It seems that nowadays, the only spectrum reflected by colourful language is shades of unpalatable brown that does nothing for the imagination. More particularly so when it is dependent on diet, which, in the average person, has also been limited to what is most speedily served, hence a range of colour narrowed down to the F* spectrum. It’s really absolutely distasteful.

I suspect that colourful language began losing its colour when the vast majority of humans were processed and distilled through the system called public schooling and spit out into the waiting maws of the system called industrialization where assembly line production and conveyor belts proliferated.

I quite wish more people would adopt the more colourful vocabulary of Captain Haddock whose expletives ranged from the scurrilous pearly greys, browns, greens, and pinks of ‘Blistering barnacles’ to the bright yellow and light greens of ‘Suffering Succotash!” I always enjoyed it when my friend exclaimed “Well, slap my hand and call me Suzy,” which I would, of course, and I responded with “Heavens to Bitsy if it isn’t Suzy!”

Why must every exclamation, whether of surprise, annoyance, anger, pleasure, or even joy, be reduced to a singular physical act that sometimes involves unpleasant excrement? Whatever happened to being tickled pink, green with envy, red with anger, blue with sorrow, yellow with jealousy? All the brown language really puts me in a black mood.

Let me challenge you to garnish your language with more splashy colours than shades of sepia. I would completely enjoy an experience that painted me purple with pleasure. It’s good for your vocabulary and stimulates the imagination. Even if you have to eat crow while you’re at it, at least a bird on a spit is tastier than FTS!