mental word banks

Once in a while, I like to run over my vocabulary bank in a spring cleaning fashion, asking: What words can I do without? What words don't make sense to further own? What words need unpacking and renewal? What new words need to make its way home?

Swearing is a favorite past time of mine though depending on what level of comfort we are in our friendship, the liberal practice of it might be ever-changing. I've had a couple of favorite swear words over the years, and in ranking order of okay to most favorite, it is as follows: "motherfucker," "jackass," "dumbass," "fucker," "goddammit," "assface," "dickwad" and on and on... I've heard of people who go through the etymology of "fuck" (something about early references to "plowing" and theories that the phallic nature of the act has slowly transformed its meaning to its current cultural understanding). "Motherfucker"--obvious; Oedipal. "Jackass" and "dumbass"--basically disparaging names for "beasts of burden" who have been gradually domesticated throughout time to alleviate the weight of human labor... you know in addition to the subjugation of other humans... can we draw that comparison? Is that fair? "Goddamit"--The stories I tell about my awkward/shameful/demeaning personal history with the Christian faith certainly complicates this term's usage. I honestly never believe I'm damning God, but rather, "God (comma) damn IT" as if God and I were getting wasted together on a 7-11 rooftop or something, chucking beer cans at undesirable strangers. "Assface" in short suggests "Your face is the equivalent of an anal leakage of buffoonery". But the term doesn't quite capture the eloquent but elongated phrase. "Dickwad" reminds me of a feminist male friend who regularly refers to other men as "dicks" or my personal favorite, "bag of dicks" (for a plural population). I asked him once if it made him feel weird about his own penis and he looked at me like, "What?" Anyway, "dickwad" reminds me of a bunch of dicks wrapped up in a rubber band (like "wad of cash" except "wad of dicks"), some strange currency... is it some subconscious way of calling someone an asshole AND a capitalist, or is the latter too much of a stretch?

Anyway, I'm retiring a couple of these because I'm vowing to dispose of words which I can't properly defend in an imagined vocabulary court of law.

Additionally, I've learned several new words for "hole". Aperture. Abyss. Crevice. Gap. Cavity. Lacuna.