Douglas Adams, when explaining how swear words are becoming more and more common (with the exception of the “B”-word), said this:

In today’s modern galaxy, there is of course very little still held to be unspeakable. Many words and expressions which only a matter of decades ago were consider so distastefully explicit that were they merely to be breathed in public, the perpetrator would be shunned, barred from polite society, and in extreme cases, shot through the lungs, are now thought to be very healthy and proper, and their use in everyday speech is seen as evidence of a well-adjusted, relaxed and totally un****ed up personality.

So, for instance, when in a recent national speech, the financial minister of the royal world estate of Qualvista actually dared to say that due to one thing and another and the fact that no one had made any food for while and the king seemed to have died and most of the population had been on holiday now for over three years, the economy had now arrived at what he called “one whole jujuflop situation,” everyone was so pleased he felt able to come out and say it that they quite failed to notice that their five thousand year old civilization had just collapsed overnight.

Of course, it’s not fair to describe politics in Taiwan as ‘jujuflop’, but it’s certainly not what you’d call ‘normal’ either. The local politicians are also not averse to using the local equivalents to ‘jujuflop’ (the recent favourite being ‘LanPa/LP’ to describe someones, ah, courage) in everyday conversation (in between throwing biendangs at each other).

But mostly I just like the word.