Why is an iPod like a clitoris?

No, don’t worry, it’s not another anti-technology rant (1), instead I want to talk about language. In particular I want to look at how our perception of what is and isn’t acceptable has changed and what that means for the use of rude words in writing.

I don’t really want to get into language as a tool to incite hatred, deliberate or otherwise. It’s, surely, a given truth that this is unacceptable, that we should not, ever, use our words to derogatorily distinguish between people on the basis of race, sexuality, gender or, well anything. Anything that a) is something that people just are, that they have no control over and b) doesn’t affect anybody else anyway so why are we making an issue out of it? However, if someone’s just being an arse don’t we have the right to tell them as such?

Personally, I feel that it does us all good to have a vehement swear every so often. It allows us to blow off steam, to release our frustrations verbally - far better than to do so physically. These days we’re allowed to, attitudes have become more relaxed after the over-tightening of the moral belt in the post-Second World War years.

The first “fuck” appeared on British TV in 1965. It took another eight years for it to slip out again. Both times it cost people their jobs. Television bosses took it as seriously as the wrongful naming of a cat. It was a further thirty-six months until the Sex Pistols were goaded by Bill Grundy into saying it three times (plus a couple of “shits”) in as many minutes (2). The red tops were furious - “The Filth & The Fury!” ran the Mirror’s headline - damming them for allegedly corrupting a whole generation with a few little words. In the meantime significant events took place around the world. The following year a Nottingham record shop was prosecuted under the Indecent Displays Act for displaying the band’s album Never Mind the Bollocks. Frankly hadn’t the Crown Prosecution Service got better things to be doing?

We’ve come a long way in thirty years and swearing is now an integral part of everyday television, radio and cinema, fully accepted and endorsed. Everyone uses it, they always have done, so why censor something you can hear on every street? On this coming Friday a band called Fuck Button are playing the Forum in Highgate (3). There’s hardly a single drama, comedy or reality TV show on after nine or a film rated 12 or above that doesn’t include at least one “fuck”. If it’s on earlier in the evening it is simply, inexpertly, bleeped out. What is the point of “f-bip-ck”? Am I not supposed to understand what you’re saying?

So we can say anything: Shit, arse, wank, bastard, prick and nobody takes offensive. Except we can’t. There is still one word at which a high proportion of the population is guaranteed to be upset by.

Warren Ellis, writing a dramatisation of the fourteenth century battle of Crecy has the narrator helpfully inform the reader: “There’s one word you’ll have to get used to. Cunt. This is a word that many people do not like. But you have to understand the English. In England, the word cunt is punctuation.” (4) He’s exaggerating for comic effect, but the sentiment remains true. It’s an old, old word, so why - when pretty much everything else goes - does it still cause such offence amongst some people? Why, when I am at a party in May this year and I refer to someone whom nobody else has met as such, does a woman, not even involved in the conversation, come over and tell me not to use the word around her? Why is it that at the company I used to work for the office manager who could make a marine blush with her language would not tolerate the word being uttered in her presence? Why is it when equivalent euphemisms for both genders’ organs (twat, fanny, cock, nob, prick) are so commonly used that cunt still shocks? (5)

Is it because we instinctively draw a boundary somewhere for fear of what would happen if there was none?

In terms of actual swearing it’s a good word. It’s short, has an angular sound, it can be used as a noun or as a verb. This is all good for elaborate, creative and angry swearing.
Here’s an interesting diversion: I don’t think I’ve ever, in anger, called somebody a (pick your own expletive), to their face. Jokingly yes, “oo - you bugger, you’re such an arse,” or whatever. I like to take my frustrations out on inanimate objects - “tosspot toaster”, “crappy coffee maker”, “bastard bread maker” (6). They’re not ever going to be offended by my torrent of abuse. I lost count of the number of times I’ve hung the phone up at work and muttered “bastard”, but if they can’t hear me, then they can’t know. And anyway, am I really, truly, insulting their parentage or am I just releasing my own pressure gauge?

Recently in my more calm and serene state of mind I’ve been looking at it from the other side of the coin.

I take great care not to swear around my nephew (7) or, indeed, any children. I’ve never been asked to, but I just feel I ought to, not least because most of the words have meanings I don’t want to have to explain. That’s what parents are for. I used to work with a guy for whom elaborate swearing was an art form he took great pleasure in. How he held his tongue at home with two young children I shall never know, but he did. The language used was one of the things that distinguished his home life from his working life. It’s good to show restraint, only using the words when strictly necessary. It allows them to retain some sort of power.

From a writer’s point of view if every third word is a swear word then how can I use them to express a character’s mood, or how can I introduce a “fuck” for dramatic effect if the pages are already littered with expletives? Repetition deadens the effect. It worked for the Sex Pistols as an angry, young band rallying against the establishment in 1976. It’s not really worked for anyone since.

A couple of examples of how swearing is perhaps becoming institutionalised: The Guardian (bastion of middle-class leftyism that it is) runs a celeb questionnaire, where all the questions are song titles and until recently included “Who The Fuck Are The Artic Monkeys?” A lightning quick scan through Saturday’s supplements give me four “shits”, four “fucks” and one each for “bastard”, “crap”, “cock”, “piss” and “tit”. Remember there’s no age restriction on the purchase of newspapers (8).

I certainly don’t think we need to cut out swearing, that movies should resort to the cut-off sentence (“Why I oughta…”) or a watered down version of English (“you’re such a brute!”), but perhaps it should be returned to a more violent context. That way when I tell someone he’s a “fucking bastard who deserves to have his cock chopped off and then buggered to death with it”, he’ll know I really mean it.

(1) Although it has just occurred to me that someone should probably point out that Apple isn’t the caring, benevolent organisation a lot of it’s fans seem to think it is.
(2) It was guitarist Steve Jones who launched into the rant. I’ve always liked his final shout of “what a fucking rotter” as Grundy lecherously asks Siouxsie Sioux to meet him after the show. A kind of hybrid of punk and the Beano.
(3) According to the Guardian Guide anyway, I’ve never heard of them.
(4) Warren Ellis (w) / Raulo Caceras (a), Crecy (Avatar Press, 2007)
(5) That’s not to say all women find it unacceptable. I was delighted to hear a female friend of mine recently refer to someone as “Fat Dave The Cunt.”
(6) Don’t worry I don’t have a complex about electrical kitchen goods, I just happen to be staring into the kitchen whilst I write this.
(7) Okay, so as the son of Beck’s sister and her husband he’s not technically my nephew, but as the only thing that really separates me from uncle-hood is sixteen thousand pounds and a lecture from a bloke in a dress, I’m going with it.
(8) I’m not even going into the issue of the Daily and Sunday Sport. That’s a whole different kettle of fish. Text 8163 to see Britney’s flaps, indeed.