Colorful Language

Oh, dear me. I have company coming. I have been cleaning like a madwoman and have fallen so far behind on everything writerly. I missed my last scheduled Type M entry - mainly because I got a Covid booster the day before and as usual wasn't worth shooting the day after. I hope I'm not screwing up the schedule here by posting today, but I felt an irresistible urge to comment on Tom's wonderful entry on Curses, below... because I love curses.

 I love language altogether. I’ve always been fascinated by words and the mind-pictures they paint. I’m sure I come by it honestly. I've written stories since I could hold a pencil in my fist. Perhaps it's because my parents read to me from the cradle, or because I come from such a long line of tale-tellers. One of my grandmothers used to keep us fascinated for hours on end with her stories of life in the Kentucky mountains. Toward the end of my grandmother's life, one of my sisters asked her how much of what she had told us was true and she replied, "Well...some of it." So the truth is I didn't decide to become a writer. I'll quote the Achilles character in the movie "Troy"..."I didn't choose this life. I was born and this is what I am.”

My grandparents—and parents— had the most wonderful way of putting things. One grandma was born and raised in Kentucky and the others in Arkansas at the turn of the Twentieth Century. Their language  and vocabulary was absolutely Elizabethan. When Grandma went to garden over yonder, she put on her gauntlets and hunkered down to tend her “yarbs”.

Now, I of course, was desperate to get rid of my Oklahoma accent when I was young. Especially when I was traveling. My accent is not as strong as my parents’, nor was theirs as strong as their parents. My nieces and nephews sound more "standard" yet. But after years living away from my native place, I saw on a news program an interview with two young women from Tulsa. They sounded like Valley girls. I was shocked. What happened to that beautiful twang? That poetic way with words? ( That delightful Scotch-Irish combination of humor and fatalism? Oklahoma is what linguists call a “Transitional state”. My native Oklahoman husband, who comes from a different part of the state than I, has an accent that is different from mine. One thing I specifically wanted to do with the Alafair Tucker series was preserve something of a way of speaking that seems to be rapidly disappearing.

I've been known to use less than pristine epithets myself and find them extremely useful in times of stress.  In fact, a dear friend of mine who I have known since my salad days at the University of Oklahoma was at the time an extraordinarily innocent boy who on frequent occasions would curl your ears with the most astoundingly filthy curses known to man.  Because of his sweet face and gentle nature, the effect of this language was much less shocking than it was hilarious, and ever since, for good or ill,  I've had quite an affection for dirty words.

I grew up among people whose goal was to curse in the most imaginative language possible, which can really increase your vocabulary if you apply yourself.  My mother was particularly good at coming up with ways to express disapproval using only G-rated words.  One of her scariest curses was "I heap coals of fire upon him."  The words themselves weren't as frightening as her throaty growl and the curl of her lip over her eyetooth.  My father had been a Marine, and knew words that I don't understand to this day, but he had a house full of little daughters and controlled his language heroically.  He often had the pee-waddin' scared out of him and wondered what in the cat-hair was going on. 

So curse on, Tom. It's good for the soul.

Curses! When To Use Them!

 By Thomas Kies

Swearing, cursing…include it in your dialogue?  Don’t include it?  Does it make what your characters are saying any less authentic?  Will you p*** off readers if you DO include it?

Full disclosure, I have a deep well of vocabulary to draw from when it comes to blue language.  Generally, I reserve it for when I’m driving alone, and another driver does something stupid or dangerous or both.  As long as the windows are up, it’s mostly harmless.  If I forget that my window is down, well, I’ve gotten some interesting responses to my observations.

Swearing, technically referred to as "using intensifiers," can be a potent tool in a writer's arsenal. A well-placed curse can convey a character's emotion more effectively than an entire paragraph of description. However, it's a delicate balance. Get it wrong, and it can sound gratuitous, silly, or just plain stupid. Get it right and it’s a gut punch.

