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Thread: The "F" Word.

  1. #16
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    Quote Originally Posted by Ecurb View Post
    I agree (in general) that using asterisks to represent swear words is a bit twee (actually, I just wanted to use the word "twee"). Let's face it, nobody of normal sensitivities is offended by swear words any more, and in Emil's example, the asterisks could represent several words, each of which helps the reader depict a slightly different speaker. Asterisks remind me of regency novels in which someone lives in *****Shire. Does anyone know why 19th century fictional characters' addresses must remain a secret? I've never figured it out.
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  2. #17
    Registered User WyattGwyon's Avatar
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    Realistic dialogue requires writing the way people speak. Lots of interesting people use profanity. Is there anything more that needs to be said on this topic? Seriously?

  3. #18
    Registered User 108 fountains's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by WyattGwyon View Post
    Realistic dialogue requires writing the way people speak. Lots of interesting people use profanity. Is there anything more that needs to be said on this topic? Seriously?
    Well, that’s true. It really is just a matter of taste for the reader. For myself, if I see a ridiculous amount of needless ****’s in the first few paragraphs or pages, I generally say to myself, “F*ck this Sh*t! I can read something else instead.”
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  4. #19
    MANICHAEAN MANICHAEAN's Avatar
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    My personal initiation into the inclusion of swearing in English Literature started when I read Lady Chatterley’s Lover by D.H.Lawrence in 1960. There are no doubt, those of greater knowledge than mine that can go back much further and I would be interested to hear of such instances. The nearest I can get is with Rabelais with his generous treatment of wine and sex, plus his predilection for excretment. But then he was after all a Frenchman.

    If one is prepared to accept this as a rough starting date for the use of profanities in English Literature, is not the next question one of present day and future discrimination on the subject by both writers and readers?

    Indulge me when I put forward an extract from “Suspended Judgements” by John Cowper Powys published in 1916, which I think is relevant.

    “The world divides itself into people who can discriminate and people who cannot discriminate. This is the ultimate test of sensitiveness; and sensitiveness alone separates us and unites us. The art of discrimination is the art of letting oneself go. The difference between interesting and uninteresting critics, is just the difference between those who have refused to let themselves be thus carried away, and those who have not refused. That is why in all the really arresting writers there is something equivocal and disturbing when we come to know them.

    Genius itself, in the last analysis, is not so much the possession of unusual vision—as the possession of a certain driving-force, which pushes them on to be themselves.

    More and more does it become necessary, as the fashion of new things presses upon us, to clear up in a largely generous manner, the difficult question of the relation of experiment to tradition.

    Some claim as a mark of higher aesthetic taste their inability to appreciate traditional beauty. They make their ignorance their virtue; and because they are dull to the delicate things that have charmed the centuries, they clamorously acclaim the latest sensational novelty, as though it had altered the very nature of our human senses.

    True discrimination does not ride rough-shod over the past like this. It has felt the past too deeply. It has too much of the past in its own blood. What it does, allowing for a thousand differences of temperament, is to move slowly and warily forward, appropriating the new and assimilating, in an organic manner, the material it offers.”
    Last edited by MANICHAEAN; 10-17-2014 at 02:37 AM.

  5. #20
    The Poetic Warrior Dark Muse's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by MANICHAEAN View Post
    My personal initiation into the inclusion of swearing in English Literature started when I read Lady Chatterley’s Lover by D.H.Lawrence in 1960. There are no doubt, those of greater knowledge than mine that can go back much further and I would be interested to hear of such instances. The nearest I can get is with Rabelais with his generous treatment of wine and sex, plus his predilection for excretment. But then he was after all a Frenchman.”
    I cannot recall if the F word specifically is used, but there is a plethora of obscene language in The Farce of Sodom or the Quintessence of Debauchery by John Wilmot published in 1689, that is as far back as I can go (off the top of my head) in the English language in regards of the use of fowl language.

    Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing, doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before. ~ Edgar Allan Poe

  6. #21
    MANICHAEAN MANICHAEAN's Avatar
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    Oh no Dark Muse, lets not get into the "C" word.

  7. #22
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    I can never see the point of littering any text with dozens of meaningless expletives, or for that matter any word or phrase, whether it'sbutter or pomegranates.

  8. #23
    rat in a strange garret Whifflingpin's Avatar
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    From Jaroslav Hašek, in The Good Soldier Švejk: "Life is not a finishing school for young ladies. Everyone speaks the way he is made.... This novel is neither a handbook of drawing-room refinement nor a teaching manual of expression to be used in polite society. It is a historical picture of a certain period in time. Where it is necessary to use a strong expression which was actually said, I am not ashamed of reproducing it exactly as it was. I regard the use of polite circumlocution or asterisks as the stupidest form of sham.... Those who boggle at strong language are cowards, because it is real life which is shocking them, and weaklings like that are the very people who cause most harm to culture and character...."
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  9. #24
    Registered User Emil Miller's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Whifflingpin View Post
    From Jaroslav , in The Good Soldier Švejk: "Life is not a finishing school for young ladies. Everyone speaks the way he is made.... This novel is neither a handbook of drawing-room refinement nor a teaching manual of expression to be used in polite society. It is a historical picture of a certain period in time. Where it is necessary to use a strong expression which was actually said, I am not ashamed of reproducing it exactly as it was. I regard the use of polite circumlocution or asterisks as the stupidest form of sham.... Those who boggle at strong language are cowards, because it is real life which is shocking them, and weaklings like that are the very people who cause most harm to culture and character...."
    Hašek is showing arrogance here. I have used asterisks both for effect and out of respect for my readers who may take offence at foul language. This doesn't mean that I don't use it myself: the air is blue when some irritating computer malfunction annoys me, although I would never use such language in the the company of others. He is very cocksure about his fearlessness in using swearwords and, given his belief in anarchy and vandalism, it's hardly surprising that he had little respect for the feelings of others. It's amusing to surmise whether, were he still alive, he would use the 'N' word: I very much doubt it.
    "L'art de la statistique est de tirer des conclusions errončes a partir de chiffres exacts." Napoléon Bonaparte.

