There's nothing wrong with a little profanity, and if you think there is, go suck on a dead dog's ass till its head caves in

WHAT'S WRONG WITH A LITTLE FUCKIN' PROFANITY PEOPLE? -- BY DAVIDA MARION

The first time I called someone an asshole was in 3rd grade. I had no idea what the word meant, only that when I yelled it at one of the guys I was playing football with, everyone else laughed and cheered. For a nerdy, awkward, eight-year-old girl with no friends, that cheer was like a million dollars.

My parents yelled the first couple times they heard me curse, and then that anger -- for no obvious reason -- gradually gave way to indifference. Occasionally, when I cursed in front of my younger brother my mom would snap at me, but it made no difference. ‘Curse’ words were a part of my vocabulary, a part of my language.

The power of profanity is undeniable: People react when I curse. But when you think about it, there’s nothing inherently wrong with saying ‘fuck.’ Sure, the first dictionary definition is ‘to copulate (www.oed.com),’ and if you think sex is dirty, maybe the word ‘fucking’ means something dirty to you. But if you think copulating is healthy and normal, then what’s the problem with fucking?

Now that I’m older (and have spent some quality time reading linguistic theory) I have come to realize that people react to curses because they expect to be offended by them. Someone posted a response to one of my columns accusing me of having a potty mouth, specifically saying my use of the phrase ‘sucked major ass,’ came across as ‘crass, lazy, and vulgar.’

Wallace Stegner, himself no stranger to profanity, wrote in a 1965 essay for the Atlantic Monthly that, ‘ëfrank’ does not mean ëvulgar,’ Ö what vulgar does mean is ëcommon.’’ Stegner’s point was that using profanity when profanity serves a purpose is warranted. The problem lies in using words haphazardly or to such excess that they become meaningless or ‘comic.’ He called this ‘the sin of false emphasis,’ and noted that it is ‘not a moral but a literary lapse.’ As a student of language and someone who respects the power of a good curse word, I can assure you neither that particular post nor any of my posts use profanity to such a degree that the words become meaningless; I use the language that best expresses what I am trying to say.

What if being ‘crass [and] vulgar’ is my intention? The phrase in question described the young adult section of my local library, which was a crass and vulgar place. It was smelly, dark, and the selection was piss-poor. (Should I not write ‘piss’? Does that offend you?) So why not use the phrase ‘sucked major ass?’ It seems to me that those words functioned exactly as I intended them to, expressing my revulsion (to suck ass is revolting to most) and disappointment in a tone befitting the casual nature of my medium, and provoking a visceral reaction from my colleague. So was using the most appropriate phrase for that situation lazy? Or was it composed, deliberate writing? In the same essay, Stegner noted that the problem is not the use of profanity, but rather, ‘the use of a loaded word in the wrong place or in the wrong quantity.’ But that’s true with any word, loaded or otherwise; you gotta know when and where to place language to use it to its full advantage, and that includes understanding why certain words will provoke a stronger reaction in your readers.

My use of profanity isn’t designed to shock anyone; I assume anyone who is reading my blog is mature enough not to reject my language point-blank because it is perhaps outside her comfort zone. And I don’t use profanity willy-nilly. (Willy, by the way, is a euphemism for penis!)

There is a clear historical precedent for using ‘taboo’ words in written work. Ol’ Shakespeare himself was absolutely filthy; even the stuff that got through the censors is pretty raunchy. Did you know that the word ‘come’ had the exact same slang meaning in his time that it does in ours? So when Cleopatra, in Act IV, scene xiii of Antony and Cleopatra , rants ‘But come, come, Antony, -- /Ö come, come, come’ Shakespeare is making a sexual joke. Whoa there, Shakespeare! Inappropriate! This is supposed to be a tragic scene, where Cleopatra is bemoaning her dying lover! And yet he thinks it’s an appropriate place for a little dirty double-entendre, and who am I to argue with the bard?

Using Shakespeare as an example also illustrates the artificiality and the transient nature of the power we attach to swear words. The word ‘come’ or, as it is sometimes written, ‘cum,’ is still slang for sexual climax. But there is plenty of terminology that Shakespeare used that was profanity, even though it no longer is. For example, the word ‘zounds,’ which is short for ‘God’s wounds,’ was extremely offensive during Shakespeare’s time, but is almost meaningless nowadays. The reverse could be said about the word ‘cunt;’ Chucer used it unblushingly in The Canterbury Tales -- "And privily he caught her by the queint (middle English for ‘cunt’), " -- so it couldn’t have been considered that obscene in the 14th century.

Relatively insignificant cultural divides can also render profanity impotent. Even today, ‘cunt’ carries much less weight in other English speaking countries than it does in the US. In the UK it can even be used affectionately, or as a slightly derogatory replacement noun.

Let’s look more closely at the word cunt though. This particular word, which refers to female genitalia, is considered extremely offensive in American society. Most people I know gasp if they hear the c-word. They’d much rather use -- if they have to use a word at all -- the clinical terminology (‘vulva,’ ‘vagina’) or other, more polite slang. (‘Pussy,’ ‘slit,’ ‘box,’ ‘coochie-snorter,’ the possibilities are endless.) But, cunt is actually a better descriptor for the female genitalia than the clinical terms: cunt is inclusive, whereas ‘vulva’ means the outside and ‘vagina’ means the inside, making it not a lazy term, but rather a precise one.

‘Fuck’ also has an undeservedly bad reputation. It describes a natural action, and, like ‘cunt’ it is, in reality, an accurate descriptor of said action. ‘Copulation’ and ‘Sexual intercourse’ are too clinical for casual speech or writing, ‘coitus’ refers only to male-female genital sex, and ‘making love’ is sappy and equates sex with love in a nonsensical and misleading way. (Besides the fact that ‘love’ is a manmade construct, if it does truly exist, and the concept of ‘making’ love flies right in the face of that construct.)

But swear words are a self-fulfilling prophecy. The word cunt is offensive because people take offense to the word cunt, not because there is something inherently offensive about the combination of the letters c, u, n, and t. If everyone decided not to throw a shit-fit every time a political figure got caught using a ‘naughty’ word, naughty words wouldn’t exist. Words are meaningless until we give them meaning.

There’s been a bit of a brouhaha because President Bush was caught using the word ‘shit’ in a casual conversation with British Prime Minister Tony Blair about the conflict between Israel and Lebanon. And I think that is ridiculous. Who cares? He has the right to use whatever language he thinks is appropriate. In a way, hearing him say ‘shit’ makes me think he might actually give a shit about the situation in the Middle East.

So I am going to continue to say, ‘fuck,’ or ‘sucked major ass’ whenever I think it’s appropriate. Perhaps I will alienate some of my readers, but I think the majority of them are intelligent enough to understand what I’m saying, and understand that curse words are just like any other words in a writer’s toolbox, and they are only power words if we, ourselves, give them power.