Swearing in Secondary World Fantasy

[M. Arkenberg]

How do you approach profanity in a secondary world setting? Do you make up words unique to the setting, or do you use real-world swears?

I typically follow the latter route. The former has the advantages of not offending real-world readers and also adding to world-building, but some people (me most emphatically included) can't really see "fake" profanity without laughing--which can be a problem when the profanity is being used to show the drama and severity of a situation.

Does anyone have any advice on creating fantasy profanity, or on using real-world profanity in fantasy settings?

[Saladin]

About a year or two ago, I was part of a great discussion on this topic at the blog "my elves are different." They'd posted this cartoon asking whether invented curses are inherently risible:

http://bp3.blogger.com/_DwjgYnVpvas/RufHR1OXzJI/AAAAAAAAAlw/pePOxYA37sA/s1600-h/070912.jpg

I responded, a bit snottily,

"The question should be whether they're any more inherently risible than using twentieth century American (or British) obscenity. "By Mojolofor's forked beard!" is stupid, but so is the supposed 'gritty realism' of having people from anther world say "Oh, go **** yourself" like they were fifteen-year-old American boys.

Shouldn't cursing reflect the culture from which it originates?"

They then honored my response with *this* cartoon, reminding me that the characters in a secondary world novel aren't really speaking English anyway:

http://bp3.blogger.com/_DwjgYnVpvas/RvBI8er4iuI/AAAAAAAAAmA/MNAhhYLjUmw/s1600-h/070919.jpg

It's still an open question for me -- and I have the added complication of often trying to give a "translated from Arabic" flavor to the characters' speech. I try to avoid curses that ring out as too contemporary sounding (ie "blow me," which I read not too long ago in a popular doorstopper). But nobody in their right mind wants their protagonist sounding like Stan Lee's Thor, either...

[Scott H. Andrews]

Excellent question, and an excellent reply.

I have a few general thoughts myself, which I will post as soon as I can find a minute to articulate them (without swearing? :) ).

[Saladin]

BTW, the post above contained a one-hundred percent bona-fide f-bomb when I wrote it, but apparently the family-friendly forum thing washed my mouth out with soap. :o

[M. Arkenberg]

Saladin, thank you for sharing the cartoons. The second one expresses my opinion on the subject perfectly.

Family-friendly forum things do some pretty weird stuff when it comes to swearing. I had one sensor the first syllable of the last name of the author of A Tale of Two Cities. And then there was the one that changed all profanity into the word "bunny." For a moment, I wondered if the poster was trying to start a new movement with the phrase "go bunny yourself." :rolleyes:

[Syrio]

All real-life curse words began as ordinary if perhaps ugly words and gained their infamy by gradually acquiring connotation. The breeder's term for a female dog is a prime example. Another is "retarded," which was originally a euphemism and is now frowned upon more darkly than the words it replaced.

In a second-world setting, characters with foul mouths should probably use language fit for the time/place, with the connotation left up to the author's skill with context. Clavell does a great job of this in Shogun (though not genre, still a perfect example of the "common man in a strange world" fantasy trope). The European sailors and the Japanese characters both use ugly language, but rarely if ever do their curses read at all modern. As a reader of the novel I remembered the dialogue as exceptionally foul, but I was surprised when I went back to study it as a writer and found only a handful of your HBO-ordinary four-letter words.

My point is, if one character calls another "feather" and mortal combat ensues, then the offensive connotation of that word is well established through context. If characters drop f-bombs at every turn with no perceivable consequence, then the innocuousness of that word is also well established through context.

-Michael

[starweaver]

Profanity is a window on culture, showing us which topics a society is most offended by or uncomfortable with. Hence most modern English profanity is sexual or scatological. (A few centuries ago, religious blasphemy held that place of (dis)honor in English.) Therefore, I would be very cautious about transferring modern English curses into a secondary-world culture.

Invented words are also not a good option, as you really want to use invented words only for names and perhaps a small number of "untranslatable" concepts in your milieu.

One way to go is to use ordinary English words that are not much used for swearing at the present time, but that readers will infer from context to be profane in your milieu. "You useless wart!" "What a festering mess we're in!" This works if one doesn't get too creative with it. The idea is to not call much attention to the words.

In-world references in English are another option. In a world where everyone is nocturnal, "sun-soaked" might be an invective.

I prefer some blend of the latter two approaches. If nothing feels right, of course, one can also express character and emotion through other means. You can even say "he uttered a vicious curse" or some such.

[pterofan]

Yes! Call me a sickie, but one of my favorite parts of writing is coming up with the swear words. If you ask me, it shows more creativity to come up with new "bad" words and phrases than to fall back on the old tried-and-true, which will probably be censored anyway. Besides, "shut your festering gob, you twit!" has a certain poetry to it that a simple "up yours" lacks.

For everyday swearing, you can't go wrong with a nice, blunt four-letter word, heavy on the harsh consonants. Battlestar Galactica did quite well with "frak." "Frell" (Farscape) isn't as successful but gets the point across. I think it was Norman Mailer who invented "fug" as a substitute for another, better-known F. It even looks ugly on the page, doesn't it?

If you're world-building, consider the culture you're dealing with. I've been writing about werewolves lately, which pretty much negates the B-word as a viable swear. However, "dog," with its attendant images of collars, leashes and servile fawning on humans, is probably not a nice thing to call a were (who refer to us as "monkeys," "apes," "simians" or "primates," and not in a good way, either). An equine society would probably include "bits," "saddles" and "spurs" in its no-no lexicon, and "gelding" would earn you a swift kick in the fork. Create your society, decide what its history is and what its hangups are, and the swears will practically write themselves.

