A Critique of Modern Swearing

This is the piece that I read at Beat Night, July 21, 2011, which seems to have caused someone to unfriend and block me on Facebook.

I hate the way we swear, either in oath or curse. This is no social criticism, but an artistic one. In exasperation even Jews and Atheists will say “For Christ’s sake!”
           “For Christ’s sake, will you hurry up?”
            If you don’t care about Christ why would his sake matter? That’s like saying “Take your time”, almost hipsterish in its useless irony.

            When I swear so it’s by something that matters to me:
           “For the love of fucking would you hurry up?”

For an oath people say “So help me God” or “May God strike me dead…”

Just words from most people. Your oath needs collateral, to be backed by a currency more stable than air:

“If I lie may my vocabulary evaporate, and my manly bits wither like paper in fire.”
            For short: “By my cock, it’s true.”

At the very least one should swear by deities one actually believes in.

“By the Almighty Murphy’s hairy and pendulous man-boobs, I tell you true!”

            In general people don’t consider the meaning of the words they say. Even when using clean language to be unkind, we get it stupid. Men will call each other “woman” to suggest inferiority and worthlessness. That’s stupid. I love women, so if a man is worthless he couldn’t possibly be one.

That calls into question other commonly abused words of insult: “Pussy” means coward? For the love of fucking, I love pussy, and hate cowards, so they can’t share a word.

            Unfortunately I’m having to give up my favorite Anglo-Saxon word based on this logic, but that word could get me burned at the stake or gelded in the US, though I use it the UK manner in place of Asshole. Yes, the Cunt Word is fading from my usage. So is twunt, a Neologism of obvious origin.

That brings me to my final point about swearing. When swearing AT someone we intend to unbalance them, to disarm them through shock or anger. How can phrases we’ve all heard do this to someone who isn’t stupid?

            There’s a Northern Irish comic book writer named Garth Ennis with such a gift for rhetorical crudeness that I will often forget the plot of story, as I mull the meaning of a phrase.

“Shower of Cunts! You’re a shower of fuckin’ cunts!” said one of his characters. I felt clubbed in the head by this, and surely would have surrendered in any argument with the author. All I could think about was how I couldn’t extract a real meaning for the phrase, and that it fit perfectly to the tune of the Addam’s Family theme. (The band joined me with finger snapping for a brief rendition of the theme.)
            People will say “Fuck you” when angry.

            “No thanks, I’m seeing someone.”

            Or “Blow me.”

            “Nah, I prefer innies.”

            But if someone said “Fuck your mouth in the ass!” I’d have no reply.
            Off the rack phrases are powerless, and words have meanings.

So, by the briney rumpled foreskin of Poseidon, & for the love of all that’s fuckable think before you cunting swear!