Every parent, at some point, has to explain to their kids that some words are only to be used in specific situations, among certain company, under just the right circumstances. Since young kids don’t have their powers of discernment honed yet, it’s often easier to simply tell kids not to use certain words, like the mother of all profanities, the f-bomb.
Eventually, those kids will learn that adults don’t always have their sense of discernment honed either, and that swearing is often done haphazardly and without a lot of conscious thought. Perhaps that’s how the f-word ended up with so many meanings and usages, a reality hilariously brought to light in a “Father-Daughter Swearing Lesson” skit from The New Yorker.
“Dad, what does ‘f**k’ mean?” a young girl innocently asks her father while coloring at the kitchen table. His initial stumbling reaction is all too familiar, but as he gets rolling with an explanation, the scene gets funnier and funnier.
(There are multiple f-bombs dropped throughout, so consider this a **language warning.**)
It’s really hard as a parent to give age-appropriate answers to questions that don’t really have age-appropriate answers, and when you get stuck in that kind of lesson, it’s difficult to know when you’ve carried it too far or not far enough. Chris Gethard captured that tension perfectly, flipping back and forth between responsible parent concerned about his daughter’s innocence and basic dude with an appreciation for the f-word.
Both actors nailed their roles in this video. The way the dad discovers his own appreciation for the multi-purpose uses of the f-word as he’s explaining its various iterations is just as funny as his daughter’s facial expressions throughout the video. (Give that girl an Oscar, stat.)
People in the comments agreed that both performances were excellently delivered.
“Brilliantly acted. This begets a series – of flexible ‘bad words.'”
“The daughter’s face was priceless. Great short!”
“‘Do you know about the cognates? The cognates are amazing.’ Brilliant.”
“Absolutely brilliant. This should be in every film festival.”
People also appreciated the actual explanation of the f-word given by the dad in the skit.
“Great explanation. What struck me is that I grew up in a time in which fathers and daughters could never have had this conversation. What a difference such trust and honesty would have made!”
“Wish my dad had given this answer when I asked in 3rd grade!”
“I once had a similar conversation with someone whose first language is not English. It was quite entertaining and I remember it fondly.”
“Brilliant. Perfect in every word and gesture I’d like to study the entire English language with these two.”
The best part has to be the ending, though. After all of those explanations of how the f-word is used in various contexts, the ultimate parent line—”never, ever say it”—is just classic. And then the permission to use it one more time, and then one more time after that. It’s all so very accurate to how parenting conversations so often go. No one tells you how to handle these kinds of questions, so parents fly by the seat of their pants, always with delightfully unpredictable results.