I solemnly swear...

[undyingking]

I'm trying to do something to sort out my swearing. Not whether I do too much of it or not -- that's a subject for another day, and for the disapproving parents of any children who might be listening. But I'm concerned that most of my swearing doesn't really make sense. Can you help? Things I feel I should exclude:

• Parts of the body -- what's insulting about calling someone after a part of the body? We've all got one (or, more often, about half of us have got one). Some of the parts commonly so used are actually among my favourites, and even the others are very usefully functional. So I think to implicitly malign them in such comparisons is nonsensical. Likewise normal bodily functions and waste products.


• Sexual practices -- whether or not I indulge in, or even approve of them, myself, I don't think it makes sense to impute specific sexual practices to the insultee. Outside the world of swearing I wouldn't dream of judging someone on the basis of their sexual preferences, so how can it work as an insult?


• Suggesting their parents weren't married -- really now, we're living in the 21st century guys. This is true of half the kids I know, and nothing wrong with that.


• Blasphemy -- generating invective via terms associated with religious belief makes no sense if you're a believer yourself, and even less if you're not.


• Euphemisms associated with any of the above -- should also be excluded, for the obvious reason.

That doesn't seem to leave much! Any ideas?

[Poll #1359991]

Comments

[mr-malk.livejournal.com]

I do see your point (Oo-er missus, more tea vicar? Etc...), but I don't entirely agree that the categories you use are invalid...
Body parts and excretions. The usefulness of such a body part is not really the issue is it? However functional, pleasurable or indispensable you consider a penis to be, to call someone a prick is to imply that they can be summed up by the attributes of that organ, which most people would consider insulting. Likewise, the direct association with shit as a smelly, unhygienic waste-product is quite insulting in its own right, whether you are using it as a stand-alone exclamation, or to say someone is one or is full of it. I don't see your problem there.

Sexual practises. OK, the use of "fucking" (and similar) for such a broad variety of uses is simply unimaginative, and often does not make any sense whatsoever, so I'm with you on that one. The phonetic constructing of the word "fuck", with a fricative, followed by a short vowel, ending in a velar plosive does make for a good exclamation though. On the other hand, although many people may be part-time onanists, being described as a wanker again implies that this sums them up completely. Whether someone is insulted by it (or anything else) is a matter for them, and only partly dependent on the intention of the speaker. "You jammy fucker!" said by a friend that you have just beat at pool is less likely to be taken as offensive than "You fucker!!!" shouted a passing motorist who has just carved you up.

Illegitimacy. Yes. Odd one that. Using it as an insult pretty much says that you consider it a shameful thing, and might thereby cause more offence to someone of whom it is literally true. Of course there is also the linguistic connection with "base" (extrapolated and railed against by Edmund the Bastard in King Lear, which also makes the point that the parents of illegitimate offspring might well have had more fun in the creative process than a couple who have been married for a long time). If you are conscious of not wanting to imply that being born out of wedlock is a bad thing, probably best not to use it. Personally, I will continue, as I would mourn the loss of the verb "to bastardise" if I dropped it.

Blasphemy. This originated with swearing by something you hold sacred, doesn't it? These days, it's just using "God" or "Jesus" (or something) as a substitute for an exclamation. I try and avoid it I must admit, but then I am a God-botherer. I still like the archaic constructions that were used to avoid taking the name of the Lord in vain.

Anyway, going back to the general point, I think that the greatest problem is lack of originality or imagination. If I really want to insult someone, I don't usually swear at all (unless I know that swearing really offends them), but will try to think of the most insulting or sometimes dismissive description of them that I can, preferably without using anything that would allow my invective to be dismissed as mere prejudice.

Since you asked.

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

to imply that they can be summed up by the attributes of that organ, which most people would consider insulting

That would certainly be important if I'm considering primarily the effect on the insultee. But my point is that it's intellectually dissatisfying to just partake in this as a convention, when I don't myself feel that there's anything "really" insulting about such a comparison.

[mr-malk.livejournal.com]

Aah, well that being the case, I would just refer you to the last paragraph of what I wrote. One can spend a long while coming up with creative and imaginative insults, and indeed exclamations, whether they involve conventional swearing or not.

I did try using "France" as a general purpose curse at one time, inspired only slightly by Douglas Adams' use of "Belgium" in the same way, but it never really stuck. I think because a fricative leading to a sibilant did not have a really satisfying feel to it, as an exclamation.