Don’t Play with the Dirty Words

His song attacked the narrow-minded bourgeois stiffness of post-war Germany — a mindset that, strangely enough, seems to be making a comeback today.
Maybe not in Germany itself, but in other corners of the world where people suddenly find comfort again in apron strings, moral order, and the good old back-to-the-kitchen philosophy.

Ah, so that’s what they mean by the “cycle of life”?
Oh no. Not quite.

Now let’s look at a rather mysterious fragment: “L’Ation.”
It doesn’t exist on its own — it sneaks into words like congratulation, isolation, regulation, and circulation.
What happens if you put those words in relation to each other?
They’d probably argue — the math of ventilation never works out peacefully.

So, let’s follow the airflow of -lation.
Like so many linguistic oddities, this one was born in Latin.
Later, the French adopted and polished it, adding a little flair and perfume.
But the French of the Middle Ages mostly spoke Vulgar Latin — naturally.
How else could a word like regulation ever have seen the light of day?

When medieval language scholars began to toy with syllables the way knights toyed with swords, one of them — let’s call him Monsieur Circulation — decided that -lation would make any concept sound distinguished, even noble.
Critics warned it might lead to an inflation of fancy French words in German.
But the thinkers won, and with them came the great stimulation of linguistic mixing.

Or, as the French might say,
“C’est l’Ation que fait le mystique.”

Languages are treasure chests, each with its own melody.
Argue in Italian, and you’ll still sound charming.
Argue in German, and you’ll sound either logical or stubborn.
Swear in English, and you’re a hooligan — or a comedian.
Speak French, and you’re instantly royal.
Confess your love in Russian, and you’ll need subtitles to prove it’s not a declaration of war.
And if you rant in Chinese, people might assume you’re rehearsing for an avant-garde play.

Yes, languages are music — and they carry emotion like rhythm carries jazz.

Another treasure hidden inside them is the vocabulary itself.
It still amazes me how, in German, only 26 letters can create entire universes of thought — and somehow stay exciting.
I remember leafing through old Meyers Encyclopedias:
Volume 1 covered A–C, Volume 2 D–E, and so on.
Each page revealed how words were born and how they evolved.
Latin and Old-Greek have fathered most of them.
And although those ancient tongues are clinically dead, their ghosts still speak fluently.
Try writing a book on medicine or botany without Latin — impossible.

Anyone who builds a strong vocabulary owns a kind of armor — useful in debates, in court, or when trying to charm a lover.
If you know the laws of rhetoric and dare to bend them, you can win an audience or melt a heart.

Writers, too, fish in the great Sea of Words.
The good ones don’t settle for the same old tired phrases; they dive deeper, pulling up pearls no one’s seen before.
Those who can project whole landscapes into the reader’s mind often end up on bestseller lists — and rightfully so.

The sea of words is deeper than most people think.
Fishing in it is full of surprise, colour, and wonder.
And maybe — just maybe — if you dare to play with the dirty words,
you’ll discover that language itself
is the purest form of freedom.