Swear words in Fantasy (Warning: Actual swear word examples in post)

[Graybles]

I use a thesaurus and look for older words especially when doing fantasy fiction in a middle-ages sword & sorcery sort of setting. I also collect all kinds of dictionaries as well for the reason of finding nice words or phrases I could utilize or mold to my needs.

 

[Jackarandajam]

I try not to cuss and would rather go without in my writing, but I also worked Construction for 13 years and have no illusions about how normal people with shit to do talk. My rough drafts are usually packed with em, then I try to weed them down or out, come up with clever substitutes, etc. In later revisions. Haven't yet convinced myself of how to COMPLETELY extricate them, mostly because of the kind of characters I like in my stories, but for now I'm at least doing my best to keep it minimal.

 

[pmmg]

Same experience. When I was in the Army, curse words were a way of life--MutherF***en this and MutherF***en that.

When I was out, I decided I would clean up my language and not use it anymore. It took more than a year to really change the pattern. But I do like it better that way.

In writing though, its never been an issue.

 

[A. E. Lowan]

My team writes Urban Fantasy with a faerie knight who sports a potty mouth. I was raised by a sailor and am now the team's drafter, so the Swear Jar is an old, comfortable friend.

 

[Demesnedenoir]

My dad was in the Philippines, and my uncle in Europe during WW2, and all it took to learn everything I needed to know about swearing was dad's car not starting one morning to get me to school, heh heh.

My team writes Urban Fantasy with a faerie knight who sports a potty mouth. I was raised by a sailor and am now the team's drafter, so the Swear Jar is an old, comfortable friend.

 

[Skyfarer]

I don't mind swearing, even using modern day ones. They're what everyone knows after all. I feel made up swears just don't hit the same, like someone either wants to use a real one and is just backing out of it, or trying to world build. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but I don't know, I just can't hear it the same.

 

[A. E. Lowan]

I don't mind swearing, even using modern day ones. They're what everyone knows after all. I feel made up swears just don't hit the same, like someone either wants to use a real one and is just backing out of it, or trying to world build. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but I don't know, I just can't hear it the same.

And the basic reason for that is one of the things that makes linguistics cool. The premise is that the more a word is used in daily conversation, the slower it is to change over time. Take the word 'merde.' This one's a special friend. We have a faerie knight who's been travelling both the Mortal Realm and Faerie for roughly a thousand years. Merde is his go-to for expressing displeasure, and he's used it since he was a child. Merde, meaning many things but all pointing to 'shit' in the more craptastic of senses, predates our knight by many more centuries way back to Latin as 'merda,' and probably earlier in a pre-written form.

So, it's just centuries of development and growth side-by-side with us that has you reaching for the familiar, because that has the most cultural resonance. A 'merde,' by any other name...

 

[Demesnedenoir]

Preface: made up swearing doesn't bug me, and to be blunt, the word fuck doesn't punch anything for me either. No swear words really do after this much time. The ONLY time fuck has any resonance with me, or the last time, was when reading a pretty clean book and then it's used once at the right time. In a world full of swearing, those words wore off by college. Onward...

As A.E. Lowan said, plus, some writers go too far into personalized swearing to build resonance. By GOD X usually hits like a limp noodle. It's mocked in D&D cartoons and is just flat. I get it, because they make some amount of sense.

Note, in Quebec "tabernacle" is considered extremely profane, so... yeah.

I don't mind swearing, even using modern day ones. They're what everyone knows after all. I feel made up swears just don't hit the same, like someone either wants to use a real one and is just backing out of it, or trying to world build. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but I don't know, I just can't hear it the same.

 

[skip.knox]

>Note, in Quebec "tabernacle" is considered extremely profane, so... yeah.
I encountered something like this in one of Harry Turtledove's books. He said (or a character said) that the English and American cursing tends to emphasize bodily functions (including sex), whereas French--I think he was specific to French Canadian--tends to use a religious vocabulary. That is, those topic areas are the ones that shock the most to the speakers of those languages. It was the first time I understood that a curse or obscenity did not necessarily resonate the same way across cultures. That's pure gold for a fantasy writer.

Which brings me to the related point. To me it's not about how the reader will react. I have influence over that, but not control. So, if I want to have my invented curse (or obscenity) resonate for the reader, the thing to do is to show character reactions to it. One need do that only a few times over the course of a novel to add some depth there. And how my characters react *is* under my control.

 

[A. E. Lowan]

>Note, in Quebec "tabernacle" is considered extremely profane, so... yeah.
I encountered something like this in one of Harry Turtledove's books. He said (or a character said) that the English and American cursing tends to emphasize bodily functions (including sex), whereas French--I think he was specific to French Canadian--tends to use a religious vocabulary. That is, those topic areas are the ones that shock the most to the speakers of those languages. It was the first time I understood that a curse or obscenity did not necessarily resonate the same way across cultures. That's pure gold for a fantasy writer.

Which brings me to the related point. To me it's not about how the reader will react. I have influence over that, but not control. So, if I want to have my invented curse (or obscenity) resonate for the reader, the thing to do is to show character reactions to it. One need do that only a few times over the course of a novel to add some depth there. And how my characters react *is* under my control.

