# How I learned to stop worrying and love the F-bomb



## M. LeRenard (May 18, 2010)

Warning!  Contains strong language.  (Duh.)

      Anyone who's read my work knows I don't shy aware from curse words.  In some ways, it's just how I was brought up.  Yeah, as a kid, I was protected from that kind of language (as much as my parents were able), but after a certain point, when my parents realized I understood when such language was appropriate and when it wasn't, the bars got removed and everybody in the household let loose with the sailor-talk because it just came naturally.

      Now, in my experience, a lot of writers seem to shy away from curses.  Sure, words like damn and hell are used, but those aren't even bleeped out on public television, so I guess it's okay.  But stronger words like dick or piss or fuck or cunt, these words are practically forbidden for some people.

      This is especially prevalent in fantasy novels.  In fact, the only fantasy author I can recall who had characters use regular English swear words was George R. R. Martin.  But aside from him, we get these ridiculous alternatives, like the ever so famous "Blood and bloody ashes!" from the Wheel of Time series, or "Bags!" from the Sword of Truth.  And I just have to ask... why?  Why dance around these words?

      Tell me if I'm wrong, but I always thought the reason you use imprecations was for their shock-value.  They're a quick and effective way to express powerful emotions.  When you tell someone that he can go fuck himself with a spiny dildo (how many of you instinctively recoiled at that one?), it leaves an impression.  And that's the point!

      So what happens when you replace these well-known words with words or phrases of your own making?  Well, did you recoil from 'blood and bloody ashes' like you did from 'go fuck yourself with a spiny dildo'?  I think it's a pretty safe bet that the answer is: no fucking way.  And the reason for that is completely cultural.  You grew up with 'fuck', and you know what it means, what the implications of saying it are.  You understand 'fuck', so 'fuck' produces an emotion when you hear it (or read it).  'Bloody ashes' just doesn't.  If anything, it makes you chuckle.

      But what's the harm, right?  It's fun to make up silly swears for fantasy settings.  After all, if it's a fantasy setting, the people there obviously have a different culture than us, and so use different swears.  Those swears have the same impact on them as our swears have on us, so it gets the point across, right?

      Yeah.  Sort of.  Okay, no.  Not really.

      First of all, the excuse that making up fantasy swears creates a more 'authentic' fantasy setting is complete bulldonkey, unless you're also willing to go the rest of the way and develop an entirely new dialect or language for these people as well.  You have to go the full mile.  Because if you just change the swear words out, the only thing you're going to get across to the reader is that you didn't want to use swear words in your fantasy novel.  It ceases to become an excuse for realism, because it's not realistic.

      I mean, think about it: amongst all the English-speaking countries of this world, what's different in the way they use English?  Accents, turns of phrase, colloquialisms, rhythm, intonation... the list goes on.  Actually, swear words seem to be one of the few aspects that don't change, aside from a few key differences (Americans don't say 'bloody' anything, for example).  The British, the Aussies, the Americans, the Canadians... hell, even the pigeon English speakers of Nigeria.  They all say 'fuck', and it always means the same thing.  Because they are just words, after all.

      But if you work really hard, yes, you can exchange the swears for something else and make it work.  But do you really want to?

      Compare two scenes, based on this: a soldier is fighting in a battle, and his best friend just takes an arrow to the neck and dies within seconds.

*Scene 1:* He knelt down by his companion's side, hands shaking, voice quivering as blood bubbled from his friend's half-closed lips.  "Blood and bloody ashes," he whispered, voice quaking.
*Scene 2:* He knelt down by his companion's side, hands shaking, voice quivering as blood bubbled from his friend's half-closed lips.  "Shit.  Ah, shit, no," he whispered, voice quaking.

      Which scene works better?  Which one gets the emotion across better?

      If you say number 1, stop reading now because I'm not going to ever get through to you.

      Number 1 has practically no impact.  This absurd phrase coming from a character's mouth during a time of tragedy demeans the whole scene.  The reader has no relationship to this phrase; the phrase means nothing to him, carries no emotional weight.  The soldier might as well whisper, "By the hairs on the palms of the Jolly Green Giant," because it would make just as much sense to a standard English-speaking reader.

