Gopal.V's Journal: Whiskey Tango Fox - I mean, seriously !!

Unless you are a Nato radio operator or someone who reads slashdot a lot, you won't realize what Whiskey, Tango and Fox have in common. But it is an acronym gone bad - WTF.

Now that WTF is common parlance, everyone uses them - though they'd still write $#!@%& for some other profanity. This is the bad thing about Euphemisms.

In this politically correct world , euphemisms take up around half of my entire vocabulary. Anybody who has seen an Austin Powers movie must have heard the term Shag or those who watched Friends (ever so carefully) must have heard Tush at least once.

Euphemisms don't really make offensive words less offensive - they also try to make fun of the other guy's ignorance in another way (In-duh-vidual ?). They remind me of these old people talking stuff spelled out - let's give the B-A-B-Y a bath (ha, back to our acrony expansion thingy). Anyway, they're not better or worse than the original words.

Whatever !

PS: I was seeing Friends (re-re-re run) last night and there was Chandler getting a new bracelet from Joey.
Joey: "You just watch what this does to your sex life"
Chandler: "It'll slow me down for the first couple of days, then I'll get used to the extra weight"

Wikipedia is right

[smittyoneeach]

In the US Navy, a lot of people will say in conversation "Whiskey tango foxtrot, over?" as if on a half-duplex radio circuit.
Not the first intrusion of military initializations into speech: SNAFU is another common example of the vulgar variety.
HAZMAT is also seen on roadways, for hazardous materials.