The agenda of this essay, set by the writer, Anna Quindlen, is to raise the question of what cursing really means anymore. Is it still highly offensive as the original definitions of these expletives would imply? Or have the use of these words simply become an almost "acceptable" facet of our everyday language? Important assumptions used in this essay all revolve around the main assumption that the readers have a common understanding of cursing in American culture. The author also assumes that teenagers are the catalysts for the altercations of meaning in curse words----"Slang, particularly teenage slang, has a rich history of taking words and morphing them into something they never were before, stripping them of previous meaning," Quindlen states. None of the author's assertions are dogmatic. Although, the author is skeptical on whether or not what we are doing as a society is swearing. According to her analysis of the story of the subway boys, they were not trying to offend or use the word in context of its original sexual reference. They, quite possibly, were just lacking in depth of vocabulary. .
2) The title of this column immediately gives an idea for what agenda is to be set. "In Defense of *$##@&$%#" invokes a connotation to cursing for anyone familiar with the use of symbols in replacing expletives. But throughout the column a blend of cognitive and expressive language is used to set the agenda. After her brief recap of the boys conversation, Quindlen writes, "And in the recounting, all of this was peppered with a single word, the word that during the teenage years of the woman sitting opposite, and in my teenage years, too, was considered the ultimate swear word each time one of one of them would use the word, I thought I saw a scarcely visible frisson in the shoulders of one of the women, as though someone had hit her with a low-voltage cattle prod." This expressive language helps set that this word being used so often and insensibly used to be, and is still by many, considered a word to never be spoken.
