I've never been able to understand how words became swear words.. They are just words, so at what point did words become offensive, and who made the decision which words would be deemed offensive?
I once shared my poetty with a customer when I was working behind the counter in a shop and she happily read 3 poems, told me how much she had enjoyed them but her mood changed instantly after reading the 4th poem.
She closed my note book, tutted and shook her head in disgust and said
'You did a swear. I don't like that, I don't want to read anymore. '
Upside down and backwards - I tried bluesky and found it thinner than X, which I do about every 3 to 6 munthses, harking to Janine Ramirez, Dave Attenborough, some poetry shop in San Francisco - for some reason very few gobshites.
...brings us neatly to language, profound v profane (oo int ee slick?). I think discussing decrees of discomfort kind of hits the bollock on the head, com vous pardonné ma Francais. For me - an apparent sales person - it rides on the company as much as my preference. An hold Englische teacher once teld us like that swearing is the resort of the inarticulate. Michael Murtagh shouted "But I was on time this week miss" and I doubt anyone took it in. Maybe me and Betty Gibbons, who was too sensitive for the ragging she got. Anyway, that set the precedent. Not that by the age of about thirteen I'd acquired a taste for beer, fags (oh shriek - you're in Yorkshire now, look it up!!!) or swearing. In fact, the only reason I did was to upset my parents. Mission accomplished, you naasty little shit.
Hence if I'm in company that I know doesn't partake, I am perfectly happy not using vulgar words or phraseology in any form of verbal or literary intercourse. Actually you can upset folk in plenty of other ways - i was up to 31 subscribers [31!!! get the cake n shmapers aht] which promptly deflated to 30 as I published an article suggesting that people who write about writing are a pain. I care not a jot. Hardly knew them anyway - oh it was my dead dad? Pshaw!
Which simply leaves us with formulaic poetry. I think I gabbled elsewhere (a good writer would insert a reference here but who said I warrenny gud?) but to briefly note, I theorise it must have happened perchance upon a moonlit mistake that sound good so they repeated it. It got a name and others had to try. And why not, if that's your thing; whatevere style or form we infer/imply/indoctrinate. The ancient Greeks, Chaucer, and a good many others say that cadence and flow are what make good poetry (notwithstanding other stuff) rather than regimented repetition. Speaking of ancient Greeks, never take advice from a sausage maker). Whatever it's form, good literature doesn't have sticky out mechanisms - they just work. For the non-mathematical mind, natural flow is comfortable. There was a song in the 60s "3,6,9, the goose drank wine, the monkey chewed tobbacco on the street car line etc - which goes on to describe a dance 'you take you left palm" after which, I am lost...
So another enjoyable and challenging (not a euphamisn't) article and for me, amusing villanelly. I did forget to finish about company. If swearing is commonplace, I'm afraid I can embarass the pope. I used to write some singularly disgusting yet what seemed at the time revolutionary and explicit stuff. Really detailed dirty in flagranté smut as mum would have called it if she ever regained consciousness. But even so, when I'm writing for me, I go back to what Kathleen Brennan said. OK she was a catholic (can't have been staunch, she smoked occasionally), but if our vocabulary can't describe something we should find out how. I do reserve Jesus effing Christ for driving offenses, kitchen calamities, the state of our cat's arse and other life-changing fuck-ups.
Thats a response worthy of an article in its own right Alex. And thank you for it. Love the literary discourse on here, you don't get it on either BlueSky or Twitter, and only on Facebook if you know what groups to join.
Well, keep baiting the bear and he’ll type the hell out of anything with his steely irony. Indeed this is better banter sorry discourse and what I hoped for from various disappointing quarters. Oh, that sounds like a good house name name for a house
I've never been able to understand how words became swear words.. They are just words, so at what point did words become offensive, and who made the decision which words would be deemed offensive?
I once shared my poetty with a customer when I was working behind the counter in a shop and she happily read 3 poems, told me how much she had enjoyed them but her mood changed instantly after reading the 4th poem.
She closed my note book, tutted and shook her head in disgust and said
'You did a swear. I don't like that, I don't want to read anymore. '
very good and yes, haikus are far, far worse.
Cheers! I have been seriously thinking about the hundredweight of haikus challenge
Upside down and backwards - I tried bluesky and found it thinner than X, which I do about every 3 to 6 munthses, harking to Janine Ramirez, Dave Attenborough, some poetry shop in San Francisco - for some reason very few gobshites.
...brings us neatly to language, profound v profane (oo int ee slick?). I think discussing decrees of discomfort kind of hits the bollock on the head, com vous pardonné ma Francais. For me - an apparent sales person - it rides on the company as much as my preference. An hold Englische teacher once teld us like that swearing is the resort of the inarticulate. Michael Murtagh shouted "But I was on time this week miss" and I doubt anyone took it in. Maybe me and Betty Gibbons, who was too sensitive for the ragging she got. Anyway, that set the precedent. Not that by the age of about thirteen I'd acquired a taste for beer, fags (oh shriek - you're in Yorkshire now, look it up!!!) or swearing. In fact, the only reason I did was to upset my parents. Mission accomplished, you naasty little shit.
Hence if I'm in company that I know doesn't partake, I am perfectly happy not using vulgar words or phraseology in any form of verbal or literary intercourse. Actually you can upset folk in plenty of other ways - i was up to 31 subscribers [31!!! get the cake n shmapers aht] which promptly deflated to 30 as I published an article suggesting that people who write about writing are a pain. I care not a jot. Hardly knew them anyway - oh it was my dead dad? Pshaw!
Which simply leaves us with formulaic poetry. I think I gabbled elsewhere (a good writer would insert a reference here but who said I warrenny gud?) but to briefly note, I theorise it must have happened perchance upon a moonlit mistake that sound good so they repeated it. It got a name and others had to try. And why not, if that's your thing; whatevere style or form we infer/imply/indoctrinate. The ancient Greeks, Chaucer, and a good many others say that cadence and flow are what make good poetry (notwithstanding other stuff) rather than regimented repetition. Speaking of ancient Greeks, never take advice from a sausage maker). Whatever it's form, good literature doesn't have sticky out mechanisms - they just work. For the non-mathematical mind, natural flow is comfortable. There was a song in the 60s "3,6,9, the goose drank wine, the monkey chewed tobbacco on the street car line etc - which goes on to describe a dance 'you take you left palm" after which, I am lost...
So another enjoyable and challenging (not a euphamisn't) article and for me, amusing villanelly. I did forget to finish about company. If swearing is commonplace, I'm afraid I can embarass the pope. I used to write some singularly disgusting yet what seemed at the time revolutionary and explicit stuff. Really detailed dirty in flagranté smut as mum would have called it if she ever regained consciousness. But even so, when I'm writing for me, I go back to what Kathleen Brennan said. OK she was a catholic (can't have been staunch, she smoked occasionally), but if our vocabulary can't describe something we should find out how. I do reserve Jesus effing Christ for driving offenses, kitchen calamities, the state of our cat's arse and other life-changing fuck-ups.
29, 28, 27....
Thats a response worthy of an article in its own right Alex. And thank you for it. Love the literary discourse on here, you don't get it on either BlueSky or Twitter, and only on Facebook if you know what groups to join.
Well, keep baiting the bear and he’ll type the hell out of anything with his steely irony. Indeed this is better banter sorry discourse and what I hoped for from various disappointing quarters. Oh, that sounds like a good house name name for a house
Particularly impressed with “Zinfandel “.
Marvellous Mike, perhaps the best one yet
A sleight of hand escape from the padded cell
Of every other fucking villanelle
👍👍
hahaha, thanks Ray.