I Swear.

When I was a kid, expletives were heavily frowned upon. The worst you were ever likely to hear in public was ‘bloody,’ and children were forbidden to use even that one. I was curious about this, but my parents were of little help. As far as they were concerned, swear words were nasty and only nasty people used them. Which was odd because both my parents used the word with some frequency, and apparently without much sense of guilt. They would occasionally ask someone to ‘excuse my French,’ but that was always said in jest. No doubt it was just another example of the time-honoured maxim ‘Do as I say, not as I do.’

So, seeking to get to the bottom of the matter, I asked a teacher. She told me that swear words were bad because they indicated a lack of vocabulary. Swear words were the language of the ignorant and the feeble minded. At first I believed her. Believing teachers is what children do, isn’t it? I became increasingly uneasy, however, because I soon realised that expletives don’t mask poor vocabulary. The function of the expletive in language is quite different from that of the simple adjective. It didn’t take me long to realise that the teacher was talking out of her rectum, and so I tried another font of all knowledge: the vicar.

His explanation was interesting if nothing else. Swear words were wrong because they were blasphemous. When a person utters the word ‘bloody’ in that way, he told me, they are using a contraction of the phrase ‘by the blood our Lord Jesus Christ.’ Well, by that time I’d already started to have deep suspicions about most of what the vicar said anyway, so I had no problem regarding his latest pearl of wisdom as just so much more tosh.

Eventually I worked it out for myself, and it’s really quite simple. The objection to expletives is merely one part of that cultural overlay we call refined behaviour. Swearing is not done because it’s ‘not done.’ The objection is manufactured, and because social expectations of refinement are bound up with other manufactured notions like class and breeding, the expletive came to be associated with the lower orders. Or at least it was. Things have changed a lot over the last few decades. Early attempts to liberate the f word were made in the 1960’s, and the movement gained ground slowly until it is now almost common currency, especially among young people.

But this in itself has thrown up something interesting. Hearing it used by certain people in certain circumstances can still be ugly. When used by different people in different circumstances, it merely treads the ground between the mundane and the comical. And this leads me to think that there is something almost mantra-like about the expletive. It carries power, but unlike the true mantra whose power is self-contained, the power of the expletive is governed by the energy behind it. If the intent is ugly or aggressive, then so is the word. If it isn’t, it isn’t. This is why the idea that expletives cause offence seems to be missing an important point. It isn’t the word that wounds, but the intent. Anybody who chooses to be offended by the mere use of such a word should recognise what they’re doing – making a choice. If anyone is to blame, they are.

And a final thought. The commonest modern expletives have a sexual origin, even though ‘fuck me’ isn’t actually a call to action. So I have to speculate that one of the reasons why those words have gained such ubiquity among young people has as much to do with sexual liberation as anything else. Interestingly, though, the connection has become totally broken. I’m sure that when a person says ‘fuck off,’ the notion that there is a sexual connection never enters their heads.

There’s a lot more to be said on this, but the post is in danger of becoming turgid.