contains strong language
I'll start off by thanking Adam (superior, almighty, omnipotent blog admin) for making me think about this topic. I'll then thank this picture bellow for making me think about it even more.
 |
| not lowering the tone of this blog in the slightest........ |
It made me think that words are just words, unless they're not words. This has been a difficult article to write as I didn't want to just go along stating the obvious while also finding that all of my points are very closely related and as such are hard to split up.
So to start off, the thing that started this was Adam saying that "No one builds up to 'Cu**' any more, they should start with bastard and wanker and go on from there".
At the time I agreed but then, after some thought I didn't, sort of. In the company me and Adam liaise with, it is generally acceptable to say any word (sometimes including C**t). By jove you say, what an uncultured, caddish youth we possess in England. But the thing is, the words are acceptable as they have lost their offensive meaning and instead have become staple words in a vocabulary. 'Shit' being the most useful but everything else having it's place.
At the same time though, none of us (as far as I know) wouldn't swear in other contexts like in a family environment. Showing that the words still have meaning, but only in set contexts.
One observation I make is that it's not what is being said, but who is saying it and how. For instance if I tell someone to f**k off, if they're a friend they won't, and carry on doing whatever it was they were doing, but if they were the pope they would (and then return with security of some sort). I don't doubt that the situation would be the same from the Pope's point of view if he was the one swearing.
 |
| He doesn't even give a care |
The second observation I make is that maybe **nt is all we have left, the only word still bleeped out after 10:00pm on TV, other words have lost some of their meaning and saying cu** now is like saying piss was a few years ago. In effect we are not working up to saying c*n*, but merely using it as the starting block. The only problem is though, is that there aren't any words higher than it (apart from actual insults specific to the insulted). The solution to this then, is to make up some new words that are even more taboo, or re-purpose some old ones and make them offensive again.
So in conclusion I feel like I've waffled a bit and haven't really made any points but I don't know, I just can't be f*c**d.