Swears. Obscenities. Foul Language. Four letter words. Curses. Gutter talk.

 We all know the words and hear them quite regularly, like it or not. In terms of writing, I’ve recently had an issue related to swearing in the novel I’m writing – not enough of it. No ——. For real. One of my “beta readers” was kind enough to read and critique the manuscript, specifically in order to decide if it works for today’s community college students.  Generally, she liked it – good!  However, she thought that the main character might not be edgy enough – and that the language might not ring true – not enough slang or four letter words.  The swears were conspicuous by their absence. I would not have thought it noticeable, and am now contemplating sprinkling a few choice words here and there, peppering the manuscript, so to speak.

 It’s a funny thing – swearing. I don’t swear much myself, and neither did my mother or grandmother who raised me and my siblings. Not to say a bad word doesn’t escape once in a while under duress. But I try not to make it a habit, perhaps from training, and also as a teacher of English.  I seem to be in the minority. My husband swears a fair amount, and also my two boys, who spend a lot of time playing sports and video games with other boys.  When they are downstairs in the family room, I hear plenty of colorful language tossed around, along with the occasional F-bomb. I don’t like it in my presence, or when we have company, especially older relatives – and I say so. The boys will tell you that they will be carrying on a conversation with friends over a video game, and I will be yelling from the next room “Language!”  It’s not so much a moral point, as using language thoughtfully and appropriately. I confess I find it a bit easier to take hearing the words out of boy’s mouths, rather than girls. But when I asked my older son if all the girls his age swear, he said “Yes.” I asked if he could think of any who didn’t swear, and he came up with one name.

 A losing game, I’m afraid.  We’ve traveled too far down the slippery slope. Swear words are all over the movies, music, and more and more on TV.  Grandmothers use them, and not long ago, a middle-aged woman gave me the finger when I (inadvertently) cut her off at a turn. “What do you think of that?” I asked the boys. A couple years ago, I began to see blue language in some of my students’ essays – they considered it “realistic”. I’ll never forget the day a student came up to me and said, “Ms. McCormack, I don’t know what the hell I’m doing.” To which I replied, pointing at myself, “English teacher, here.”  He actually didn’t get it right away. I saw in the newspaper that swearing at someone, even a police officer, in public can no longer be ticketed as public nuisance. Instead, it is guaranteed under right to free speech.

 Don’t get me wrong. I like language, even and sometimes especially colorful language. In the movie, “The Commitments”, the Dublin-based characters swear up a blue streak that is quite delightful, in context – their lives are pretty shitty, if you’ll excuse the language.  Especially how they say “fook” – makes me smile every time. And for the most part, I download songs with explicit lyrics, rather than cleaned up. “Little Lion Man’ by Mumford and Sons just isn’t right when they delete out “I really fucked it up this time, didn’t I, my dear?” That’s art, that’s fine. My sister, who is a therapist in a Bible-belt section Michigan, says that she encourages some of her patients to swear, to release tension, and express themselves, let their anger out. Also, fine. 

 But where does it end? I’m no purist, especially in language. Shakespeare’s characters swear.  I don’t like any language, swears or not, that denigrates – “gay” is not a swear, but it’s used to hurt. I guess I just don’t like how it is sometimes a substitute for other words, or obscures true meaning. And, in the end, I think it’s another defensive maneuver, the tough outside shield that some people feel a need to put up. Or else, a price that people are willing to pay to belong to what they perceive as a group of people who know how to use words as weapons, a kind of power to cut down, if not to support.