      Number 2, though... we recognize that.  We know 'shit' in that context.  It means the guy doesn't want to believe this horrible thing has just happened.  And we know that immediately and definitely, so the impact is immediate and definite as well.  It gets the message across without running the risk of alienating the reader with ambiguity.  There's no risk, here.  Even if you come up with the best alternative swear in the universe, the word 'shit' is still going to have more of an impact, because it has a meaning ingrained in it that the reader has experience with.  There's no thought, no pause while he considers what the word means.

      Do you see my point?

      If you don't, the point is this: if you mean to swear, just fucking swear!  Don't dance around these words.  They're part of the language, and every part of the language has a purpose.  I really like a quote Vixyy Fox put on her main page: "There are no bad words... only badly put together sentences."  I can't stress enough how true that is.

      So, you might be asking, what if I want to do realistic world-building for my fantasy novel?  Do I really have to make up a whole new dialect of English?

      No, of course not.  Just pretend like you're a translator.  After all, when you take words from a foreign language, more often than not you don't translate them literally.  Take this now famous French phrase, for example: "_Casse-toi, pauvr' con._"  What does that mean?  Well, literally, it means something like, "Break yourself, you poor [i.e., not rich] idiot!"  But that doesn't make a damn bit of sense in English, does it?  So instead, when we translate a phrase like that, you have to just do your best to find the English phrase that means approximately the same thing.  So in this case, _casse-toi_ means something more like 'go to hell', or 'get out of here', and the word _con_ means a lot of things, most of them really vulgar and bad, giving the whole phrase a pretty big shock value.  So I would translate this phrase as: "Fuck off, you stupid cunt."  And now you know what it means!

      So when you're writing fantasy, do the same thing.  Don't try to literally translate the imprecations; just use their English equivalents.  And if someone complains, this is your excuse.  That way, you can use cuss-words you're comfortable with, and so your use of them will end up being that much more effective.

      Now, am I saying you should always include cuss-words in your writing?  No.  Use them if you want to, but if you don't like using them or if you feel they take away from the elegance of your writing, by all means, don't use them.  All I'm saying is, don't fall into the trap of trying to dance around them unless you really know what you're doing.  Because more often than not, if you try to dance, you're just going to fall flat on your face and make everybody laugh.


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## kitreshawn (May 18, 2010)

Honestly I think there are a couple reasons.

First is editing.  Keep in mind that in many published works they go through a revision and editors have two main jobs:

1) Make sure something is nice and polished so it isn't embarrassingly bad

This is what most people think of editors doing, and it is probably their initial function.  That said there is another job as well.

2) Make sure the work is successful by not antagonizing potential audience members.

This second function is actually quite important since the whole point of publishing is to make money.  The last thing a publisher wants is to have a whole potential market decide that their books are not fit for reading.  This is double true for much fantasy work because so many juveniles read it.  Parents would get very upset if their kids were reading works with words they think are wrong or evil or vulgar.

Basically it comes down to marketing.

There is actually another potential reason, which is shying away from pop phrases.  These are basically things which are done or said which only make sense in regards to the current pop culture.  For instance I once read a story where the wife had a medicine cabinet full of soap.  A big deal was made about this.  Why?  Because back in the 60's or it meant she was easily influenced (add placement in old fashion TV shows tended to take on this method).

For this reason using 'real' curse words is risky.  Will the word 'fuck' be considered a curse word in 100 years?  How does the meaning of a piece change if words like fuck no longer carry the weight they do today?  Keep in mind that even now fuck isn't nearly as bad of a word as it was even 20 years ago, and it was a horribly vulgar word back in the middle ages (you could be challenged to a duel for saying it in polite company).

So between editing out things that would potentially offend audience members and the idea that pop phrases and ideas should be avoided I think you probably have your answer.


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## Winter (May 18, 2010)

I must say I recoil more from 'blood and bloody ashes'. Not because its impact as a curse, but because it's so fucking cheesy.

The main reason for why authors write their own, non-four letter curses is pretty obvious; you can reach a bigger audience if your work isn't censored or stamped 'mature readers only'. It's up to anyone to decide if this is selling out or not. I thought it was refreshing to read the Harry Potter books, which were at least initially aimed at a young audience, where JKR got away with a couple of 'bugger', a Uranus joke and some gay jokes. Way to go!

In my own writings, I rarely use the strongest curse words in body text, but when they're called for in dialogue or inner monologue I don't shy away from them. And in the rare occasions I write first person POV I choose them according to how the main character thinks and acts.


