The Word Cloud

Why can’t I f***ing swear?

Er, well, you can. But take care. A swearword on the page tends to feel more vigorous than it would in real life. So while in your own private life you might swear like a English horsewoman, you probably want to restrain yourself a bit when you come to write.

Personally, I don’t mind a few bloodies, buggers and bastards. But I tend to use the word fuck and its cognates pretty seldom in a novel – certainly fewer than ten times.

If you’re writing hard core thrillers then you’ll need to exceed that limit. But don’t go crazy. For sure, soldiers swear all the time – like, ALL the fucking time – but you need to avoid that in your prose. “Fuck” is the biggest word you can write in English and it loses all force if too often repeated. So use with care.

But what do you reckon? These things are a matter of taste and judgement – so over to you Word Clouders for your comments.

me I prefer cunt, it has more impact.. Russians who decline everything in sight can make up an entire sentence from 'prick'. I used to know it once upon a time but sadly it has slipped from my memory like so much other useful stuff. Being able to swear properly is the really test to whether you are fluent in a language. No let me refine that I think being able to swear properly at a taxi driver is the final frontier... as to books, it's not professional but I still get a childish kick out of writing stuff that I know would make my mother blench.

I run into difficulties when I want to use cunt as an anatomical word, not a swear. All the alternatives are either depressingly medical or hideously twee.

But swearing? I rather agree - even though it rarely shocks me, it's odd how it can stop the flow of the writing in its tracks, in a way it doesn't in real, verbal life. I suppose in the latter we just subtract it from what we're hearing, rather like noise-cancelling headphones.

I used an absolutely ridiculous number of swear words in my first novel, and the general consensus was that it worked rather well. It did, however, very much upset a book group comprised mainly of mature women in Western Australia.

Swearing is bizarrely culturally relative. My granny, who was very posh and came from Yorkshire used to say 'bugger' the whole time. She didn't think it was at all rude. She would have been scandalized by fuck.

my Dad didnt teach me much of any use, but he had two valid points he was in the habit of making about swearing

1. it can unintentionally make you look and sound rather thick

2. once your conditioned to it it loses its power to release any emotional discharge so when you get angry your immunized to using it as a source of tension relief, so you have to resort to sacrficing puppies and what not

I'm a total new boy to trying to write proper and that, like, but I try and make sure when Im writing Im actually in the emotional/psychological state I want to transmit- its a habit from doing hypnotherapy type stuff with people

If I want to talk about violence, I get into a violent state first and then my brain sends all its goo away from my intelligent frontal lobes so I cant find all my nice posh multisyllabic words and I just get stuck with the single celled swear ameobas like : poo, wee, bum etc

ever notice how sweary words are mono syllabic? I think its the linguistic equivalent of punching a wall; sweary words need to be short sharp and punchy and a bit non intelligent, like neanderthal grunts and screeches

do you know if you swear a lot in the internal dialouge inside your head it makes you observably more aggressive? just reading aggressive words like FIGHT, PUNCH, KICK, ANGRY can make you observably more cross- so maclolm gladwell said in his book Blink anyway...

I watched a thing on more4 called "why reading matters" saying that when you read books you actually start to recreate in your mind and experience what the author is talking about. i.e. if you read the words "I accidentally stubbed my big toe against the door frame, it was agony" they can hook up little plastic wires to your head and it shows your brain is actually sending signals to your toe... something to do with a phenomena called "empathic thingamahjiggy"-


I swear in sweary bits of a story and it feels ok at the time, but when I go back into a more calm cerebral state and reread it I think: "good gracious, thats a bit harsh on my eye holes!"

I suppose the problem is it can look gratuitous, idiotic and pretentious (like your trying to toughen up your dialogue)

That reminds me: one of the worst books I ever read switched from a first person narrative of two friends,one a white middle class english kid the other an american black student, the black dialogue was like your most embarassing socially outcasteduncle trying to look cool, I cringed so hard I think something might have broken inside me "and Im like yo, fool, Im down with this shizzle my nizzle, let me pop up on this peice" when the character is a supposed to be an intelligent University student ordering a sandwich or something innoccuous- it hurt my soul to read it, it really did.

