No defence against the indefensible. The space between words and things is once again total. No defence against the indefensible. The space between words and things is once again fatal. All naming is already murder: serviced muck on the killing floor. Soft-violence as pragmatic necessity: bullbaiting with the starved dogs of rhetoric. An arena sport like no other. Bring on the organ-grinders, carnival barkers, snake-oil paddlers, pork-barreling mouthpieces. Parceling out concerted blows of categorical reification. Deep bites with self-confirming payloads. Live seed for excessive entitlement and a snare for every congenital impulse. Absent a shot, we are condemned to be at war with words.

The function of [bad word] to grief when words lose their connections with things – in short, when language represents itself.
Mark Poster, The Mode Of Information