From The Philadelphia Inquirer
A Grammy-nominated song that dare not speak its name
By Dan DeLuca, Inquirer Music Critic
When the Grammy Awards are presented Sunday night at the Staples Center in Los Angeles in a ceremony broadcast on CBS, a naughtily infectious song by soul man Cee Lo Green has an excellent chance of being named both song and record of the year.
But if it wins, you won't hear the song's correct name. That's because it contains an obscenity.
The devilishly catchy pop tune, which is up for four awards, is about a heartbroken guy moved to shout out the two words that best express his frustration at losing the girl he loves to a well-heeled rival....
Not so fast, say dirty-word watchers. Taboos have eroded considerably since the Rolling Stones had to sing "Let's spend some time together" - instead of "the night" - on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1967. But they're not entirely gone - yet.
"The function of broadcast TV is to keep these words dirty so we can still enjoy saying them," says Geoffrey Nunberg, a linguist who teaches at the University of California, Berkeley [School of Information].
"The whole pleasure of saying it is in breaking the rules," says Nunberg, a commentator on the NPR program Fresh Air who is working on a book about a seven-letter word that can't be written in a daily newspaper.
"The prudes and the libertines need each other. They feed off each other. If nobody cared, there'd be no point to it. It's like when you're 9 years old and you first start learning these words. That's what's attractive about them. It's because they're naughty."...