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Hello! And welcome back to Bad English with Kate. Today were going to talk about how to
use the word "***" as a modifier. Today I was thinking of Christian Bale's freak-out
on the set of the Terminator movie, and I realized when I replayed this in my head (What
don't you *** understand) that the placement of the word "***," used here as an adverb,
is really important. "What don't you *** understand?" Why does Mr. Bale use "***"
here, right before the verb "understand"? We can see this pattern in normal, "clean"
language, too when we use gerunds as modifiers. Every time I'm on a plane, there is a screaming
infant behind me. In this case, "screaming" modifies infant, effectively turning a verb
into an adjective. If we reverse the structure, putting "screaming" after infant, it's a verb.
Weird, huh? But that's how it works. So we can also say (and in this case, will have
pretty much the same meaning if we say): Every time I'm on a plane, there is an infant screaming
behind me. There are some subtle differences here, and if any of you are curious about
that, maybe I will go into it in the comments. But let's get to the more blatant example
of "***" as a modifier because here the difference is much more pronounced. Remember,
when we use a gerund before a verb, it becomes an adverb instead of a verb. Check out these
two sentences: That old lady *** takes forever to answer the door. That old lady
takes forever *** to answer the door. Can you see the difference in meaning here?
In the first example, the old lady takes forever to answer the door, and "***" is only
a way to express frustration at having to wait so long. In the second example, you are
waiting for the old lady to finish *** before she answers the door. She is busy engaging
in *** intercourse, which is why we have to wait so long. Placement is everything when
we use gerunds as modifiers! We can also use "***" to modify a noun
(as screaming does in the example on the airplane I used before). Using the same example, we
can say, "That old lady takes forever to answer the *** door." In this case, "***"
is an adjective modifying "door". In the end, we are saying pretty much the same thing unless
we use "***" as a verb. The only way to be sure not to do that is to make sure to
put it before a noun in adjectival usage, or to put it before a verb (not after) for
adverbial usage. If you want to get really fancy, you can break up longer words with
"***," too. So we could say, "That old lady takes for-***-ever to answer the
door." You're unbelievable, man. Un-***'-believable. Some examples of this phenomonon are ri-***-diculous,
fan-***-tastic, and whooptie-***-do. In fact, it can also be pretty fun to break
up adjective noun pairs this way, too. In the worn out example of the old lady answering
the door we've been talking about for too *** long already, we can also refer to
her as an "old *** lady" or a "*** old lady.," using "***" as an adjective
again. The important thing here is not to use "***" as a modifier after the noun,
be it subject or object. Use "***" to modify nouns, adjectives, prepositions, and
even other verbs, just be careful not to place it after the verb you mean to use, or you
may change the meaning accidentally. But what about negative structures? And what about
interrogative structures? If we go all the way back to the example of Christian Bale,
we can see both: What don't you *** understand? In this example, there is only one place the
"***" can go, and that's right before the verb "understand"? Is there anything you
don't *** understand about that? One reason is that we don't use "***"
to modify personal pronouns (I, you, he, or they, for example) We don't use "***"
to modify possessive pronouns, either (my, your,our, or his, for example ). We also don't
use "***" to modify relative pronouns, either (whose, which, when for example). We
will use "***" to modify the objects these pronouns refer to, but not the pronouns themselves.
So in the question, "What don't you *** understand?", "*** what" and "***
you" are both out. Where else could we place a modifier in this question? We can't out
it after the verb (as I told you before). We also can't place this modifier before an
auxiliary verb in a question. This is just a general English rule (as many of these other
examples also are). So we just have one option if we want to put "***" into the question,
"What don't you understand?" In this case, "***" or even "mother-***" has to
go between the auxiliary verb and the main verb, but after the subject of personal pronoun.
And when we have a question in English, we will always have an auxiliary verb, be it
negative or positive. Will John ever get here? Do they really want to come? Will it always
be there? There are cases where the adverb will go after the main verb in a statement
or question, but when we use "***" this will never be the case. If we put this sentence
in the declarative, we can see that to place "***" after the verb would be a mistake.
"I don't *** understand" is much different than "I don't understand ***." The first
one means that you do not understand something. The second means you can not comprehend the
action of *** intercourse . In the interrogative, this is simply absurd and has no concrete
difference in meaning. Saying "What don't you understand ***?" just makes no sense.
Bad words should accentuate your meaning, not obscure it, so this is just bad usage
of a bad word. Well, that's been another episode of Bad English with Kate! I *** hope that
I have *** clarified the *** usage of the word *** as a *** modifier,
but if you have any *** questions, you can *** ask me in the *** comments.
Have a good *** day!