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Let’s say you’re a young comedian, and you’ve just landed your dream job: A spot on “Saturday Night Live.” And on your first episode, you get to star in your own sketch, something that can take years to happen for other cast members, if it even happens at all.

Your character is a biker chick who says “frickin’,” “freakin’,” “friggin’” or variations of other words (a hilarious character indeed).

Now, let’s say you let your guard down, and about 12 friggins into the sketch, that ugly monster of a word emerges from its dank cave in the recesses of your brain, punching the little voice in your head that’s chanting, “Don’t say it, don’t say it, don’t say it,” directly in the throat and soiling the ears of all who tuned in to the show. What would you do?

You’d probably make a face that says, “I’m so dead.”

That’s what Jenny Slate did on the season premiere of SNL last month. She puffed up like a blowfish, performing the facial expression equivalent of Ashlee Simpson’s bizarre jig during the SNL lip syncing fiasco of 2004.

In their state of silent disbelief, those audience members probably thought they had seen Slate’s last moments before SNL creator and executive producer Lorne Michaels personally dumped her lifeless body into the East River. And with good reason — the last cast member to say the f-word, Charles Rocket, was fired.

Here’s the odd thing, though. NBC said Slate will not be fired. And the Federal Communication Commission didn’t even fine NBC since the profanity occurred late enough at night, according to various entertainment blogs. Nothing real came of the unfortunate utterance.

So why all the shock about something that most people say every day? Why all the hullabaloo over a four-letter word?

We here at the University of Kansas are no strangers to the strange emotions evoked by the f-word. The controversial kickoff chant that contains the word has put students at odds with the campus leaders who don’t want folks watching football games on television to think we’re vulgar, unwashed hooligans.

What I find to be interesting is that the focus seems to be on that one little word and not the fact that the chant endorses forcible decapitation. If we chanted “I do say, give that gentleman a severe case of cranial avulsion,” the University would point to it as an indication of the student body’s improving vocabulary skills.

There seems to be a dissonance between the values we assign certain words and the impact they have on the real world. We can talk all we want about removing skulls without consent, but the moment a dirty word gets thrown in, people react in horror.

But what really happens when somebody says the f-word? Do our ears bleed? Are we struck by lightning? Do puppies stop being cute? No, no and — thank God — no.

Bad words are bad only because we say they are bad. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy, like somebody who has premonitions of becoming a hobo deciding to major in English. The only negative result of somebody saying a bad word is the controversy that surrounds it. If we followed the teachings of George Carlin, the patron saint of cursing, we’d let words just be words and worry only about the important things in life.

The key is to just not give a fuck.

— Nichols is a Stilwell junior in creative writing

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