I believe "letters"
sound, sight, touch, taste, smell
The five husbands of the lady at the well.
I believe "civilization" itself is based upon
"letters".
When I was younger I lived in Montreal. My sister in law and my niece are both "FRENCH", that is with capital letters. She was talking about a missing a taxi, she said "Aahh fu**, I missed a taxi, I had to walk, you know, in the rain."
English is her second language, she has no cultural referents for the connotation of a word.
My friend and I were talking about it afterwards, it seemed to him uncouth that a polished lady would say such a thing. As we walked down Rue St. Denis in the warm Montreal evening, we discussed "cursing". I told him quietly a word like "tabernac" is an uncouth word in FRENCH, not fu**. He repeated what I said much louder, many heads turned. |
