Atala au tombeau, Girodet, 1808 - Musée du Louvre

Of course, people who are as hatchet-faced as the Scottish first minister, whose smile looks as if she had to learn it from a personal trainer, might object that the joke reinforces a certain stereotype. And of course it is completely taboo to ask whether stereotypes may have some foundation in reality. But the joke also has a hinterland, as it were: The unexpected last line conjures up a lifetime of conflict and bickering, of a miserable marriage, and of a long-desired thirst for revenge assuaged at last by the husband’s death. It captures a common human situation. By contrast, Frankie Boyle’s remark is dead, completely without interest. If it offends, it offends against intelligence.

Mr. Meechan explained the difference between Mr. Boyle’s situation and his own by saying:

If Frankie Boyle got arrested people would be fucking furious and the police would not have any public support.

Here the most interesting question is not whether or not this is true, but what the difference is between being furious and being fucking furious. Is there any way to distinguish between the two, and if so, what is the test? Does “€œfucking furious”€ mean “€œvery furious”€? But if you can be very furious, you can presumably be slightly furious, which makes nonsense of the word “€œfurious.”€

In fact, the word “€œfucking”€ as used by Mr. Meechan is not used to convey meaning, for it has none, but rather is used to convey an attitude to society and perhaps to life itself, an attitude that he probably believes to be virtuous and on which he no doubt prides himself. The word “€œfucking”€ is to his language what the ironmongery and other impedimenta are to his face: They are inserted to prove that he is a savage. And as we are all supposed to believe, the savage is a noble being, much superior in every way to the effete, affected, and civilized one.