Cursing?

[Venusian Broon]

Not in my neck of the woods, I'm afraid. Swearing - just... is. It's an expression, nothing more. It's one whose appropriateness you judge. I rarely swear in public, if at all. I don't say much worse than 'butt' in front of my kids - who are getting up now, anyway. I don't swear in front of my mother, or at work. But in the company of friends who I know it doesn't offend (because they're just as bad) - heck, yes. And those friends include social workers, teachers, doctors, managers, accountants....

But I am aware as a nation the Irish, North and South, are fairly tolerant of it. But, in my experience, all levels of society swear here - although some are more discreet than others (which is, I think, sometimes governed by people's jobs. I'm certainly more circumspect because I'm in a professional role)

Possibly it is just a British thing Jo, that swearing isn't really too much of a class thing - I mean:

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/...ls-photographer-just-take-the-****ing-picture

(except Chrons won't allow that to go through - so either go to the Guardian website and look for the story with the correct word that has been bleeped out or use the one below. )

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/201...hotographer-take-fking-picture_n_7770892.html

If the Duke of Edinburgh does it in public, then others shouldn't be surprised that the rest of us do it

However, I agree totally with you Jo that there is always an appropriate time and place for swearing. I am usually mostly mild with my language everyday - unless highly agitated/angry/stressed. (Which thankfully is not that often at all.) Other times include lads night out down the boozer, where sometimes we might sound a bit like roistering troopers, but even then I wouldn't say we were that bad and it is more in the spirit of stand-up...

 

[Phyrebrat]

Using your own cultural reference is helpful when writing fiction. As Jo says, I won't swear in front of my parents, Caribbean elders and never in front of any of my W.Africsn friends. The characters we write should also have such cultural context if they're to be richly defined.

Working with inner city teens I learn delightful cusses and put downs on a daily basis. But some who are on the poverty line would never swear which kind of scuppers that.

As with anything in writing I believe context is King/Queen. There's a time to curse, blaspheme, fragment, tell, comma-splice, head hop and so on. It always comes down to 'does context justify it?' (Not to mention 'am I doing it right?')

pH

 

[ratsy]

I'm not sure if there is more swearing in Britain than the rest of the world, but there could be differences. I grew up in a household that never swore...we couldn't even say the lighter words, like crap and butt, which usually work together I remember being in grade 6 and kids at school started to use swear words...I was so taken aback by it. Then you realize they are just words, so who really cares. I still don't over-use swearing in my day to day life, but there aren't many words I won't say in the right situation. I still don't swear in front of some family members.

I know people who would put a book down because of the F-word, and to them it's a religious thing. Often they will do four 'bad' things a day, but God-forbid you say sh$&

 

[J D Foster]

It's fascinating to read all the different ideas. Lots of great points and thoughts to try to embed into my writing. It's certainly broadening my mind, I think I have quite a sheltered life, so I guess my writing will reflect that.

 

[Ursa major]

I agree with @Ursa major. Cussing basically amounts to filler most of the times.

You missed out an IMO here (although IMO isn't the only option), something that would have helped separate your contention from what I wrote, which wasn't that swear words are fillers (well, no more than any other words are), but that dialogue in fiction tends to be more of a original constructed from reality than a reconstruction of reality and that swear words are not exempt from the process that changes the latter into the former.

There's a time to [...] comma-splice

Let's not head towards hell in a handcart, please....

 

[tinkerdan]

Any of these distasteful things such as swearing and violence and rape and torture and poor grammar are all things that can have great power when used sparingly and at the right moment; but they all have the problem of crumbling to meaningless and losing all their power when they are overworked and just as with everything else in writing there is a need for moderation.

That of course is in my opinion.

I only ever have a problem with any of these when they seem to be reoccurring themes within the same work.

 

[Ihe]

@Ursa major, those pesky IMOs. From now on, everyone, please assume there is an IMO after every sentence I say, even if I don't say it . Without meaning to, I sound very categorical when I speak . And yes, forgive me, I re-read your statement, and it is as you say, my mistake. But I will reaffirm what I said then. Swearing can have its niche, but many times the writing will be tighter if the writer reduces his swear words' distribution. I'm not saying to do without them at all, but I find swearing doesn't usually improve the reading experience for me. And if it doesn't add anything meaningful to the story, it will indeed be cruft.

 

[Ursa major]

Note that when I write IMO with regard to my own posts, it mostly stands for...

...'Instance of My Omniscience:'.... ​

 

[cgsmith]

The difference between expletives in TV to literature, is seeing something written down can be far more jarring if used repetitively.

Conversational obscenities in TV and media we become inured to eg Jessie in BB.; consider when Walt swears, it had much more meaning and symbolism. If your written character repeatedly swears it just seems pointless and unimaginative because you 'see' a word more.

I use swearing in my writing but I'm careful not to overuse the same one for this reason.

pH

My thoughts exactly.

Always thought that written swearing is more obvious.

 

[MWagner]

I do think that (how to put this tactfully) that less fortunate people swear more. We rarely swear in our house and when we do it will be soft swears. It is far more commonplace these days than say 30 years ago. All the more reason to cut it out of my stories I feel.

