Mediaite leads the way…
Watch this Effing Clip of a Cruise Boat Crashing into a Pier in San Diego
Really, Mediaite? Effing? EFFING? When did you start hiring 13-year-old detention students to write your headlines? Is “fucking” now an acceptable adjective at Mediaite? You do know that “Effing” is just code for “fucking,” right? What ineffable quality is it that you think “effing” adds to the story or the headline? Humor? What an insult to your readers. “Attitude,” or “‘tude”? I don’t read your website for attitude, I read it for news and commentary on public affairs and how they are covered, unless the post is by left-wing hack Tommie Christopher, in which case I’m reading to find out just how much naked, dishonest partisan bias and Hillary boot-licking you’ll tolerate before being responsible and firing the clown, because he really is an embarrassment.
He’s not as much of an embarrassment, however, as having “effing” in a headline. Gratuitous vulgarity to appeal to—what, Trump supporters? 21st Century Holden Caulfields? Morons? Who? Certainly not anyone literate or who appreciates professional journalism standards or societal civility.
Ethics Alarms 
What ineffable quality is it that you think “effing” adds to the story or the headline? Humor?
Just a bit. But only because it’s ineffingable humor.
Thank you. I was proud of that.
I share your disgust for the coarsening of our language, although “effing” bothers me only slightly more than “freaking” which is apparently ubiquitous these days among those under forty, gauged by the conversations I overhear in restaurants and other public spaces. A teacher of mine used to say, ” If you think you have to use profanity to sound interesting, then you are not very interesting.” I feel the same way about the “coded profanity” that colors the everyday speech of so many for no apparent good reason.
Don’t you think “freaking” is more of a euphemism than code? It actually means something, after all: “freak” meaning “strange”? Effing is just spelling the vulgarity out.
If people consistently used “freaking” contextually to mean “strange,” I would agree, but from context and emphasis I think most who use “freaking” might just as well use “effing,” and likely soon will.
As for spelling the vulgarity, “freaking,” after all, starts with “f” and ends with “k-i-n-g.” I mainly hear it used by the same crowd that says “like” with every other breath.
There’s more ignorance than just “effing”, here. I watched the video and this clearly a ship, NOT a boat. I guess any poorly educated 13-year-old can become a reporter, now.
The pun is much appreciated. I definitely concur with JimHodgson’s teacher; swearing is occasionally clever, but often is just emotional noise.
It seems, though, that whoever wrote this headline didn’t actually understand the natural way dull-witted people insert swear words into otherwise regular speech. It reminds me, the hell, of Spock trying to swear in order to blend into the 1980s U.S. in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home.
The word “clip” is completely mundane and unsurprising, so it’s bizarre that the vulgar intensifier is positioned to modify that word as opposed to the more salient ones. “Oh, the thing we’re supposed to watch, offered to us by a “news” site, is a clip? How shocking!” Seriously, though, a real potty-mouth would have put the word “effing” in front of “cruise boat” or “pier”, because we expect that of the things that crash into piers, most of them are not cruise boats (…okay, ships), and of the things that cruise ships crash into, most of them are not piers. The intensifier could possibly go in front of “crashing,” but that’s a bit of a stretch. Definitely not in front of San Diego, because that would imply that cruise ships crashing into piers is rather commonplace, but unheard of in San Diego specifically.
…What? I study dumb people. Knowing what they do and why better than they do is necessary to change the world.
Good point. The modifier is pointlessly misplaced, indicative of bizarre ineptitude. And thanks for the discussion of “freaking” above. I’m not sure what to make of “freaking.”
Not only crude, but an example of the demise of precise, meaningful, language. Anyone old enough to remember “far out?” It could (and did) mean anything — good, bad, exciting, horrific — depending upon the inflection used when it was spoken. In other words, it meant absolutely nothing. It still means absolutely nothing. I put “freaking” in almost the same category. English is a rich, wonderful language, and for both individuals and professional writers to resort to ugly, amorphous, vague descriptors is both moronic and depressing.
I’m in almost complete agreement with you. When I read the headline, my first thought was “What is the headline writer thinking?” Then I thought “Wait. WAS he/she thinking?”. The obvious answer was “No, not likely”.
My first thought was: the dateline is April First. Don’t believe anything you read or hear on April First. … But sadly, there was no punchline to the crunched liner.