Literary Profanity

Seeing as profanity ain't allowed elsewhere why not fuckin well start one here.

What's wrong with a few expletives scattered around, they're words like any others, they just give a little more emphasis to what's being said or thought.

Or would you modedit: "I'm the Goddamn batman"

 

"Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn." Gone with the Wind.
Most famous literary swear of all time.

 

Oh boy. *Backs away hands raised* Umm... bad day at the office?

 

If you're asking what I would do, if I got to edit Frank Miller? Yeah, the red pen would have been applied to the manuscript, liberally, because he hates that. Then he would have eaten that book, page by page, while it was still saturated in that same red ink, before he read a dictionary and was forced to write the definition of 'hero' out ten thousand times. Then I'd hire a better writer.

And 'cos you only speak swear: Shit, I had to type "Frank Miller" to reply, you fucking twazzok.

 

Alright, I get it, I get it.

 

Actually that is an interesting question. Is it the profanity that gives emphasis or is emphasis given to the profanity?

"This book is bloody stupid." can be said casually, while this "This book is rather stupid." can be made damning, just by the way that the speaker places emphasis in the sentence.

Note one good example is Gone with the Wind, quoted above. When it was filmed, Rhett Butler placed the emphasis on 'give', not 'damn'*, and it made it more obvious Rhett had simply given up.

(*The decision to play it that way was taken by the studio).

Frank Miller is now in his own thread in Bookchat TeaRoom, being deserving of a more considered vivisection.

 

I have often found in the books I have read that profanity is used more and more as an excuse for lazy writing, a poor effort to try and extract some feeling or understanding from the reader when an ability to use a more intelligent description has eluded them.

That is not to say that swearing does not have its place, it's a natural reaction in certain situations to let expletives fly. But that doesn't mean they should be used as a catch-all when a lack of ideas strikes.

 

Is this thread about the use of swearing in literature, a place to vent all our frustrations, or what? I don't know how to avoid a hijack if I don't know what the thread is discussing. If it is about the role of swearing, I have a copy of Reader's post to TyrantNinja from last year...

I wouldn't post it because it is a good slap down, but only for the analysis. Cross my heart.

 

<hijack> I'm trying to imagine a Tarantino movie without swearing </hijack>

Does make you wonder though, is getting overused. So many words that 50 years ago would have had you cut off from everyone are pretty much commonplace today. Any power to shock has gone and it's become just another declaration of something something something....

 

Yeah, but now its more funny than anything. Think Shaun of the Dead. All the swearing happens before the zombies and its played for laughs. Once it get serious, the language stops.

What really says "we're all gonna die" more?
a) "Oh shit, oh fuck, we're buggered, f'd etc. etc." and on and on.
b) "They have a cave troll."
c) "We need a bigger boat."

 

That is true, after a while you tend to blank out the curse words on the grounds that they often don't mean anything.

It's like typing in ALL CAPS or using lots of !!!!!!

 

If profanity works as part of the story why not, but if it replaces the story, plot, and character then it gets boring.

 

Given that a lot of people swear naturally, doesn't it sometimes seem odd to you if they don't swear when they are speaking in novels.

Sometimes, it adds a lot of character to a character if they are effing and blinding most of the time.

 

There's a difference between a character swearing when he talks and the author doing it in non-spoken text. In first person I'd expect more of it, if it's the character's voice, but in third it just sounds forced.

Porridge, I choose c) and if you saw the 25th anniversary in the cinema with surround sound, so would you!

 

Here's something amusing for you all.

A petition is going around to do a Kid Friendly version of Deadpool for aged 13 upwards given he is a comic book character (have the parents never seen the Deadpool comics?)

Given the content, I'm pretty sure this is only likely to work in its R-Rated version. Could they cut it down or would it turn out as bad as the hilariously terrible daytime version of Robocop?

 

My brain broke.

 

Yeah, but he's a well known comic book character and there are probably a lot of kids who would love to see it especially as they can go and see all the other comic book movies.

If they did, I wonder if they would go the black bar for nudity and violence and bleeps for swearing or if it would just be 20 minutes long instead.

 

Having seen the film, 20 minutes would be if you were lucky.