A friend of mine recently created his own blog on the recommendation of an English professor. For the record, she's the same prof that encouraged me to continue believing I'm the superior writer I think I am. You can judge for yourself whether it's working. Anyhow, he made a post the other night that essentially asked the question that I think I was trying to get around to in a post that I wrote a couple years ago. You can check out his site and find the post if you need proof of how effectively he got the idea across compared to my random desperate flailing and eventual collapse due to laziness (when in doubt, condense!).
Being the antagonizing bastard I am, I felt obligated to comment on his post with my loudmouthed opinion. And being the lazy schlub that I also am, I decided to post a version of that comment here, edited to read like I wrote it especially for you ladies and gents. So here it is:
With regards to profanity in literature, people often like to bring up the objection that “writers should have the vocabulary to make profanity obsolete.” However, I believe that in order to take that position, you have to believe that there is actually such a thing as a "bad word."
I have to break this news to you, tough...it’s not words’ fault. They’re just letters mushed together. It’s the thought behind the word that gives it meaning. If you feel, for example, that Allen Ginsberg's “Howl” was insubstantial blather, then that’s what it is to you. But each word was connected to an emotion that Ginsberg had felt and that many of his readers had also felt so the words mean far more to them whether they were profane or not.
The words that we call “obscene” are still words that exist in the list of words we can create. As time has passed, they’ve been stuck with the meanings we give them. If not those words, some other words we haven’t invented yet would be our swear words. But being that they are part of our language, if a writer is good enough, he or she could use nothing BUT curse words and still write something amazing.
The words that we call “obscene” are still words that exist in the list of words we can create. As time has passed, they’ve been stuck with the meanings we give them. If not those words, some other words we haven’t invented yet would be our swear words. But being that they are part of our language, if a writer is good enough, he or she could use nothing BUT curse words and still write something amazing.
I think that words shouldn’t be chosen based on the context they fit but that the words create context. There’s no such thing as an appropriate situation to use a certain word, but an infinite string of situations in which the write can choose to implant any words he or she deems appropriate.
With a hearty "fuck you",
- Sad Blogger
