Homer used certain epithets so regularly that they became a standard part of the name of the thing or person described, as in "rosy-fingered Dawn" and "gray-eyed Athena".
Why have words taken on a such a power that that certain epithets and expletives cannot even be used contextually, say in a work of fiction like Joseph Conrad's The Nigger of the Narcissus without causing the situation that Ray Bradbury envisioned in Fahrenheit 451.
And a little girl addressed him using a certain racial epithet.
MIKE HALE: This should only intensify the debate about the repeated use of a certain racial epithet in the film.
A self-described disciplinarian, Hawkins gave his players a word of the day to memorize and forbade a certain racial epithet.
This week Common ruffled different conservative feathers when Maya Angelou, who appears on his new album, "The Dreamer/The Believer" (Warner Brothers), expressed dissatisfaction that the song she contributed to also features Common's use of a certain racial epithet.
NOW THAT A CERTAIN barnyard epithet has lost its force through overuse, cussers and vigorous vituperators everywhere are searching the language for ringing terms to express irritation, pique, nettlement or disgust.
LOS ANGELES, Aug. 26 — In March, the season premiere of "South Park" began by barging into typically risqué territory, with a squirm-inducing bit about the taboo of using a certain racial epithet.
The commentary includes clips of talk show appearances with Johnny Carson and Dinah Shore in which Pryor muses on a certain racial epithet; a segment on a cocaine-related fire in 1980 that nearly killed him; and another in which he discusses the multiple sclerosis he endured before his death from a heart attack in 2005.
Scenes of Pryor as a young, physically commanding Bill Cosby imitator in the early 1960s are revelatory; so are clips of talk-show appearances with Johnny Carson and Dinah Shore in which he calmly discusses his use of a certain racial epithet in a way that would be unthinkable on television today.