A word of warning: watch out for unintentional implications. I recall Alan Dean Foster's "Spellsinger" series used the B-word as a swear just as we do -- except this was a world with talking animals. Does that mean that world's canines were second-class citizens? That dogs were looked down on? Why didn't they protest? For years I kept waiting for Mr. Foster to have Mudge the otter call someone a bitch, only to find himself confronted by an enormous dingo: "Me mum was a bitch, mate. Care to make something of it?" (If he ever actually wrote a variation on that scene, please let me know -- I'd love to see it.)

[M. Arkenberg]

I too enjoy creating new profanity for my settings. But I have to admit, sometimes the results are much more offensive than the words they replace!

Still, new profanity, no matter how well presented or how organic to the setting, lacks the emotional charge of pre-existing words. For example, in a short story I've revising right now, one of the characters says (as part of a longer dialogue), "I'm so f---ing sorry." Within the scene, the profanity is necessary; not only does it fit the bluntness of the character, it expresses her anger and frustration in a way that "I'm very sorry" or "I'm so farking sorry" just doesn't.

I guess my concern here is not so much being out-of-place or offensive, but sacrificing a necessary emotional charge in order to avoid being out-of-place or offensive!

[Grace Seybold]

For example, in a short story I've revising right now, one of the characters says (as part of a longer dialogue), "I'm so f---ing sorry." Within the scene, the profanity is necessary; not only does it fit the bluntness of the character, it expresses her anger and frustration in a way that "I'm very sorry" or "I'm so farking sorry" just doesn't.

I guess my concern here is not so much being out-of-place or offensive, but sacrificing a necessary emotional charge in order to avoid being out-of-place or offensive!

I think that's one of the major differences between making up swear words in a short story and doing it in a novel, TV series, or what-have-you. Once people have spent enough time in a setting that the words are familiar, there's no real loss of emotional charge as far as I'm concerned. The first episode or two of Battlestar Galactica, I found the "frak" thing a bit jarring, but by season 3 I literally didn't notice anymore that it wasn't a word I used elsewhere. But you don't get that kind of leeway in 5000 words.

[Kenneth Mark Hoover]

Does anyone remember some of Larry Niven's early SF when he always had his characters exclaim, "Tanj!" --Which was shorthand for "there ain't no justice!"

Heinlein did the same thing with "Tanstaafl". (There ain't no such thing as a free lunch.)

Mailer was another good example with "fug" but he caught flak for that. He wanted to use "f---" but his publisher balked because they didn't want an obscenity charge leveled against them. Later, one vicious reviewer who didn't like the work in question, said, "Mailer can't even spell f--- right."

Anyway, these made up words always felt cheap and artificial to me. But maybe that was the point they were trying to make? I don't know.

However, I can see having a little more leeway to invent swear phrases in some settings/cultures that are more conducive to it. As already mentioned Clavell's Shogun is an excellent example of using word pairing and phrases that serve as swear words which help illuminate the disparity between cultures. Then again Clavell was a genius, imo, so he knew how to get away with something like that and not have it jump out of the page and stop the reader cold like "tanj" "fug" and "tanstaafl" always seemed to do. At least for me.

[scottybrown100]

I agree with Grace Seybold, the 5,000 or so words of a short story is far to little time to introduce a reader to the full richness of a fictional culture. Most invented curses that I've read come off as simply hilarious, and to be honest I find them to great a risk. A very serious moment can be easily deflected into humor, just by a ill invented curse.

I use modern 'heavy' curses because my reader is modern. We do write in english, not elven. Milder curses such as 'Avec's balls' (which in my world is meant to be sacrilegious, and somewhat hilarious to those that do not believe in Avec) are used to introduce culture.

Creating a unique world setting is a lot of fun, but I try to balance my imaginations depth with my audience. There are many things I'd love to add and create, but if it causes my audience to treat my work less seriously, I will not run that risk. I think the old saying "Fiction has to make sense, real life doesn't." apply's best here.

Then again, my goal is to create a realistic fantasy setting (Low Fantasy), and this of course shapes my opinions.



(http://beneath-ceaseless-skies.com/forums/member.php?u=71)

[Kenneth Mark Hoover]

"Fiction has to make sense, real life doesn't."

Ha, I love that quote. It's so true.

Real life can get away with so much more compared to fiction. Sometimes I think it's hardly fair. :p

[MishellBaker]

I love this discussion, and I am one who frequently argues the "translation" line of reasoning.

I approach all my secondary-world fantasy as though I am translating from a foreign tongue. In "Throwing Stones," my narrator is someone who has taken great care to become educated, and so I use a very formal tone not only in the narration but in the dialogue. However, my novel concerns a teenage girl who is about as low-class as someone can get, and whose defining character trait is her complete lack of subtlety and refinement, especially in speech. So even though she's a member of an ancient tribal society, I can't help slipping some f-bombs and certain scatological profanities into her speech.

Why? Because that's what she sounds like to the people listening to her. Who knows what the #@$% she's saying in Ancient Kyrethian? I only know how it comes across to her peers: uncouth, blunt, and immature.

All the same, I do try to avoid any profane expressions that are highly dated like "blow me" as mentioned above. You'd do the same, I imagine, if you were translating a French or German author's novel and intended for your translation to weather a few decades.

Bottom line: I think my choice of words is more about how long I want my work to be relevant to its readers than it is about how close I am to the vocabulary of the time I'm writing about. Because the latter, in a secondary-world setting, I can never even approximate.