Hey, younger people, are you really all okay with f*cking as a synonym for really? Seriously. Do we need a new dictionary?

I caught a great post on Medium the other day: Jon Westenberg’s Why Copying the Habits of Successful People Won’t Make You Successful.

Toward the end, he comes up with a brilliant highlight point (the illustration here):

In reality, there’s only one habit that you can emulate that will get your somewhere. Just one. Work f*cking hard.

Great point, and well written. Is his wording better than “work hard” or “work really hard?” Not to me. Do you like it better?

Yesterday I found the Facebook page for “I fucking love science.” Seriously. That’s the page name. Can’t you just love science? On the other hand, 23 million likes for that page. Sigh.

I guess it’s my problem. The old meaning sticks to the sides of my head when people use it this new way. But it’s ugly. Not different at all to how I’m stuck with knowing the original meaning and derivation of the verb “sucks,” which came from—ugh.

And, for that matter, the original meaning of the word sh*t, which conjures up the wrong thing, for me, when people go with the trendy “get sh*t done” or last decade’s “get your sh*t together.”

But this is humans and the way we work. Words change meaning. Isn’t that groovy?