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  10. #25
    A J Rollison-Manning
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    It all depends on the frame of reference.

  11. #26
    Ecurb Ecurb's Avatar
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    The "F" word hardly qualifies as "strong language" anymore. In a way, it's unfortunate that it's been debased. Both its literal meaning and its ability to shock or insult have been lost. In Northanger Abbey, Henry Tilney lectures Catherine about similar dangers involving the word "nice" -- which have since been realized.

    “I am sure,” cried Catherine, “I did not mean to say anything wrong; but it is a nice book, and why should not I call it so?”

    “Very true,” said Henry, “and this is a very nice day, and we are taking a very nice walk, and you are two very nice young ladies. Oh! It is a very nice word indeed! It does for everything. Originally perhaps it was applied only to express neatness, propriety, delicacy, or refinement — people were nice in their dress, in their sentiments, or their choice. But now every commendation on every subject is comprised in that one word.”

    “While, in fact,” cried his sister, “it ought only to be applied to you, without any commendation at all. You are more nice than wise. Come, Miss Morland, let us leave him to meditate over our faults in the utmost propriety of diction, while we praise Udolpho in whatever terms we like best. It is a most interesting work. You are fond of that kind of reading?”
    We can be thankful for the sensibilities of those Austen fans who (despite evidence to the contrary) think of Austen as having "nice" manners, that Miss Austen never indulged in a similar diatribe about the "F" word.

    p.s. Thanks Auntshecky. I keep meaning to get more involved in the creative boards here, but I've been lazy. I do read and enjoy your posts there.

  12. #27
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    Quote Originally Posted by Whifflingpin View Post
    From Jaroslav Hašek, in The Good Soldier Švejk: "Life is not a finishing school for young ladies. Everyone speaks the way he is made.... This novel is neither a handbook of drawing-room refinement nor a teaching manual of expression to be used in polite society. It is a historical picture of a certain period in time. Where it is necessary to use a strong expression which was actually said, I am not ashamed of reproducing it exactly as it was. I regard the use of polite circumlocution or asterisks as the stupidest form of sham.... Those who boggle at strong language are cowards, because it is real life which is shocking them, and weaklings like that are the very people who cause most harm to culture and character...."
    Well stated

    Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing, doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before. ~ Edgar Allan Poe

  13. #28
    Registered User 108 fountains's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by MANICHAEAN View Post
    My personal initiation into the inclusion of swearing in English Literature started when I read Lady Chatterley’s Lover by D.H.Lawrence in 1960. There are no doubt, those of greater knowledge than mine that can go back much further and I would be interested to hear of such instances.
    I don’t know if it would qualify as profanity, but one of the bawdiest examples I can think of in early English literature is Chaucer’s The Miller’s Tale (from The Canterbury Tales). One small excerpt will be enough.

    The scene is rather complicated, and there’s much more to it than the excerpt below, but in its simplest terms, Absalon has come to Alison’s bedroom window at night hoping to get a kiss from her and not realizing that she is already sleeping with another lover Nicholas. Absalon comes to the window and whispers,

    “It's Absalon. My darling little thing,
    I've brought for you," said he, "a golden ring.
    So help me God, my mother gave it to me. 3795
    It's well engraved, it is a fine thing truly.
    I'll let you have it for [a] kiss."

    Now Nicholas was up to take a piss,
    And thought he would improve upon the jape
    And have him [Absalon] kiss his arse ere he escape. 3800
    He hastened to the window, turned around,
    And stuck his bottom out without a sound,
    Both buttocks and beyond, right to the thighs.

    Then Absalon, who had to strain his eyes,
    Said, "Speak, sweet bird, I know not where thou art." 3805
    And Nicholas at this let fly a fart
    So great it sounded like a thunderclap--
    It nearly blinded Absalon, poor chap.*


    *Old English modernized in a version available online from Florida State University, http://english.fsu.edu/canterbury/miller.html

    In this case, the shock value is pretty high - at least I did not expect to find such ribaldry the first time I ever opened The Canterbury Tales. And I guess this shows that there are indeed contexts where coarseness and vulgarity and words like piss and arse and fart do have their place. But I still personally prefer it in modest amounts.
    A just conception of life is too large a thing to grasp during the short interval of passing through it.
    Thomas Hardy

  14. #29
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    Quote Originally Posted by Ecurb View Post
    The "F" word hardly qualifies as "strong language" anymore. In a way, it's unfortunate that it's been debased. Both its literal meaning and its ability to shock or insult have been lost. In Northanger Abbey, Henry Tilney lectures Catherine about similar dangers involving the word "nice" -- which have since been realized.

    We can be thankful for the sensibilities of those Austen fans who (despite evidence to the contrary) think of Austen as having "nice" manners, that Miss Austen never indulged in a similar diatribe about the "F" word.

    p.s. Thanks Auntshecky. I keep meaning to get more involved in the creative boards here, but I've been lazy. I do read and enjoy your posts there.

    Yes, this is a very good - or perhaps that should be a "nice" - example of cultural differences in a historical perspective.

  15. #30
    Existentialist Varenne Rodin's Avatar
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    I love well placed swear words. What I hate is censorship.

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