Sincerity is key I suppose, dont lie to the reader, they will sniff it

sorry that was a bit drivelly for a first post I know but my point is...

No, I didnt have one.

Bugger.

Publicly I try to take the position of only swearing when it's funny to do so. Verbally, less is more. Being a seemingly mild-mannered chap without a pottymouth, on the odd occasion I do let a good one out, it tends to have more impact amongst those that know me. In writing for an unacquainted readership, it's a different kettle of fish, but the very odd sparing one can work in a similar way.

There's always exceptions, and I did find it amusing to write about an Aussie Copper who guided me round the scene of a horrific accident, trying to be sombre but unable to stop using 'bloody' every other word. 'Yeah, the bloody semi bloody came from the bloody north and bloody hit the bloody van right bloody there.' Relievingly, the accident itself wasn't all that bloody.

Swearwords are just linguistic constructions like any other word; I do find it strange how one little word can have so much effect in the wrong (or right) time and place. I mean, how did the first person to use one convey to the observer what they meant? It's a bit arbitrary. If you wanted to make the point, you could try something like, 'Oh, genital warts, I've just deleted the only existing copy of my manuscript.' If you really want to unsettle folks, maybe something completely unrelated to swearing: 'Ford Cortina! Look at the size of that Deathstar.'

However, when I'm alone and pretty certain that no one can hear me, I tend to have the filthiest language. There's just no restraint.

The ultimate Zenmaster of swearing was an apocryphal British serviceman in WW2 whose car broke down while driving his C.O.. The private examined the engine and declared, 'The fokkin' fokker's fokkin' fokked.'

Om.

There is a lovely bit in Sara Maitland's excellent 'Book of Silence' where she quotes some research claiming that swearing is produced by a different part of the brain than the rest of speech. Language is produced by the prefrontal lobes but swearing (along with groaning, wailing and grunting) is controlled by an older part of the brain called the sub-cortex. This is the part of the brain that is affected in people with Tourette's Syndrome which is why they spontaneously swear and grunt, groan and wail. So there you go, it's not language at all it's something altogether more primeval..

Hahar - I remember that one, Harry. I had a very cool English teacher when I was 14 who demonstrated the rich tapestry of the English language with that one. And Crystal - thanks for the further education. I didn't know that, and it explains everything. In fact, I have a mate who's a Beeb correspondent, and I'll suggest to him that a reporter with Tourette's is completely justifiable. Actually, an anchorman would be even funnier.

Re Richie's post, I had never thought of getting myself into the emotional state I need to write about, which I shall try forthwith. Unfortunately for those around me, the central character of the novel I've just started is load, oafish and has an urge to bite people all the time. Maybe I'll make some new friends though.

Presumably under the BBC's equal opportunities obligations sooner or later they'll have to give a newsreader job to someone with Tourette's? Here's hoping....

I think swearing worked very well in 'Sexy beast'. I always try to avoid it in writing but then I'm unpublished!

A traffic warden stopped me as I returned to my parked car.
He said, 'that's a disabled space. Are you disabled?'
'Course I am,' I said.
'You look alright to me,' the warden said. 'What disability have you got?'
'Fucking Tourette's you cunt.'
I still got a ticket.

There's no justice in this world..

Um, because I write for under 12s...
:)

Leila - I was a bit horrified the other day reading my son's set book in school. We live in Germany and the story contained the German equivalent of "shit" (which is slightly less of a rude word in Germany, funnily enough) and "arsehole"...he's 8!

I'm bilingual English/Swedish. In sweden there are words like shit which are common parlance but which are rude in English. I also have no feeling of impropriety using Swedish swear-words at all. They don't arouse the same negative feelings as the good old Saxon f-word in my brain. Always willing to learn however -whats arsehole in German?

