Are we really the offended by swearing?

[Tower75]

Hi, all.

Firstly, happy New Year. May this be the year of many bookies and writings.

Here's something to ponder, well, maybe it's not: it could be a known thing. So, here goes:

Why are 'we' (people in general) offended by swearing in literature so much?

Many a time have I read a historical novel, or a scifi novel where the author feels it's completely normal to have people murdered, or shot in the face with a musket ball, or incinerated in some industrial accident, or, and this one annoys me, include scene of rape, but God forbid someone says 'f*ck.'

I personally feel a character is more real if they do swear, that may be a childish view, but it's how I see it.

It's the same for all media it seems. Films, Video Games, etc.: Boobs? Fine. Behead a zombie and get covered in gore? Fine. 'Can I say f*ck?', 'We'll, yes, but if you do, Sexy Naked Zombie Killing Lesbian Girls IV will have to be marked up from a 12 to an 18.'

I'm not saying every word should be a swear word, or indeed have every character use cursing in lieu of actual conversation, but why is it 'acceptable' for mega-violence and general nasty stuff to be classed as okay, but people get all odd over 'bad words?'

So, what gives? Any views?

 

[Montero]

Not sure.
Maybe because swearing is reality and the rest is fantasy?


People are far more likely to swear than they are to commit mega-violence, so it could be seen as encouraging them, or making them uneasy because it is something they might do themselves but think they shouldn't, while the mega violence is so far removed from their every day lives they don't have the same emotional connection?

There is also another anachronism - that sex described in detail is more taboo than violence described in detail.

 

[Boneman]

Someone, somewhere, will be offended by the most innocuous terminology... Personally, I've never been offended by swear-words in a book. Sometimes I think 'You're doing this to show us what a bad guy he is, when his actions would do it better' but people swear in real life and I find the use of the 'F' word irritating when it's obviously used as a lazy substitute for a better adverb/adjective. All too often people use them to 'shock' and I just think that 'w' word that rhymes with 'anchor'. In books well-placed anger erupts into swearing, and it's entirely in keeping. The grunts/lowest/meanest soldiers/thieves/beggars can have it as everyday usage, and it's in keeping. The skill is placing swearwords in the right context, so it adds to the character, rather than a weak substitute for character description/growth/arc.

Someone once said "Why does Billy Connolly have to swear so much?" and the answer was: "he doesn't have to, he chooses to." The f word can be deflated to an almost ordinary word in comedy, and I think the same is true in writing. If it fits the character or the action, you can accept it as part of the story. If it stands out as a clumsy attempt to show 'badness' it should be skimmed, and (for me) stop reading, if it irritates you that much. But one man's meat, and all that.

As I started out saying, the most innocuous turn of phrase can offend someone, somewhere...

 

[Ivanya]

I personally am not bothered by swearing. I think in some circumstances profanity is expected, and an absence of it would seem unrealistic. We all know people in real life who're prone to peppering their chatter with it, and if we're trying to show real variety in our characters and their moods, swearing is more likely to be conspicuous by its absence in this day and age.

Admittedly, I'd hate to hear children swearing, but they do. Parents swear in front of their kids. Kids hear it from other kids in school. There's no filtering it out of real life. I'd much rather a kid heard a swear word than saw something grotesque or obscenely sexual though, so maybe it's time the folks in charge of stamping age requirements on things reviewed the guidelines.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

Are we bothered by it? Two of my books are in the Ulster venacular, which means there is a lot of swearing and no one had objected to it yet. It's just another form of language and so long as the balance is there, I don't see it as a problem, even in YA.

Where did you hear the advice, btw? It's not something I've come across. Also, I read books with loads of swearing in them.

 

[Tower75]

Fair points, there. I agree that the lack of swearing in some situations is daft, and in my mind drags you straight out of the book. I also agree that is shouldn't be used for shock value, either.

I've always just found it odd that violence is okay, swearing isn't. At least when it comes to age certificates.

Where did you hear the advice, btw? It's not something I've come across. Also, I read books with loads of swearing in them.

Sorry, what advice?

