‘C’ what I’m saying?
Swearing, swearing, swearing…why would a writer make his own work obscene? It’s not big and it’s not clever. No it isn’t. But it might be true, it might be authentic and indeed it might even be necessary.
I did wonder. I mean I had a fairly good idea that I would be parading my foulmouthed story in front of friends and relations first. What would my mother think? Would I embarrass my children?
Jings!
But for a start I myself swear a lot. And mostly it’s deliberate. I have worked in many jobs where I am in no way the worst offender. The ground crew at Edinburgh Airport were a most expletive bunch. The howff (where we waited in between planes) was a veritable ‘Temple of Tourette’s’. Merely swearing was never enough to be offensive in that environment! You had to be imaginative if you genuinely wanted to offend someone!
The world I depict in my novel ‘Bricks’ is one I know well and it simply would not have been authentic without swearing. I don’t particularly enjoy swearing but I certainly would not dispense with it. Life and what happens is not always pretty and we need a vocabulary that expresses this. While constant swearing is monotonous and quickly loses its bite, the sparing use of obscenities can be effective, pithy and funny. Or all three. That’s why I use it and that is why the characters in ‘Bricks use it too.
As with everything in life it’s all about balance. The regular vocabulary of ‘Bricks’ changes slowly- hopefully almost subliminally as things develop in the novel. ‘Bricks’ covers a range of aspects of life and moves from a place of very low life ascending to the refined heights of a…building site. So you can see a spot of lurid expression is obligatory.
My only personal problem with swearing is one of misinterpretation. And this over one word in particular. That word is of course the ‘C’ word. I like the ‘C’ word primarily because it is practically the last proper swear word. This is the last shocker. Trendy comedians and hipster types can ‘mothergoose’ all over the place Donald Ducking and diving. But the ‘C’ word remains the last of the hand grenades under the toilet door. It’s the last of the conversation ending jaw droppers. I love the ‘C’ word. But there is a problem.
The ‘C’ word features in the opening of chapter one in the novel as read by me in the accompanying soundfile for this blog. I employ it in an almost literal sense and so its use here is deliberate considered and weighted. But in fact it is not like me to be quite so literal with it.
And my only fear in using the word at all is as I’ve mentioned above, one of misinterpretation. Some people deem its use to be misogynist. Now I don’t suppose that there is a lot I can do about that. It is up to other people what they make of my work and appearing misogynist is a risk I have to be prepared to make when I decide to use that word. But that’s not how I mean it.
It is interesting that most of our swear words are related to matters either sexual or toiletry. Yet that literal meaning is only present in the vaguest form and is there to offer context rather than definition. As I’ve said my use of the ‘C’ word in this reading is unusually close to etymology. But more usually a ‘C’ is an awful person who has nothing whatsoever to do with ladies.
There is a whole spectrum of descriptive words derived from these areas. To demonstrate that literal interpretations are not cogent to this argument try thinking of what might be the difference between someone described as a ‘C’ as opposed to someone described as a ‘fanny’.
See! Utterly different connotations come to mind and none of these are particularly closely related to those word's identical source meanings.
Yes swearing is art. Swearing conveys the moods and language of a certain range of registers. I’m sorry if my choice of language has made your reading of my novel less comfortable than it might have been. But it had to be there. It’s not just filth!
And anyway if the use of the ‘C’ word makes me a misogynist in the eyes of some (and I swear I’m not) then they must at least owe me the honour of balancing that out! The C word is surely cancelled out by the ‘P’ word with which the first sentence of the novel ejaculates! Thus if you have me as a misogynist you must also have me as a misandrist and so it’s all cancelled out! Very PC! Aye we must all mind our Ps and Qs mustn’t we?
I just hope I haven’t made too much of a cunt of myself.
