw the inference.  But haven’t cable hosts like Jon Stewart and Samantha Bee (and others, I’m sure) been emitting bleeped but lip-recoverable instances of “motherfucker” for a while?  Granted, they’re not on CNN, but not on pay cable either.  Maybe the generalization is that in a context in which you can get away with uttering “shit” uncensored, you can get away with uttering bleeped but recoverable “(mother)fuck(er)”.

LH

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