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## TakeWalker (May 18, 2010)

Changing curses works to situate language into its context. If you're working in a society that isn't ours, fantasy or somesuch, then they'll say things like "Shards" or "Ancestors" instead of "damn" and "hell".

On the other hand, those things get way out of hand too easily, as your example demonstrates. Sometimes, it's best to work with what's familiar so as to avoid the cheesy.


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## Steel the Wolf (May 18, 2010)

TakeWalker said:


> Changing curses works to situate language into its context. If you're working in a society that isn't ours, fantasy or somesuch, then they'll say things like "Shards" or "Ancestors" instead of "damn" and "hell".
> 
> On the other hand, those things get way out of hand too easily, as your example demonstrates. Sometimes, it's best to work with what's familiar so as to avoid the cheesy.


 
I can understand your point, but I think I agree with the OP. Honestly you stand to lose more with your audience by using a 'curse' phrase they are not familiar with, and try to pass it off as a 'cultural' swear then you do just swearing in normal English. Given the later, I doubt many people will question why they characters are using normal English curses. Given the former however, a lot more people will feel put off if the words used in a situation don't match the gravity of said situation.


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## panzergulo (May 19, 2010)

I don't shy "curse" words. I use many of them in my writing. Damn, shit, hell, fuck... yeah, those with all their derivatives are probably the most common I use. I have one character who speaks really broken English and he says "fuk". Some character with cleaner mouths might say "oh my" and I have a couple character who use "bloody" when angry. "Where the hell is that bloody wolverine when you most need him!" I have one character who's virtually married with "fuck". He drops it whenever he's even a little bit angry and overuses it when really upset.

For the record, I regard most English "curse" words rather mellow... weak. They have experienced a sort of a inflation for me, I guess... Finnish curses are the only real curses for me, and they have much more power in my opinion.

Also, now I have to offer an example following MLR's example about translating curses.

Finnish: _Ei vitun paska!_

Literal translation: Not the shit of cunt!

Doesn't make sense, does it? A "real" translation could be: No fucking shit!

Yup... those are my ideas about cursing.


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## M. LeRenard (May 19, 2010)

kitreshawn said:


> Basically it comes down to marketing.


Well, yeah, I can see that.  But again, if you're marketing to an audience that wouldn't appreciate curse words, just don't use them.  Don't put yourself in situations where you _have_ to use them, and so are forced to use absurd substitutes.  Teenagers cuss all the time, so even YA works sound silly to their targeted audience when you invent substitutes.
J.K. Rowling did a fine job of avoiding them altogether, I thought.  I remember only rare instances where characters used any curses at all in the whole series, and in those cases they were pretty mild (except for maybe 'bugger', but most people don't know what that means anyway).  If that's what you're aiming for, that's the route you should take, is what I'm saying.
Plus, this isn't really relevant for some of the authors I mentioned.  Terry Goodkind, for example, avoids real cuss words, and yet has long, drawn-out torture scenes that go into explicit detail for dozens, sometimes hundreds of pages.  So his books already alienate the crowd that gets offended when people say 'fuck', and yet he substitutes anyway.  That's what I don't get.


> There is actually another potential reason, which is shying away from pop phrases.


Why, exactly, would you want to shy away from pop phrases?  What author actually writes in words and phrases he thinks will still be totally relevant a decade from now?  I would think you'd want to write for your audience of today, and not for your audience of fifty years in the future, right?



			
				panzergulo said:
			
		

> For the record, I regard most English "curse" words rather mellow... weak.


Ha, well, you've already made it clear English isn't your favorite language anyway, so this doesn't surprise me.


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## kitreshawn (May 19, 2010)

M. Le Renard said:


> (snip)
> 
> Why, exactly, would you want to shy away from pop phrases?  What author actually writes in words and phrases he thinks will still be totally relevant a decade from now?  I would think you'd want to write for your audience of today, and not for your audience of fifty years in the future, right?
> 
> (snip)



It is am matter of degree.  For instance, how many people do you think would understand that a house wife that fills every medicine cabinet in the home with soap will understand that this means she is easily influenced?  Yes this is a extreme case but lets take one closer to cussing.