I think the rule of thumb should be to be true to your genre.  If you’re writing war fiction, if you don’t use slang and bad language, it’s not going to sound realistic. You may not swear as much as real soldiers in combat (they swear all the time), but you have to create some semblance of reality.  If you don’t use blue language, you’ll sound like dialogue from a movie from the 1940s.

I specialize in crime fiction.  Working for newspapers and magazines most of my life, I’ve known good guys and I’ve known bad guys and they all swear copiously.  Writing dialogue as realistic as that would be tiresome, but not including it would sound fake. I can’t have a drug dealer shout, “Gosh darn it all to heck!”  Nor can I have a police captain growl, “Golly, get those cuffs on that astronaut.”

Oh, and politicians?  Get them away from the public and they also have a colorful vocabulary.  Surprisingly so. 

Cursing in a love scene?  You’re using a whole different set of words, and we can talk about that at another time.  Use the wrong words and you just sound like a bad porn movie. 

Why can swear words be a beautiful thing?

- They have the ability to shock.

- You can equate them to linguistic violence.

- They can mark extreme emotions, moods, or turning points.

- They can be used for comic effect. 

Now, you don’t always have to use street language, depending on the context.  Shakespeare had the ability to swear without really swearing.  He wrote the mother of all literary cuss-outs (cuss is simply a variant of curse) in King Lear, but interestingly there is no profanity or obscenity as we know it, merely terrifically imaginative vulgarisms, delivered with passion. Here it is, the Earl of Kent preparing to thrash the crap out of Goneril’s loathsome lackey, Oswald:

"Knave; a rascal; an eater of broken meats; a base, proud, shallow, beggarly, three-suited, hundred-pound, filthy, worsted-stocking knave; a lily-liver’d, action-taking, whoreson, glass-gazing, superserviceable, finical rogue; one-trunk-inheriting slave; one that wouldst be a bawd in way of good service, and art nothing but the composition of a knave, beggar, coward, pander, and the son and heir of a mongrel bitch, one whom I will beat into clamorous whining if thou deniest the least syllable of thy addition.

I don’t think I’ll use any of that the next time I’m in a bar or shooting pool, but it’s worth thinking about.

Now, can you lose readers due to foul language? Of course, but why on earth would they be reading crime fiction if they have a weak constitution?  Have a great f****** week and keep writing.

Curses

Donis here. I sometimes wish I didn't live in such interesting times. I often find myself scared and depressed, so much so that I'll purposely avoid news and social media for days at a time. My husband doesn't do this. He stays informed and takes it upon himself to inform me, as well.  I can always tell when something alarming has happened by the plethora of salty terms emanating from the den. Don't get me wrong. I don't disapprove of Don's uncivil language. He has no intention of running for Pope.

(Incidentally, when he was in his thirties, my husband informed me that forevermore he was going to be perfect in all things, but after a week he realized that he couldn't stop getting smelly feet after a run, so he gave up his quest for sainthood. But that's another story.)  

I've been known to use less than pristine epithets myself and find them extremely useful in times of stress.   In fact, this brings to mind a dear friend of mine whom I have known since my salad days at the University of Oklahoma. At the time, he was an extraordinarily innocent boy who on frequent occasions would curl your ears with the most astoundingly filthy curses. Because of his sweet face and gentle nature, the effect of this language was not nearly a shocking as it was hilarious, and ever since, for good or ill, I've had quite an affection for dirty words.

I grew up among people whose goal was to curse in the most imaginative language possible, which can really increase your vocabulary if you apply yourself. My mother was particularly good at coming up with ways to express disapproval using only G-rated words. One of her scariest curses was "I heap coals of fire upon him." The words themselves weren't as frightening as her throaty growl and the curl of her lip over her eyetooth. My father had been a Marine, and knew words that I don't understand to this day, but he had a house full of little daughters and controlled his language heroically. He often had the pee-waddin' scared out of him and wondered what in the cat-hair was going on.

When I was writing my Alafair Tucker mysteries, which take place in Oklahoma in the 1910s in a family setting, I was very careful about the language I used, since my characters wouldn't normally use profanity. The series I'm writing now is set in 1920s Hollywood, which is another story altogether. If my characters didn't curse it wouldn't be realistic. Yet I know my audience and try not to be too shocking, which means I try to find creative ways around using f-bombs and hideous racial/sexist epithets.