We run into these challenges all the time with how and why to apply swearing. The three of us are American women and American writers (yes, this can be two different things), but half of our main cast originates from England and went to the magical equivalent of Eaton College. One likes to run his vocabulary through the East End before serving, and there are certain words and phrases he'd use that would shock and offend about a quarter of the female writers we know, which lends itself to the question: When do we stick with plausibility and when do we fudge for the sake of sensibilities?

 

[Devor]

I don't swear a lot, but I do swear some, in my WIP (and IRL).

The thing is, everybody has played around with clever ways to swear. To the point where, to me, swearing more than a word here or there starts to sound less like a fantasy character and more like some guy I knew in college. It risks getting me completely dislodged from the story.

 

[skip.knox]

I'll take the liberty of paraphrasing General Patton.

A fantasy character should be able to swear for three minutes without repeating themselves.

As with so much else in writing, it's not about the thing itself, it's about the execution. (said the hangman to the king)

 

[Demesnedenoir]

Seeing as this thread has a vulgarity warning anyhow...

There is one combination of words that has stuck with me for over 30 years now. It was sometime after high school, and I was in a Burger King parking lot ( I think) talking to some folks back when cruising was legal in Omaha. I was standing near the girl I was dating when a gal in a convertible yelled something at a girl nearby and flipped her off. The flipped-off then proceeded to spout "crab-infested cunt hair" loud enough that I suspect it was heard three blocks away.

I just stood there thinking "damn." I would never have gone there, but bully for you, girl.

I've no idea how original it was, but it made an impression! I remember it verbatim, LMAO.

 

[Jackarandajam]

(...maybe if I used a pen name...)

 

[Naruzeldamaster]

One of my favorite examples of this is in Xenoblade 3.
The plot is a lot more complicated especially after chapter 3: but the driving point of the plot (until the twist) is how two warring factions are constantly at eachothers jugulars, literally because their lives are tied to 'flame clocks' (represented by actual fire) you kill the dudes on the other side, your flame goes up, you lose dudes (especially the flame clock itself) and your flames go down. I would explain the reasoning behind this system lore wise, but that would spoil like 2 thirds of the game.

They of course have the usual words: Damn, F* etc. Of course the one with the British accent isn't shy about having a sailor mouth either.
But for words that really can't be said in a Nintendo game.
They have 'Spark' and 'Snuff' both of which have many uses.

 

[Jackarandajam]

They of course have the usual words: Damn, F* etc. Of course the one with the British accent isn't shy about having a sailor mouth either.
But for words that really can't be said in a Nintendo game.
They have 'Spark' and 'Snuff' both of which have many uses

Okay I'll bite...
If damn and f**k can be said, what words  really can't be said in a Nintendo video game.

 

[skip.knox]

I'm going to lock this thread. Not because anyone did anything wrong, except perhaps myself as moderator failing to moderate. But first, some explanation.

There are policies in place that state this is a family-friendly community. We have a long tradition of not getting graphic, not being political, and so on. I ought to have spoken up right at the start of this thread, but I'm doing so now.

About the Cussin'
There are two issues here. One is the vulgarity itself. Looking back at the OP, I see no reason why circumlocutions would not have served. Rather than listing the words, it would have been equally clear and effective to say they wanted to talk about the use of swear words in fantasy writing. That topic has been discussed before. There was no need to use the actual words.

Once that was done, however, it opens the way for people responding also to use such words, and indeed to go further with their own "colorful" examples. Which brings me to my second point, which I believe is the more important.

The Subject line says clearly, "warning actual swear word examples in post".

About the Warning
That not only is not sufficient, it's actually pernicious. It sets a precedent whereby I could say "warning, *anything repulsive and even illegal* in post", and thereby cover all that follows in a veil of permission that was never granted. You can't just stand up in church during services and shout "I'm a gonna cuss now" and expect the congregation to nod and think well, that's ok then.

I say it's permicious because imagine that we aren't talking about swear words but about racist slurs, or threats of violence, or libel. Things that probably everyone would agree don't belong here (or maybe anywhere). Simply announcing in the subject line that such things will be contained in the post doesn't somehow make it permissible. But it having been allowed here with swear words, then why not with something slightly more offensive, and then more offensive yet? And again I use permicious because in the initial form, nothing bad was intended. The OP just wanted to have a discussion. It's a valid discussion and has, as I said above, been brought up multiple times here on Mythic Scribes.

It is the implied permission of the warning that concerns me. I'm going on about it in hopes that newcomers to the community might stumble across this and understand. Yes, the increasingly graphic language in this thread was something that needed to be truncated. But the precedent, the impression that once I've given a warning, then I can post whatever I wish, is potentially the more harmful.

A last point

About the Stories
The above doesn't affect actual fiction writing. In fact, almost the opposite applies. All writers are free to write their stories. They can post excerpts in the Critique Requests and even longer bits over in their Portfolio. I do think a warning at the head of those would be appropriate. There's a difference between a community in conversation, and an author composing a story. This is no more than obvious, but it bears stating so I don't give the wrong impression.

There, I've said my piece (it's probably worth saying that the other mods are in general agreement with this). I'm locking the thread not because someone has egregiously transgressed as a way to keep new members, who may come across this months or even years from now and who, thinking all is allowed, pitch in with their own contributions.

(woof! This excersing of judgment is *exhausting*)