Words like shit and fuck are actually quite new to language (they are rarely seen at all outside writing starting at the 20th century.  In fact, in ye olde times (tm) the worst swearing had heavily religious connotations and actually seem quaint by today's standards.  For instance "Jesus Christ!" is still considered a swear but is actually very mild by today's standards (these days all the most vulgar swears are largely non-religious).  By comparison historically a swear like "Jesus Christ!" was quite horrible.  In fact even the words swearing and cursing suggest strong religious connotations which are not seen today.

What does this mean for you?  Well consider how if you were to read something that had a character say "Jesus Christ!" you would probably understand that they are swearing, but not think it is so horrible.  After all, you know swear words that are much worse!  By the same token in, say, 200 years someone reads your character saying something horribly vulgar, perhaps calling his mom a cunt.  In the future people will understand this is an insult, but wonder if it is really all that bad considering that they know much worse words.  By then the word cunt has lost much of it's impact (that is the whole point of a swear word).  In essence your audience needs to have it explained to them that 'cunt' is horribly offensive, and need to have it done in such a way that they don't think it is comical (to whit, imagine someone freaking out today about you saying 'Jesus Christ' you would probably think they are being overly sensitive).

So since you need to explain things anyway why not just make up your own 'swear' words?  It allows you to avoid the problem of making sure the curse word doesn't lose its punch because you can in context show that it is a curse and there isn't likely any preconception about how bad of a curse word it is.  So when people see a character flip out at being called a 'dust-bugger' or some such they are more willing to accept that it is because the word is very vulgar.  The reader doesn't bring any baggage.  It also lets you slip past the censors.  So you get to write what you want and have it translate across time better.

Now obviously this is not the end all and be all of things.  For example, if you are writing something specifically for an audience that is located at a single point in time (say, the 2011 Spring Fiction Anthology audience) then using pop phrases is fine.  Or if you are fine with the idea of your work being difficult to understand if not read 'today'.  But most authors that I know of like writing not only because they are sharing their ideas with others, but because once their ideas are written down they can be shared with people even long after you are gone.  With that in mind, is it really surprising that they want to make sure their work is understood as well as possible even when they aren't around to explain things?


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## M. LeRenard (May 19, 2010)

kitreshawn said:


> With that in mind, is it really surprising that they want to make sure their work is understood as well as possible even when they aren't around to explain things?


Uh, yes.  It still is very surprising.
I guess I just don't understand why you would try to write for an audience 200 years in the future.  You can't possibly predict what will change with the language, so your only other option would be to just make stuff up, which would end up alienating in some fashion both present readers and future readers, because nobody in either the present or the future is going to completely understand what your made-up stuff means, um, without you explaining it to them.  And now we've reached the Catch-22.
Sorry, this just strikes me as a pointless academic exercise.  I'd kind of like for the people reading my works _now_ to understand what I mean.  Because otherwise, no one in the future is even going to know about my works, because no one in the present will have bothered to read them, because they'd be full of a bunch of unintelligible jargon.
Unless I put out something like _A Clockwork Orange_, of course, with a powerful universal message buried _inside_ the unintelligible jargon.


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## Sarcusa (May 19, 2010)

I'd have to agree, it does feel weak, unconvincing and a bit silly. A recent book called The View from the Mirror was a bit overkill with it. I think it'd be better substituting a word with a similar meaning and/or sound instead of making up a completely different word. Of course, I never approved of Battlestar Galactica using 'frack' ._. I have to admit though, it can feel a little bit too much like real life and not very medieval (if that's the aim) if you out right say fuck and shit (Were those words used back then?).

Two games I've played had this sort of issue. Infinity Space had replaced the word with cuss/crus (forgot) but it wasn't so bad, it sounds a little like a growl (it was used more like damn though). Valkyrie Profile:Covenant of the Plume avoided all together, with some characters saying damn or curse you. With how dark the story was and how wonderfully the scripts were written, it felt very unnecessary to curse.

So I think avoiding it all together unless it suits the theme. (No making weird words =0)



M. Le Renard said:


> J.K. Rowling did a fine job of avoiding them altogether, I thought.  I remember only rare instances where characters used any curses at all in the whole series, and in those cases they were pretty mild (except for maybe 'bugger', but most people don't know what that means anyway).  If that's what you're aiming for, that's the route you should take, is what I'm saying.



Yeah, I thought mugblood and muggle weren't so bad (or maybe it was the movie that did that? I watched it before reading it).


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## Winter (May 19, 2010)

I sometimes let my characters (particularly canines) use the words 'foaming' or 'frothing' as curse words. Is that too cheesy?


