In The Star today I read an article about an increasingly successful Facebook group for "intelligent, classy, well-educated" women who happen to enjoy swearing. Particularly, saying the word Fuck.
The article included quotes from many women who really believe in swearing. They were happy to find other women like them. The article expressed many of these women's thoughts pertaining to the discouraging misconceptions and assumptions that go along with a filthy vocabulary. One states, "people who hate swearing always say people who swear are uneducated – they don’t have a good vocabulary ... they can’t find the right word so they swear. I don’t see that at all. Swearing is language ...it’s a way to communicate effectively. People who don’t like swearing are focusing on the actual meaning of the word.”
I see the infinite wisdom and truth in this quote. I never really understood why people lumped swear words into the same category as bad grammar or something. My main conviction with writing right now is this: use fun words, have a fun vocabulary and still articulate yourself, still assert good ideas and it is possible to not sound like a total stupid head. It just seems more fun for everyone that way.
I also like books with pictures. What? what?!
I look forward to the day I see the word Fuck in scholarly journals and hear it on the news. I use it regularly and uninhibitedly, and I see no good reason to prescribe a limit on it.
My Aunt (whom I ADORE), asked me over dinner last weekend, "did you just say fuck?" and I was like "yes" (slightly awkward family moment ensues). Then I said "I'm a God damn writer and I'll say whatever I want with whatever degree of artistic fervor!" Then she said "well, if you say it too much, it won't feel so good when your really fucking mad"
This is a good point. One to be remembered. Swearing has been a recent development in my family. I admit that maybe it wasn't entirely appropriate to drop the fuck bomb during Good Friday dinner, however if I were to censor myself I think that would be the true crime here. I don't want to limit myself. All my good friends and lovers know that when I find a good word, term of endearment or sweet nothing, I wear it out to shit. My friend Jon, (whose friendship is sadly reduced to Facebook chat while we are both at school in differing cities), scolded me for calling him an insipid cunt rag too much. I admit that I have a dreadful knack for becoming obsessed with random idioms and using them within an inch of their lives.
When it comes down to it, though, I would give them all up before I would give up Fuck. I will maintain to the day I die that you can say Fuck and make a point. You can say Fuck, and articulate everything you ever need to and more because it is a glorious and magical word that brings with it sugar and spice and celestial seasonings. Every time I say Fuck I feel like I'm walking through a gentle rain of encyclopedia pages fluttering around me with a cool and refreshing breeze. Every time I say Fuck I fucking cook up summer in the winter.
It arouses contempt in me to think that people associate swearing with a limited vocabulary.
Any mother fucker who can't see that I'm a bloody walking thesaurus is an idiot.
Well I aspire to be, I mean. And I love the word Fuck.
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