 

[thaddeus6th]

Boneman, some time ago at school Connolly's swearing was raised and a friend of mine made the excellent point that he did so for comic effect. That's why he also uses the word 'willy'. Any offensiveness is incidental, it's comedy that dictates his vocabulary.

I keep swearing in my books to a minimum. Not sure why, exactly. I don't find it especially offensive when I read it in books (Catullus 16 springs to mind. Don't search for this if you're prone to offence).

Of course, swear words are now a second order offence of vocabulary. Racial terms are now more powerful/offensive.

And some people have bloody odd views. Certain American nutjobs see massacres with guns and their first response is to insist gun ownership laws must be unchanged, but that evil videogames must be more restricted.

Hmm.

Bit rambly now. So I'll stop writing. Now.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

Fair points, there. I agree that the lack of swearing in some situations is daft, and in my mind drags you straight out of the book. I also agree that is shouldn't be used for shock value, either.

I've always just found it odd that violence is okay, swearing isn't. At least when it comes to age certificates.



Sorry, what advice?

Well, you stated that we were offended by swearing in general, so it sounded like something you'd picked up somewhere.

 

[Extollager]

Tower75's comment puzzled me. Swearing, in the stricter sense of profane use of sacred Names and of prerogatives of God, has in writing in English appeared in print for centuries. You'll find plenty of it in Shakespeare -- and in early printings of Chaucer et al., unless I am much mistaken.

I would use "obscenity" for discouraged or forbidden words with a sexual reference, and "scatology" for discouraged or forbidden words relating to excrement. These too or clearly related words appear in early print.

There is a period in which dashes might be used, e.g. "By G-d, sir," or "D-n it," etc. There's no mystery about what the character is saying, of course. I suppose this overlaps with a period in which place names might be lightly veiled.

I suppose that "f-k" and "sh-t" were rare in print until around the mid-20th century. When Mailer's The Naked and the Dead was published in 1948, "fug" and "fugging" were used, I believe. About 1960, if I'm not mistaken, unexpurgated publication of Lady Chatterley's Lover went ahead, with "f-k," etc. in plain print. These words have been all too common in print since the 1960s. Thus I was puzzled by the posting that opens this thread.

If the issue is access of children and teenagers to books in which these words appear, that's a distinct topic. Has anyone ever run into a situation in which youngsters were denied access to the adult section of a library or were refused when youngsters attempted to check out a book from the adult section?

Myself, I think the American Library Association's "Banned Books Week" every year is an embarrassment, an attempt to pose as guardians of precious civil liberties threatened by hordes of bigoted parents. I wonder how many librarians ever have to deal with serious objections to something in the library collection, or even expressions of mild disapproval.

If one wants to worry about issues of censorship, etc., I would encourage attention to more genuine instances, e.g. one in which a publisher recalled a reference book because of fears of Muslim disapproval.

However, I'm getting a bit far from the topic of this thread, so if someone wants to start a thread on censorship issues, etc. I would encourage that it be started as a separate thread.

 

[Tower75]

Well, you stated that we were offended by swearing in general, so it sounded like something you'd picked up somewhere.

I picked it up from the way things are. The only thing that seems to raise age certificates is bad language.

In books, as much as I hate the guy, take Bernard Cornwall, Sharpe will murder someone by sticking a sword in their face, but Cornwall doesn't want his character to swear...

 

[Mouse]

Swearing doesn't bother me either and I hope it doesn't bother publishers because one of my characters swears a hell of a lot.

 

[Montero]

And now I am sitting here trying to work out if I've read SFF books with swearing and just not noticed. I've not been offended by swearwords in books, so either they weren't there, or they were and they were just part of the text.....

 

[The Ace]

The classic argument on that score is Billy Connolly's, 'when in Rome.'

The original is a bit blue, but side-splittingly funny.

Ronnie Corbett's version, for a family audience, is about as funny as a train-crash.

It's the difference between Barry Manilow's crooning and Meatloaf's emotional roller-coaster of, 'Read 'em and Weep.'

 

[Mark_Lawrence]

An online chum of mine Courtney Schafer had her book The Whitefire Crossing offered free for a day on Barnes and Noble's website.

