Hillel(@hillelogram):Okay Twitter, help me out with a weird question. If you say "that's a BIG FUCKING CAR", you're putting the stress on the second syllable of "fucking". It's equivalent to saying "that's a big fuckING car". Which is clearly "that's a really large car." Now, if you put the emphasis on the first syllable, you get "that's a big FUCKing car", which is clearly "that's a large car people have sex in." In other words, the emphasis changes what the adjective semantically means. Anyway, the question: is there another PG-rated adjective I can use instead to talk about this?

Hillel

@hillelogram

Developer educator at @AntithesisHQ. Formal methods, software history, chocolatiering. Newsletter: Book:

参加 October 2011

1 フォロー中 19.1K ファン

Hillel@hillelogram

2026.09.28 02:57

Okay Twitter, help me out with a weird question. If you say "that's a BIG FUCKING CAR", you're putting the stress on the second syllable of "fucking". It's equivalent to saying "that's a big fuckING car". Which is clearly "that's a really large car." Now, if you put the emphasis on the first syllable, you get "that's a big FUCKing car", which is clearly "that's a large car people have sex in." In other words, the emphasis changes what the adjective semantically means. Anyway, the question: is there another PG-rated adjective I can use instead to talk about this?