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ROBIN The army and school – that was a long time ago.
P.A. Then, no doubt, you'd have said it would be a long time before you would grow up and use the awful language those great big authorities – starting with your parents – used. But if as a baby you had not been so angry and inarticulate, that is the ‘cuntish’ language you would have talked. In fact I do not believe there has ever been a time when your mental turbulence did not surface gems of this obscene ‘water’ – amniotic fluid, social freedom – call it what you will. What language does Alice spontaneously use when the alarm clock wakes her and she wants to sleep some more?
ALICE I admit your point. I still wonder what good it does to talk such language or about it.
P.A. Though forgotten, the archaic thing lives and contributes its vitality to an otherwise sterile talk. I remember a dignified board meeting at which the chairman started a long and highly involved address urging members to ‘be more circumspect because so much offence was caused by … er … er …’. ‘Oh, Christ – Bish been saying ‘fuck’ again?’ The chairman inclined his head in shamed acknowledgement that the surmise was correct. The contrast of the ‘civil’ communication with the direct primitive phrase was most impressive; the primitive tapped reserves of vitality spread through the somnolent, but well-behaved group.
ALICE I am glad you acknowledge that the group, however somnolent, was well-behaved. I do not think this discussion would be improved by our free exchange of terms like ‘fuck’ and ‘buggery’, ‘bastard’ and … and …
P.A. We will spare you the embarrassment of demonstrating your familiarity with the vocabulary. But I do not want us to lose sight
of this almost universally comprehended speech. It hardly requires translation. I can see that the speeches in the United Nations Assembly might well be enlivened if the ‘freedom’ was extended to include freedom to choose, without limitation, how to express as well as what matter to express.
ALICE I sho