with Auren Hoffman
July 27, 1997

Cuss Me Out! Why are some words deemed "dirty"? by Auren Hoffman What's in a word? I started wondering about this when I overheard an argument between a parent and a child over whether "DAMN" was a bad word. The kid said "damn-it" and his mother got mad at him. I did not write this column to argue the technicalities of curse words (though I think the word "damn" appears in quite reputable literature including Shakespeare), but I began questioning why any word is considered "bad."

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