WHY DO WOMEN SWEAR SO FUCKING MUCH? AND ANOTHER THING.

Is it that they've got more to swear about than men? Or what? I know very few truly foul-mouthed men. But I know plenty of potty-mouthed women. I've asked around about this. I've brought it up on Twitter even. And I have yet to find anyone who disagrees with my observation.

Don't get me wrong. I've got nothing against swearing. I think "fuck" is one of the more useful, versatile and expressive words in English. And it doesn't bother me any more when women employ it than when men do. Swearing's swearing, no matter whose mouth, or how luscious the lips it's coming out of. And it's okay with me.

But hmmmm, fucking hmmmm?

Eva, who I live with, could easily chase away the cursing-est sailor I ever met. People who she thinks of as "straight" or conservative - even ones she really likes - especially bring it out in her.

Employees of my ex-wife used to come to me sometimes in tears, wondering if she really did mean all those awful things she was saying.

I don't know any men who swear nearly as much as many of the women I know.

Why the hell is this?

Now this might just get me in trouble, but I've noticed it more among women who discovered feminism in the 1970s and early '80s than I have in other women. Could it be that those women see it as a way of expressing their independence, their liberation from something, an oral equivalent of getting rid of another form of restraint by burning their bras? Is it a way of throwing down the gauntlet to the oppressive patriarchy that reserved "colorful language" for itself for so many years?

I'll be damned if I know. I'm just sayin'...

HERE'S THE OTHER THING

Steve Forbes, who I more often than not disagree with, had some very interesting things to say in an op-ed in this morning's Wall St. Journal.

Some of it is fairly complex stuff. "Naked short selling" anybody? But for the most part he lays out, in language that isn't all that hard to follow, three of the ways in which the Obama Administration is continuing some of the stupidest financial policies of the Bush Administration and why they shouldn't be doing that.

Fixing these three things isn't likely to be a miracle cure for what's ailing us. But it would help. And it wouldn't be all that hard to do.

So Steve, we're in agreement for a change. (I also sort of,kind of liked his flat tax plan when he ran for President; although I think it needed a lot of tweaking to avoid screwing poor people.)