When this happens you get a TON of 1*s from people with comments like 'I like thrillers' etc (most of which were later removed). But she also got a lot in this vein:

Sounds like a good story, but stopped reading and deleted due to offensive language. When will authors ever learn that offensive language ruins an otherwise good book?

67 out of 173 people found this review helpful.


Read reviews first
And i dont plan to read the book due to all of the reviews stating there is such offensive language they had to stop reading it! Lets face it, many of us lead stress filled lives, and want to settle into a good book to relax. We dont want to read nasty language.

Note the first of these was found helpful by 67 people...

I had to go back and hunt down the very faint sprinkling of 'f*ck's in there. I hadn't even noticed. It really isn't a book that has a significant degree of bad language in it.

I should note though that a major theme centers on pain mages who inflict horrific torture to fuel their enchantments. I wonder that the major concern of the person wanting to escape their stress filled life and relax is the rare use of a common swear word rather than these guys...

Barnes & Noble | Customer Reviews | The Whitefire Crossing by Courtney Schafer

I also had a Goodreads review for Prince of Thorns, largely positive but complaining about the use of 'f*uck' every other paragraph. I went and checked. I used the word every 39 pages on average. You would think the rape, torture, murder, and use of weapons of mass destruction might bother the person... but not a peep about that.

 

[Boneman]

Or on the other hand: 106 out of 173 people did not find this review helpful...


Sorry, meant to mention Thaddeus's point: At one point, early in his career, 'right-minded religious people' wanted Billy banned for Blasphemy, and mounted a massive campaign. The attendant publicity did wonders for his show and was booked out for months ahead. They weren't complaining about his language, (which must be a step forward) but a joke about the Last Supper, which, incidentally I repeated at a dinner at Worth Abbey with twenty monks and they fell about laughing.

And damn: in my new wip, I've got the 'f word on pp 4,8,15,17,19,25 (three times, because the boogie man is coming, and the lad's scared sh**less) and 32. All uttered by the common man/soldier, except one, by an officer who's really angry. Guess I'll turn down B&N's free friday...

 

[Grunkins]

It's hard to imagine refusing to read a book because it might have a few swears in it. It's instances like this that remind me not everyone in the world is me.

 

[HareBrain]

I wonder that the major concern of the person wanting to escape their stress filled life and relax is the rare use of a common swear word rather than these guys...

One possible reason for that, I'd hazard, is that these people avoid TV etc with swearing in, and perhaps lead lives in which they only come across swearing in unpleasant or aggressive situations. Encountering it in books reminds them of those situations and makes them uncomfortable, whereas pain mages don't, because they've never had experience of one themselves.

I'm never offended by swearing in fiction these days. Fortunately it seems to be used with more intelligence than it often is in real life, where the use of the f-word variants can double the length of a sentence without adding any meaning.

 

[Extollager]

One of the things I like about Chrons is that people here generally avoid obscene, scatological, and profane language. That enhances the hospitable quality considerably.

For those who like to use these words and perhaps don't understand why others dislike them, CONSIDER THE POSSIBILITY THAT THEY ARE OFFENSIVE IN SOMEWHAT THE SAME WAY THAT ALL CAPITALS AND COPIOUS EXCLAMATION POINTS ARE!!!!! They are somewhat the equivalent of rude shouting. I'm glad, then, that they are generally avoided, as all capitals and copious exclamation points generally are eschewed. And incidentally, all of these seem to this writer to suggest a juvenile quality in writers who do use them.

 

[Grunkins]

And incidentally, all of these seem to this writer to suggest a juvenile quality in writers who do use them.

People curse regularly in every day speech. How can a writer write convincing dialogue without them?

 

[HareBrain]

People curse regularly in every day speech. How can a writer write convincing dialogue without them?

Some seem to be able to. I've read books where the dialogue seemed perfectly credible, only to realise there was no swearing in it. Some of Dickens's characters would have sworn copiously had they been real people, but his dialogue doesn't feel unconvincing. I agree it's more realistic with, though.