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## Aeturnus (May 19, 2010)

I'm surprised you didn't touch on racial and homosexual slurs. Some people might have a harder time using the n word than dropping an F-bomb or two.

As for myself, I have no problem using strong language. Yeah it might offend people, but that doesn't bother me.


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## TakeWalker (May 19, 2010)

panzergulo said:


> Finnish: _Ei vitun paska!_
> 
> Literal translation: Not the shit of cunt!
> 
> Doesn't make sense, does it? A "real" translation could be: No fucking shit!



Just more evidence that Finnish has the best swear words ever.  Suksi vittun!


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## Poetigress (May 19, 2010)

Apologies if I'm restating something for the nth time, but I only lightly skimmed through the other replies before posting this. 

As with just about everything else, it all depends on what's appropriate for that story, including the characters and time period in question, and the audience you're writing for. It doesn't automatically make your writing edgier or more contemporary to use profanity, and if overused it strikes me as an extremely lazy way to write (particularly in dialogue). That said, if used judiciously, it can add realism to characters' thoughts and dialogue.

As far as invented profanity goes, I guess I'm just honestly not as bothered by it as some others seem to be. I _do_ think it's very difficult to do well, because, as MLR said, it doesn't have that automatic recognition and power that contemporary slang does for the reader, and in the wrong hands it can come off as silly or weak. But when it _is_ done well, it adds to the immersion in the story world. For example, when "silflay hraka" is used in _Watership Down_, that language to me actually carries more weight and power (and less overall silliness, in fact) than "eat shit" would have in its place, because I've been exposed to those words many times in various contexts by that point, so the recognition is there. 

I'm more bothered, really, by authors who use modern words that don't relate to the story world. For example, while pretty much every culture has vulgar terms for sexual intercourse or excrement, making "fuck" and "shit" fairly reliable choices, I don't feel it makes any sense to use "damn" or "hell" in a story world that has no concept of hell in their theology. It seems... sloppy to me.

Overall, in the same way that modern profanity doesn't automatically add realism just by its presence, invented profanity doesn't substitute for world building. But if the realism or worldbuilding is already there, word choice can amplify it. 

And just as a final note, I do want to reiterate that if you don't want to use profanity, you don't have to "dance around it" with made-up words. In several places in my novel, I wound up simply saying "so-and-so swore" and then continuing with the action or their next line of dialogue. I think as long as that tactic isn't overused, it works perfectly well if you don't want to include the actual words but find that it would be silly for the character not to use some sort of profanity in whatever situation they're in.


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## panzergulo (May 19, 2010)

TakeWalker said:


> Just more evidence that Finnish has the best swear words ever.  Suksi *vittuun*!



Corrected it for you.

Finnish: _Suksi vittuun_!

Literal translation: Ski to/into cunt!

A "real" translation: Go to hell!

Don't know if they are the best, but I like 'em. They say that Russian has one of the most colorful curse vocabularies in the world. I can't know, of course, because I don't speak Russian.


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## M. LeRenard (May 19, 2010)

Aeturnus said:


> I'm surprised you didn't touch on racial and homosexual slurs. Some people might have a harder time using the n word than dropping an F-bomb or two.


Well, those are harder to justify, since they are pretty much 100% culturally based.  It's kind of like what PT was saying about using 'damn' or 'hell' in a context in which there's no concept of hell.  You wouldn't use n****r (I forgot FAF sensors those words) in a society that, say, is barely aware that other races exist, for example.  Or one where the people might realize there's no such thing as race.  Or, like, it'd be really awkward to have a character shout out "Jesus Christ!" in a world without Christianity.  These kinds of things I can see people avoiding for legitimate reasons (and I do myself).
Of course, I tend to not use words that specifically insult groups of people anyway, even in my everyday language, but that's just me.  Sometimes it does add more realism to include racial or sexual epithets in your story.  Though I would be much more cautious with those kinds of words than just general, quasi-meaningless curse words like fuck.



			
				panzergulo said:
			
		

> Literal translation: Ski to/into cunt!


I should start using this one.  Go ski into a cunt!  The image that brings to mind is just hilarious.



			
				Winter said:
			
		

> I sometimes let my characters (particularly canines) use the words 'foaming' or 'frothing' as curse words. Is that too cheesy?


