Keep the F-Word Vulgar

**ScrewMoonshine** · December 7, 2010 @ 11:57 AM

Originally Posted by Lyn McConchie

Over the 20+ books I've sold and the 250+ stories, I've VERY rarely used obscenity. If I need some I often invent a word and I don't think that most situations require someone using a string of rude words unless it illuminates the character, or makes a strong point. But back in the early 1990s I discovered that one person's swearword can be another's description. I'd written a short story and offered it to MZB's fantasy magazine. A note came back from Marion saying she liked it and it would be accepted- if I would please remove the obscenity. I gaped at the letter. Obscenity? I was aware that the magazine sold to teenagers and I don't normally use obscenities anyhow. I read my story (What Happy Ending) read it again, couldn't find a single rude word...read it again - and a vague dim memory surfaced like a breaching whale. AH HA! I changed the word, and the story sold. What word? Well, it's one that is very commonly used in New Zealand as a precise description, you see it all the time in the classified adverts, in show reports, in newspaper stories here, but I gather in America it isn't used that way. What is it - bitch. Here it is a normal, usual, description of a female dog. She's a bitch. And I had used it exactly that way in my story, as a clear required description, the dog in question WAS a bitch. What are obscenities? Anything you think they are I guess.

Very cool story. I'm surprised that the editor didn't specify which obscenity she meant. It's not like typing "the word 'bitch'" takes significantly more time to type than "the obscenity".

But more to the point, it raises the interesting question of whether a word that has become an obscenity due to repeated use in certain contexts should still be considered an obscenity when used outside of those contexts. People already familiar with the word as an obscenity will immediately think of it in that way, of course. But such usage is harmless to people who aren't familiar with the word - and they're really the ones were concerned about.

A personal pet peeve of mine, though, is when people substitute a near-homonym: like, for example, "fudge!" Look, it's being used in the same context, to express the same emotion, and is rendering the substituted word in my mind--but dropping the "ck" and substituting the (apparently cleaner) letter combination "dge" is somehow keeping my mind from being further corrupted? Hmm?

Personally, I've never seen any real similarity between the f word and the expletive "Fudge!". They're different words, with completely different meanings. The f word is rarely even used in the same context as "fudge".

Robert Orme

**crystalwizard** · December 9, 2010 @ 1:35 AM

> it raises the interesting question of whether a word that has become an obscenity due to repeated use in certain contexts should still be considered an obscenity when used outside of those contexts.

That would depend on if the word in question has a valid meaning any more outside those contexts. Words morph, meanings change, the language is in flux.

Here's an example of such transition. The word quaint. Everyone I know who uses it, usually appends it the word cottage. And everyone I know intends it to mean an old-fashioned attractiveness or charm; oddly picturesque.

But an archaic meaning for it is wise or skilled.

I doubt seriously if anyone would understand you if you used it that way, however.

The same goes for cuss words. Does the cuss word in question actually still HAVE something that it means, that people understand it to mean, that isn't vulgar? You gave the example of the word bitch. A perfectly acceptable term if you're referring to a mother dog. The word hell is another perfectly acceptable term if you're using it as a noun, not an explicative.

**ScrewMoonshine** · December 10, 2010 @ 10:47 AM

Originally Posted by crystalwizard

That would depend on if the word in question has a valid meaning any more outside those contexts.

Yeah, naturally. And certainly it must be said that obscenities like "bitch" which still have a valid non-obscene meaning are in the minority. Most obscenities have reached the point where no one thinks of their original meaning. I still find it an interesting point to ponder, though.

Robert Orme