When I grew up and became an English major, I came to realize that this fashion of cursing is quite Shakespearian. Shakespeare manipulated the English language in such a joyously profane way in order to scorn his fellow man. There are actually several web sites devoted to Shakespearean curses. One of my favorites is http://www.pangloss.com/seidel/shake_rule.html The author, Chris Seidel, has created a page on which he has taken nouns and adjectives from Shakespearian curses and divided them into three columns. You take one from column A, one from column B, and one from column C, and "curse with the the best of Shakespeare." Examples follow:

Fie, you bawdy, dog-hearted malignancy!

             you rank, onion-eyed rudesby!

             you whoreson, fat-kidneyed pantaloon!

             you knarling, rump-fed moldwarp!

Have a nice day just doesn't have the same ring.

A Delightful Turn of Phrase

I (Donis) can't stay too long today, Dear Reader. I have set the day aside for my Work In Progress and I must get back to it, for I'm on a roll. Well, not really a roll. More like an ooze. I'm on an ooze, but that is better than nothing, and if I stop, it's very hard to get started again.

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote an entry for my publisher's blog about the physical perils of writing (check it out here), in which I talked about how an author risks eyestrain and carpal tunnel and numb-butt by sitting too long at the computer. I try very hard to moderate my sitting by getting up and doing some exercise every hour or so, but when you're in the zone sometimes that gets past you. I'm sure you have read the latest research that states that "sitting is the new smoking", which means that sitting too long is very very bad for your health. Therefore, I try to work standing up as much as possible. The only problem is that standing for long periods hurts my back and my feet. I try hard to maintain good posture, but there is only so much I can take even then. The only solution I can think of is to trade off sitting and standing, interspersed with periods of walking, yoga, jumping jacks. Otherwise, the only other remedy is to sit in a chair like Mork from Ork. I have tried it, and it's really rather nice, as long as you can keep from smothering yourself.

On another note, I loved my blogmates' entries below on colorful phrases and expressions. I love a good turn of phrase. In fact, I try to use colorful Southern/Western American phrases for the titles of my books, which can cause me some consternation when I can't think of anything good. I usually wait for one of the characters to say something appropriate. For my W-I-P, (working title: Book Nine) I'm still waiting.

I grew up among people whose goal was to curse in the most imaginative language possible, which can really increase your vocabulary if you apply yourself. My mother was particularly good at coming up with ways to express disapproval using only G-rated words. One of her scariest curses was "I heap coals of fire upon him." The words themselves weren't as frightening as her throaty growl and the curl of her lip over her eyetooth. My father had been a Marine, and knew words that I don't understand to this day, but he had a house full of little daughters and controlled his language heroically. He often had the pee-waddin' scared out of him and wondered what in the cat-hair was going on.

My grandparents—and parents— had the most wonderful way of putting things. One grandparent was born and raised in Kentucky and the others in Arkansas at the turn of the Twentieth Century. Their language and vocabulary was absolutely Elizabethan. When Grandma went to garden over yonder, she put on her gauntlets and hunkered down to tend her “yarbs”.

I, of course, was desperate to get rid of my Oklahoma accent when I was young and speak completely standard American English. My accent is not as strong nor my vocabulary as eccentric as my parents’, nor was theirs as strong and colorful as their parents'. My nieces and nephews in their thirties sound more standard yet. But after years living away from my native place, I saw on a news program an interview with two teenaged girls from Tulsa. They sounded like Valley girls. I was shocked. What happened to that beautiful twang? That poetic way with words? That delightful Scotch-Irish combination of humor and fatalism? Oklahoma is what linguists call a “Transitional state”. My husband, also a native Oklahoman, has an accent that is different from mine. (Mine is more Appalachian, his is more Plains) One thing I specifically wanted to do with the Alafair Tucker series was preserve something of a way of speaking that seems to be rapidly disappearing.