goer.org

« Off to Yahoo! | Main | Commercials We'd Like To See »

Swearing Up A Storm(bringer)

"I do have a cause, though. It's obscenity. I'm for it." - Tom Lehrer

I've been flipping through some of the fantasy novels from my youth, the big medieval fantasy paperweight novels -- you know, those books. One interesting characteristic they share is that there is very little swearing. Oh, there's indirect swearing. "Lord Kelvin muttered a vile oath" or "Kazragh the Bold cursed in impotent rage" or some such. But throughout the entire 5,000 page series, there's not a "fuck" or "shit" to be found. Why is that? It's not like this is protecting the delicate ears of our children. Explicit sex scenes? Check. Impalings? Check. Desanguinations, decapitations, massacres? Check, check, check. Foul language? Weirdly excised.

Science fiction does much better on this account. Yes, certain novels have experimented with silly made-up "futuristic" swear words^[1], but for the most part, science fiction has its act together. And of course, there are many fine counter-examples of medieval fantasy authors that use foul language and use it well, such as Glen Cook and Steven Brust. Still, a huge chunk of medieval fantasy simply has no swearing at all. Unfortunately, this has infected my writing style. I'll start writing, "[Character X] cursed..." and then I'll stop. Wait, wouldn't it be better to write down what Character X actually said? Is there a good reason to be indirect here? Usually not.

Real medieval people (like real Old West people) no doubt swore a lot, maybe even more than we do. Now clearly, medieval fantasy characters should not think and act like 21st-century North Americans -- for starters, they're probably speaking a completely alien language. It's just that in the author's "translation" to Modern English, they ought to sound natural to us. Leaving out all the swear words is just as big a mistake as using stilted "high medieval" dialogue.

Anyway, the upshot is that I'm still confused about why medieval fantasy usually has explicit sex, always has very explicit violence, but tends to elide the coarse language. What is it about medieval fantasy that makes it different from other genres, such as science fiction, thrillers, mysteries, or even non-medieval fantasy?

1. You could always argue that the language has evolved, and words such as "frelling" are incredibly shocking to people in the 25th century or whatnot. However, I submit that the only reason you should inject new words into the language is to evoke a particular feeling in your 21st century reader, not your imaginary 25th century characters. And in this 21st century reader, "frelling" evokes the feeling that your tough-as-nails space mercenary is a wussie who wouldn't survive a five minute stroll in downtown Los Altos.

Posted by Evan Goer on May. 15, 2005 at 1:09 PM | Comments (3)

Post a comment

Name

Email Address

URL (Optional, but hides your email address)

Are you a spammer? Yes No (REQUIRED — you must select "No" to post.)

Remember personal info?

NOTE: For mysterious reasons, comment posting is extremely slow right now. It can take from 30-60 seconds after you hit "Submit" for your comment to post. However, your comment will go through; you shouldn't need to click the button again.

Comment Syntax

The basics:

• For a new paragraph, enter two carriage returns.
• Plain URLs such as http://www.yahoo.com automatically become links.
• The system encodes all angle brackets and ampersands. For example, if you try to enter a HTML paragraph, the system displays the open tag literally as "<p>".

Show advanced syntax