Mixed and unmatched

As I attempted to say last week (before being censored into incomprehensibility by a sub-editor), there's no better way of teaching the principles of English than by using the simple curse word, f**k. It's a uniquely versatile expression, covering many grammatical categories, beginning with the basic transitive verb, be it active (John f**ked Mary), or passive (Mary was f**ked by John). In its classic usage, it's an abstract noun (he really gives a f**k), but it also functions as an adverbial intensifier (she is f**king interested in him) and is equally useful as an interjection (f**k, I'm late for class).

It can be used as an imperative (f**k off, now!), and also as a conjunction (she is so easy, f**k she's loose), and thus I demonstrate to my pupils how elementary filth can teach them all they need to know about syntax. And should they ever commit some minor linguistic error in front of a lexicographical pedant, who then hurls at them the accusatory phrase, "Don't you know the Queen's English?" they can always reply with the ultimate retort, "Of course I do, she lives in f**king Windsor."

The f-word was uttered relentlessly throughout last night's Wife Swap (C4), although, sadly, the standard of grammar left much to be desired. The principal curser was Mary, the indolent and overweight teenage daughter of the equally corpulent Dee and Dave Jackson, and the entire white family had agreed to help C4 to answer the question: "What is it like to try out a different spouse for a fortnight?"

Dee was changing places with Sonia, the svelte black partner of the equally slim and black Lance, as part of executive producer Stephen Lambert's latest "reality documentary". A term which the man has been using for the past decade to justify mock sociological experiments that are usually little more than thinly-veiled outpourings of derision and contempt, aimed at that section of the working class which is thick enough to agree to sign his clearance forms.

But for once, Lambert's scorn was justified, because (with the exception of Sonia) I haven't seen a more revolting ensemble of Little Englanders (black and white) on British television since Paul Watson's The Dinner Party.

Take Lance, an Ali G clone whose reactionary Victorian views on obedience and self-discipline didn't extend to his own chronic ganja habit, who expressed contempt for white "Alf Garnett types" yet objected in principle to mixed marriages, and who talked about "my lady" when he obviously meant "my servant".

Or Dave, who also disapproved of racial mixing, and (like most very fat people) spent much of his time pulling down his inadequate-sized jumper, only for it to roll up again like French blinds. But the piece de resistance was Dee, a woman so homely that, when she was born, I suspect her mother saw the afterbirth and shouted: "It's twins!" But what was truly ugly about her was her mind: "If he's black, I'll have a real problem ... I've nothing against coloureds, but I don't believe in black and white together." So, be off with you, Messrs McCartney and Wonder, and your muddle-headed Ebony and Ivory thesis.

As the fortnight progressed, Dave was clearly seduced by Sonia's intelligence and attractiveness, but any chances of a surprise interracial mingling were scuppered by the foul-mouthed Mary, whose appalling behaviour made the Osbourne children look like the von Trapps. "I won't apologise to that black bitch," she screamed, after refusing to tidy up her room, and Sonia's analysis of the problem was spot on, when she told Dave bluntly: "Your children have no respect for you."