The Dirtiest Word in the Language

You can’t—at any rate, I can’t— formulate a precise definition of obscenity: there are too many intangibles involved. The saltiness of Chaucer and Rabelais can make me chuckle with delight, while Norman Mailer’s use of the same or equivalent expressions sickens me and Tennessee Williams can drive me out of the theater.

This can’t be entirely because I’m just a dirty old four-letter-word reactionary, and Chaucer and Rabelais belonged to the horse-and-buggy era whereas Mailer and Williams are the heralds of the Bright New Realism. It has something to do, I insist, with the fact that Chaucer and Rabelais were artists, while Mailer and Williams are merely sensationalists. With Messrs. C. and R., the words seem not only right but inevitable; with Messrs. M. and W., I have the uneasy feeling that some nasty brats are chalking up the sidewalk.

MR

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Morrie Ryskind

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You can’t—at any rate, I can’t— formulate a precise definition of obscenity: there are too many intangibles involved. The saltiness of Chaucer and Rabelais can make me chuckle with delight, while Norman Mailer’s use of the same or equivalent expressions sickens me and Tennessee Williams can drive me out of the theater.

This can’t be entirely because I’m just a dirty old four-letter-word reactionary, and Chaucer and Rabelais belonged to the horse-and-buggy era whereas Mailer and Williams are the heralds of the Bright New Realism. It has something to do, I insist, with the fact that Chaucer and Rabelais were artists, while Mailer and Williams are merely sensationalists. With Messrs. C. and R., the words seem not only right but inevitable; with Messrs. M. and W., I have the uneasy feeling that some nasty brats are chalking up the sidewalk.