People cling to quick and easy solutions during tumultuous times. One of the quick and easy solutions people are infatuated with these days in censorship. It is easy to assume that preventing someone from saying nasty things out loud will, in turn, prevent nasty things from happening. But that has never been the case. But, before I delve deeper into this topic, first I will provide you with a brief definition of “free speech” in terms of the law. The Supreme Court of America has decreed that free speech includes the right: not to speak, of students to wear black armbands to protest wars, to contribute money (under certain circumstances) to political campaigns, to advertise commercial products and professional services (with certain restrictions), to use certain offensive words and phrases to convey political messages, and to engage in symbolic speech, such as burning a flag in protest. The right to free speech does not include the right to: make or distribute obscene materials, to burn draft cards in protest, to permit students to publish articles in school newspapers about objections to the school administration, of students to make obscene speech at school sponsored events, of students to advocate illegal drug use at a school sponsored event, and, most importantly, to create a clear and present danger or likely to incite imminent lawless action. So the first amendment does not legalize all speech across the board; that is a common misinterpretation. There are, indeed, certain things that one is not allowed to do when it comes to speech. Since all the other limitations on speech are quite specific to particular circumstances, for the sake of this article, I will mainly be focusing on whether or not saying the word “bitch” creates a clear and present danger or is likely to incite violence. According to linguist Brian Loo Soon Hua, the word made its first appearance in the English language as an insult in the Chester Mystery Plays, a collection of Christian performances, but this is not the word’s origin. Nomads used a word in the Indo-European world known as “bheg”, which meant to smash or to break. “Bheg” eventually evolved into the “Bhang”, meaning cannabis. This happened because people would grind the cannabis into a paste and put it into food and drinks just as we still do to this day. In ancient Germany, the word “bhang” evolved into to word “bikjana”, meaning to attack, hack, thrust, or stab. The Anglo Saxons transformed the word into “bicce” or “bicge” and later into “bitch”. In Old Norse, they also had the word “bikkja”, which used to mean to plunge into water. Now in modern Iceland, the word bikkja means old horse or nag. The same root word ended up in the word to “bicker” in English. The word eventually became “bitch”, but this word did not develop negative connotations about a loose woman until the 14th century. This is during the Christian takeover of modern society and it is also when the term son of a bitch came into use, which was meant to imply a person’s mother had loose morals and therefore it would be impossible to know their lineage. It was not until the 1920s when Ernest Hemmingway wrote about the “bitch goddess” that the term got its modern sting, implying that such a woman was unreasonable, aggressive, obnoxious, and belligerent. So my question to you is this? Should one dead white man be allowed to decide the meaning of a word? How about one religion? Should the Christians be able to shame you with the word? Should you give them that power or should you take that power from them by using the word as you please? Many women I have known have used that word. Should a particular sect of feminists be allowed to dictate whether they use that word or not? Is the word inciting people to violence or is it just free speech implying a political message? I think that should be left up to you, not dead white men who happened to be famous. Until you make your decision, always remember that context is key.