Dog, The Pryor Hunter

“Dog, the Bounty Hunter” is off A&E, at least for a long time. He said a rather bad set of words about a black woman his son is dating. Called her an effing “n,” and left that message on the kid’s voicemail. Kid, ticked off, sold it to the National Enquirer.

Anybody using that kind of language should be dropped from tv appearances. I don’t think a private phone call really counts, but since it became public and Dog’s attitude was so clear, that makes a big difference.

Of course, if he were Richard Pryor, that would be on his Greatest Hits album, and Comedy Central would have him doing it on his next special. If not Pryor, then any number of black comedians I’ve heard in the recent past.

(bleep) (bleep) and (bleep). Speaking of comedians on tv . . . One of the crew on my radio show was talking about the “F” word. I mentioned that it’s defined as “a meaningless intensive.” That is, the word generally means nothing in itself (as we generally use it), but merely intensifies the word next to it. As in “hot,” “crazy,” “angry,” etc. He said that his father told him it’s a word you use when you’re not intelligent enough to think of something better.

Our language has 450,000 words, more or less; probably more. There are so many ways of putting them together so we can get a laugh, express anger, tell a story, entertain people. We certainly can do better than go for the cheap.