Swearing obviously depends on the characters inhabiting your work. The important thing is to
tell the truth. Some comedian said that the kids in Grange Hill were the only ones in the country
that didn't use the word"fuck", but its a bit different on tea time t.v. If I was writing about a
group of nuns living in a convent I wouldn't expect them to call each other cunts (although they
might think it sometimes!), but to hold back on bad language, for example, in a story about
street culture would just seem unreal to the reader.

ps fred areshole in German is Michael Ballack

re swearing in other languages, up until recently I lived in Spain where it is very common to use the word "conho" meaning "cunt" in a casual day to day sort of way... was a bit shocked when I heard a young lad say it to his mum at the shops, I think he said "But mum,, Im tired, I want to go home, you cunt"

she didnt even flicker an eyelid

here is something for ya that I reckon you wordy cerebral writer types will like, when Im doing long car journeys I prefer spoken word as music starts to do my head in, so I downloaded Steven Pinker's talk "The Stuff of Thought: Language as a Window into Human Nature" from iTunes- a highly recommended bit of kit for people using words to create realities- and its available as a free download (hip hip hurrah)

If your into the whole general semantics thing "the map is not the territory" its really interesting getting a breakdown of how and why we say things like "after dark" when its actually "after light" and "under the sea" when an object is actually "immersed in the sea"

but the best stuff is his break down of swearing, very very funny and informative

"In all languages, taboo words refer to emotionally fraught concepts: the supernatural, disease, bodily secretions, sexual depravity, and social outcasts. " sez Pinker
 
he goes on to say that by swearing you could be psychologically attacking someone with violent intent by forcing them to picture images that they dont want! Which is interesting because it touches on the hypnotic effect of words, in marketing they teach you that if you tell a story about a good freind of yours buying a brand new sports car then the human brain hearing that story in order to make sense of it will picture someone, possibly themselves as buying a brand new sports car, forcing them into a more "likely to buy" state of mind

therefore if you say "go and fuck yourself" you not only offend the mind you force it to tackle an unsolvable physical conundrum- double whammy!

I was thinking, when I go to a publisher Im going to say "someone wants to publish this really cool book, NOW" and then stare at them hypnotically until they get freaked out - do you think this will work? are publishers impervious to jedi mind control?

Pinker also said he wants to bring back this mediaval swear phrase, so in return for his entertaining free download I shall do his dark bidding and spread this meme, next time someone annoys you please invite them to "kiss the cunt of a cow"

Publishers are highly vulnerable to Jedi Mind Control. Suckers for it. It works best if you stare at them hard and then ask them to kiss a cow's intimate parts. They respond well to that.

i can empathise with RichardB - my first book uses the voice of a younger person who swears like a sailor. Many have said bits are gratuitous, but it was a form of rebellion the protagonist picked up as a teenager and a big part of who she is. My entire community back in SA took umbrage! But, even then, i had to edit out more swearing than actually appears in the book!!!!

[code]Original Quote[code] Publishers are highly vulnerable to Jedi Mind Control. Suckers for it. It works best if you stare at them hard and then ask them to kiss a cow's intimate parts. They respond well to that.

hahaha! then there is hope for me yet!

see now "kissing a cows intimate parts" actually sounds to me quite a bit cooler without the swearing, its funnier - sometimes perhaps deliberately not swearing when there is an opportunity is better?

when my manuscript is done, Im going to go Derren Brown on the publishers ass... as we say... in da hood.

Swearing is a part of some accents, I cant do a scouse accent without swearing, its an inbuilt function of the speech pattern.

i can't believe all the people who use swear words in their books!, i'd only use swearing if there was violence or if they are refering to sex or if i was writeing a gangster book which i wouldnt write.

has anyone got a strong argument against this?


chris

Hello Fred

The tourettes thing made me scream with laughter.

Speaking for my self I really don't mind a bit of swearing; in fact often it can be quite amusing or add real meaning to a story. I wouldn't care to see too much of it though. I am afraid I swear rather frequently. In fact my son thinks I have some form of tourettes. I have used some swearing in my memoirs but have been careful I hope not to use too much.

The comparision between a swear word casually dropped into conversation and one leaping out the page is interesting, and one im going to have to keep an eye on as im writing. However, this wont be as difficult as the time i worked as a friendly kids entertainer during the day and a gruff barman in a bar at night. Getting my act right was important, as I will never forget the time I accidentally told a five year girl to piss off...