I think it's more nuanced than that. I grew up in a middle class family in Canada and my dad swore all the time, my mom not irregularly either. They'd try not to swear in front of us, but it came out if they were frustrated about something, or having fun with their friends.

At journalism school everyone swore all the time. Students, instructors, guys, gals - everyone. And these were fairly intelligent people with strong language skills. Actors and musicians, also quite creative and expressive people, are notorious for swearing. I'm now working with highly educated professionals in high-tech. And in the office, at meetings and hanging around the lunch room, people throw around f-bombs all the time. I have noticed, however, that our U.S. based employees who sometimes visit our office seem to swear a less.

And anyone who thinks swearing can't be nuanced, funny, apt, and crucial to the tone and setting of a novel needs to read Roddy Doyle's Barrytown Trilogy. It's f*ckin' deadly.

 

[Kerrybuchanan]

I agree, @MWagner. My parents were both from extremely deprived backgrounds (no shoes level of poverty) as they grew up. My father, ex army and ex police, swore plenty and still does; my mother -- NEVER! Not even damn.

I grew up in the belief that swearing was bad and avoided it completely until I went to veterinary school for 6 years. That's where I learned all my choicest words, phrases and songs! Since I studied in Cambridge (that's the original one), I was surrounded by people from mostly very good families. In fact, the higher they stood in social ranking (!), the more diverse and frequent their use of bad language. You'd still never catch me swearing around my parents though, not even in extreme circumstances.

 

[J D Foster]

@MWagner & @Kerrybuchanan

I appreciate the alternate views, made me think about this in greater depth. I'm being too simplistic/Black and white.

I do feel like there is a type of person who swears and a type that doesn't. I can see that my way of trying to define that "feeling" is one dimensional. Maybe the feeling is wrong.

I'm really loving this debate, I'm learning lots

 

[Jo Zebedee]

@MWagner & @Kerrybuchanan

I appreciate the alternate views, made me think about this in greater depth. I'm being too simplistic/Black and white.

I do feel like there is a type of person who swears and a type that doesn't. I can see that my way of trying to define that "feeling" is one dimensional. Maybe the feeling is wrong.

I'm really loving this debate, I'm learning lots

I think therein lies the secret of good character writing - when we, as writers, ascribe traits to characters instead of letting them lead some of the process, they can feel one dimensional. I had a character in my Abendau series (Lichio for those who've read it) who was planned as the anglelic, throwaway, younger brother of a main character. He was to be a bit dim, but likeable, a womaniser, and flakey. He turned out to be a much more complex character - smart, witty, and far from angelic. When that happened, I could go too routes - force him into my box and make him fit the arc i had for him (and lose one of the best characters very early in the book) or just accept that sometimes we, as the writer, can't always make a character fit without it seeming false, that we're driving the scene rather than the character having a part to play in it - because how they respond and think affects the plot. (I use a tool called the Johari window, which is an Emotional intelligence/counselling model to frame characters' interaction with each other.)

Anyhow, long and rambling but what I'm trying to say is people are diverse, sometimes you just have to let a character rip for them to feel real. And that might include your professional,well to do, doctor cursing like a navvy. (and i bet loads of navvys don't swear. Well, some )

 

[Kerrybuchanan]

I do feel like there is a type of person who swears and a type that doesn't.

And a type that swears like a trooper sometimes, and behaves like an angel at others (me). Most people who know me probably think of me as the type who definitely never swears, right up to the point where I hit my thumb with a hammer, and then they have their vocabulary expanded for them. My characters probably reflect that. As a rule, few of them swear at all, but when the occasion arises, they can let rip, and some of them would swear habitually.

Recently, I went to a novel-writing evening class with a local university and one member of the class would get up and disappear at odd times without explanation, then return after 10 minutes or so and sit back down. I assumed he had bladder problems, poor man. It took me several weeks to notice how his excursions correlated perfectly with the occasional use of expletives in excerpts that the tutor read out to us, even quite mild ones. To test my theory, I read an excerpt of my story with the ex-convict, littered with swear words. Sure enough, up he got and left the room.

I had never realised how many swear words find their way into even quite literary fiction until this man did his jack-in-the-box act!

 

[Ursa major]

As an aside -- and not really a swear word, but more a slang word for sexual conduct -- I suspect that the UK is about to be introduced to an American term originating in the 1920s (according to the OED).

My suspicions are based on the likelihood of the wording appearing in political discourse, perhaps even in headlines, because a Mr Andrew Boff, who's hoping to become the Conservative candidate for the post of London Mayor (not to be confused with the Lord Mayor), would

if he becomes mayor next May, seek to set up and trial what he calls “a managed area of street prostitution” somewhere in east London, depending on negotiations with boroughs in that part of town.

You couldn't make it up....

 

[J D Foster]

He turned out to be a much more complex character - smart, witty, and far from angelic. When that happened

You are so right. The seedy character I spoke about in my current WIP was originally envisioned in my mind as a person with no remedying qualities whatsoever... when I started writing of course words began to have a mind of their own and he started to display qualities of love, skill and vulnerabilities that were never in my original plan. And of course he is so much the better for it.