What, to imply rabies or something?  Maybe it's cheesy, but I kind of like it anyway.


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## Poetigress (May 19, 2010)

Winter said:


> I sometimes let my characters (particularly canines) use the words 'foaming' or 'frothing' as curse words. Is that too cheesy?



Works for me. I like "foaming" better than "frothing," but I have no explanation why -- just the overall simpler sound, maybe.


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## Steel the Wolf (May 19, 2010)

Aeturnus said:


> I'm surprised you didn't touch on racial and homosexual slurs. Some people might have a harder time using the n word than dropping an F-bomb or two.
> 
> As for myself, I have no problem using strong language. Yeah it might offend people, but that doesn't bother me.


 
We always end up having a huge conversation about this in every creative writing class I'm in. The effect that any word has depends entirely on the context in which it is used. The best example for this is probably 'Huckleberry Finn'. The "N" word is all over that book, but it is not a racist book. In fact it is quite the opposite, showing that Blacks and African Americans are human in all regards at a time when people thought that wasn't so. It all comes down to context. I wouldn't shy away from using racial slurs in a work if I had a good literary reason for it. But I wouldn't just put them in for shock value. That sort of writing is almost always poor and carries little to no meaning other then to make money off of controversy.


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## TakeWalker (May 19, 2010)

Poetigress said:


> But when it _is_ done well, it adds to the immersion in the story world. For example, when "silflay hraka" is used in _Watership Down_, that language to me actually carries more weight and power (and less overall silliness, in fact) than "eat shit" would have in its place, because I've been exposed to those words many times in various contexts by that point, so the recognition is there.



Hoi hoi, u embleer hrair! M'saion ule hraka vair!



panzergulo said:


> Suksi vittuun!



That's what I get for not checking my list of swear words first. 



M. Le Renard said:


> I should start using this one.  Go ski into a cunt!  The image that brings to mind is just hilarious.



Do you now begin to understand my obsession with the Finns? :3

I have little of substance to add, except that this thread has suddenly gotten me wondering about the creation of racial epithets amongst fictional races. I'll have to think about that some more.


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## jinxtigr (May 20, 2010)

I love making up alien swears- if I switch genres later I'll really miss it 

I've got felines who curse, "Chos!" It translates as 'don't care' or 'whatever', and is used only in situations where to not care would be appalling and inappropriate- obscene.

I've got lizard/snake people who curse 'Is!' as a sort of summary of a fatalistic viewpoint- like 'that which exists, exists, there is no greater obscenity than simply to have to put up with it all'. Similar in that the obscenity is not sexual or what's-the-word-for-shit-oriented... but attitude-oriented.

I'm given to understand French obscenity is more religious than sexual. I think I've had a character (my canines are rather British in style) say something along the lines of, "Obscenity! You know, like fucking or (sotto voce) _number_ _two..._" which is a gag specifically about how he'll cheerfully f-bomb but the scatalogical (THAT'S the word!) totally shakes him...

The toughest one for me is, my alien characters will sometimes try REALLY HARD to say 'Jesus!' and I really can't have them doing that. It's tough because the moments that make a character go "Jesus..." specifically don't make them go "Shit..." or "Fuck...", and I've never really found a good substitute.


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## KatmanDu (May 20, 2010)

It all depends on the character, and what their normal mode of speech is. If it's in character for the person to swear like a sailor, that's how they'll speak; if not, no. I'm not too averse to made-up swearing, as long as it's not blatantly obvious that the word was substituted just to avoid using a real swear word... if it's an alternative or alien culture with phrases that don't translate well ("Ski into the cunt"... heh heh!) it seems perfectly natural to have the character use such a phrase; or phrases that might seem to translate into a recognizable analogue but are far worse in that culture ("Yob tvoyu mat'!")


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## Nerdywolf (May 23, 2010)

I personally only use swears if they pertain to a characters personality, or a strong situation. I don't have any problem with using them frequently, I just prefer to save them for strong moments to increase the intensity. Not being a critic, just throwing in my 2 cents worth


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## quoting_mungo (May 26, 2010)

Like PT touched on, it does largely come down to what makes cultural sense. I try to keep "hell" as a curse out of my fantasy writing because few if any of the religions of the setting have that concept. Using it would be silly. I do have a character who uses "fuck" as punctuation, as well, so it's not a matter of shying away from real-world curses, just cultural consideration.

