Sweet: Use of the F-word is up, poll shows — but you knew that

WASHINGTON — I often use the F-word.

Never on TV.

Just muttered when I’m around people.

I love how those consonants work together — the forceful F, the kickass K. The combination is comforting. I find it absolutely therapeutic to use that word.

I remember the very first time I said it. I was a clueless little kid, riding my Schwinn bike with the thick tires on the 5000 block of North Bernard Street, just about to go over the footbridge crossing the North Branch of the Chicago River.

I was bike riding with Freddy Orelove, my pal. I lived on the second floor of a two-flat at 5300 N. Christiana Ave. He was around the corner in a two-flat on Kimball Avenue. We always hung out together.

I called out “F-U” to Freddy. Though we were the same age, Freddy must have known more than I did. His astonished looked stayed with me. I thought I was saying something like: “Aren’t we having a good time.” Clearly, I was wrong. Freddy never explained.

Later, I would learn the true meaning of the F-word. And while it wasn’t what I thought I was saying to Freddy, the word had worked out just dandy.

Usually, I wouldn’t be so open about this. But WTF, the nation is changing, according to a poll released Friday.

In June 2004, when then-Vice President Dick Cheney told Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., to “F- yourself,” it was big news.

In March 2010, an open microphone picked up Vice President Joe Biden telling President Barack Obama at the signing of his landmark Affordable Care Act, “This is a big F-ing deal.” That, too, was news.

I sensed there was more tolerance for the F-word when the headline on the front page of the April 7 New York Daily News, aimed at Republican presidential hopeful Ted Cruz after a Bronx visit, blared, “TAKE THE F U TRAIN, TED!”

Now, there’s data to show that indeed, the use of the F-word is up. That’s according to a new poll about rudeness in this 2016 political season by the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. NORC, at the University of Chicago, has been doing independent research since its founding in 1941.

The AP-NORC poll of 1,004 adults was conducted March 17-21 and claims a margin of error of plus or minus 3.8 percentage points. Interviews were conducted online and through calls to cell phones and landlines.

Among the survey’s findings is that this year’s Republican presidential campaign is seen as “rude and disrespectful” by 78 percent of those polled — with Democrats and Republicans finding something here on which they can agree. And, no, Donald Trump was not mentioned in the poll.

Only 41 percent had the same view about the Democratic campaign — and, on this, there was more of a split along partisan lines.

The survey asked about what behaviors are unacceptable. When asked about “using the F-word in conversation,” 25 percent said it was acceptable.

And we aren’t talking just OK.

“A quarter of the public admits to daily use,” the survey concluded, up from 15 percent in an AP/Ipsos poll conducted 10 years ago.

More men than women admit to using the word. Forty percent of those between the ages of 18 and 29 said it is acceptable to use the F-word in conversation, compared to just 9 percent of folks 60 years and older.

My childhood friend Freddy is now Fred P. Orelove, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus, Special Education & Disability Policy, at Virginia Commonwealth University.

When I called Freddy on Friday afternoon, he told me he had no recollection of that F.U. bike ride that has stayed with me all these years. But he said he wouldn’t dispute my account.