George Calvin's Disimplicatures

--- by JLS
----- for the GC

THANKS TO KRAMER for linking to the G. Calvin's monologue which I have just heard. I note that on 7:30 minute of the thing, he goes into variants of *f*ck* which we are analysing vis a vis his one three-liner:

"My grandather would say: "I'm going upstairs to fuck your grandmother": He was an honest man who wasn't going to bullshit a four-year old."

In that monologue that Kramer refers to Calvin goes on to provide 'rewrites':

--- f*ck after all can stand for

(a) make love
(b) go to bed
(c) have an affair.

Surely (c) won't do in the threeliner:

"I'm going upstairs to have an affair with your grandmother".

would confuse the child. Similarly, (b)

on the assumption that the child KNOWS it's the beds upstairs would similarly sound odd seeing that while U IS going to bed, the grandmother is ALREADY IN (the) bed. Plus, the problem here is in the reciprocal as in the example cited by Horn in "Natural History of Negation": (Title of song).

"We were married (but not to each other)."


"I'm going upstairs to go to bed with your grandmother" would need some rewrite itself:

"I'm going to be to LAY with your grandmother", perhaps, which does not seem to remove the profanity ("Sam and John get laid", title of film).

The 'make love' seeems to fare better, but as Kramer suggests, it would indicate some senility on the part of the grandfather. This may not translate (to French):

'coucher' -- go to bed
'faire l'amour'

--- and the third rude option.

"avoir un affair" sounds so bland in French that I wouldn't even count it. Seeing that 'affair' IS a French word.

Or not.