Also, in a multicultural context (typical fantasy world with a bazillion races) there may be more motivation to invent curses. One race makes references to their deity, another to their detested natural predators, a third has a mild obsession with parentage and insults that've stuck around since a war many generations ago, which refer to their enemies in that war. 

Which to me makes more sense than having people from widely differing cultural contexts use the same swears. (Even speaking the same language, people don't do that in our world. I have different standards for the hierarchy of English curse words than native speakers, derived from the severity of the closest equivalent in my native tongue.)


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## Threetails (May 26, 2010)

I'm a fan of the precision-guided F-Missile myself.

You know, the big flying "fuck" that hits when it counts.

â€œEnough!â€ Laz shouted. â€œI have had just about enough of you, Vinz! You can be
so petty and selfish. Why don't you take a look around you and get your head around things for
once? This isn't about you, wolf. We're all in big trouble and there's no one to help us so either
give us a hand or fuck off!â€


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## Thou Dog (Jun 2, 2010)

There's room for invented swearing, when you're consistent about it and don't necessarily use it to replace the swear-words that readers are familiar with so much as complement them.

For example, we all know what "By the Prophet's beard!" means, as an oath. Having the character say "What the fucking hell?" might convey the same idea of his reaction, but it doesn't tell us anything about the things he finds sacred. If that's part of the story (that is, if a person's religion and spiritual life is relevant), he should swear in terms of what he considers sacred at least some of the time. (E.g., "By the Prophet's beard!" or "Emperor's guts!" or "God in Heaven!", you know, whatever.)


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## Volpino (Jun 7, 2010)

A quote in a quote: Russell W. Asplund in issue 20/21 of _The Leading Edge_ magazine is quoting Tom Stoppard in _Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead_. Russ is talking about fantasy seeming less and less fantastic. 


> A man breaking his journey between one place and another...sees a unicorn cross his path and disappear. That in itself is startling, but there are precedents for mystical encounters of various kinds, or to be less extreme, a choice of persuasion to put it all down to fancy; until--'My God,' says a second man, 'I must be dreaming. I thought I saw a unicorn." At this point, a dimension is added that makes the experience as alarming as it will ever be. A third witness, you understand, adds no further dimension, but only spreads it thinner, and a fourth thinner still, and the more witnesses there are the thinner it gets and the more reasonable it becomes until it as thin as reality... 'Look, look!' recites the crowd, 'A horse with an arrow in its forehead! It must have been mistaken for a deer.'



     The phrase I find often associated with profanity of all kinds is "in vain." The words are used so much and in so many different ways that they have ceased having any value, literary or otherwise. Used one or twice, they might possibly be somewhat effective, but in most cases, they are just a horse with an arrow stuck in its head.

      The use of things like that strike me as an obvious crutch. To me the author is saying, "I lack the skill to get a proper emotive response from my reader, so I'm resorting to something that might have shock value to some." The truth though, is that there's no way to predict if there's any shock value left to such phrases.


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## M. LeRenard (Jun 7, 2010)

For the reason you pointed out, you can't actually use swears as a crutch anymore, or for shock value.  So I don't think anyone does, except maybe for little kids who are still wary of them, or Puritans.  They've become part of the rhythm of the language now, actually, and that's how, if you're going to use them, they should be used.
If you're using them solely as an emotional crutch, or for shock value, yeah, you're doing it wrong, or your style is out of date by about 200 years.  But to say they have _no_ value is a little ignorant and unimaginative.
There are a few passages in _Les MisÃ©rables_ about the merits of cussing and slang talk.  Victor Hugo felt a need to include them as a sort of apology for a certain line uttered by a certain soldier, and for the use of all sorts of 18th century gangster talk he included throughout the book.  I'd find them for you, but I seem to have misplaced my copy.  And it's about 30 pages of French that I'd have to translate.  The general gist, though, is that curses and slang words have an incredibly rich history that, if one decides to follow it, delves deeply into the culture of the underworld across the centuries and across the continents.  Actually a pretty fascinating subject.  Maybe consider looking into it.


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## DawnDragon (Jun 15, 2010)

One thing with profanity, though, is it loses all meaning in the story if it's overused. Having the word 'fuck' appear at the climax of your story can help the reader realize how dramatic the situation is; if every other word is 'fuck' through the story, the reader will quickly stop noticing.


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