@edgarblythe,
This is an apparent tangent to the thread, which I take seriously. LA is my town and I've known a lot of pros and cons re the police, but this one was scary plus.
I should say cons and pros, but that whole subject is complicated.
Re riots, after the woman I consulted for and I left her studio early afternoon, the place next to hers was torched. I am not interested in riot lectures, who all those nasty people are. They are us in many ways.
But, re the word '****':
In my area in the later sixties (things catapulted around '65) people broke social chains left and right all over the place re a lot of no nos. I wasn't kidding about the lab - that's where I first heard it spoken freely, enjoyably. I use it now more sparely, but I hardly ever mind it, and once I got what it meant, never got why it was so bad, thus becoming a kind of universal insult fitting in with other universal insults. I use it a tad neurotically, in front of people it tends to offend, like one cousin. So, I still have some growing up to do. I'd better hurry up. I like dlowan with her ebulliant ffffffffs. God I love dlowan.
This from your poster, who at eighteen asked a friend what it meant, and the friend, also a young woman, wouldn't tell me. I learned more from books, books not anywhere in my sight when I was a teen, and then I still didn't know much. Until I met a great guy.