Profanity in Literature

Literary Article

This essay is a combination of a treatise I found on the internet, in Courier font, mixed with my own comments in Arial.

The evolution of written profanity began roughly in the sixteenth century, and continues to change with each generation that it sees. (No. Read The Decameron by Giovanni Bocaccio 1351, Canterbury Tales by Geoffry Chaucer 1380) Profanity is recognized in many Shakespearean works (1585 - 1616), and has continually evolved into the profane language used today. Profanity today has been transformed by many aspects of culture, the streets, film, family values, religion, the media, the military and politics to name a few. But the profanity of the past has been overwhelmed by unscrupulous people today who seek to exploit it among the young for profit.

Some cuss words have somehow maintained their original meanings throughout hundreds of years, while many others have completely changed meaning or simply fallen out of use. William Shakespeare, though it is not widely taught, was not a very clean writer. In fact, he was somewhat of a potty mouth. His works encompassed a lot of things that some people wish he had not. "That includes a fair helping of sex, violence, crime, horror, politics,

religion, anti-authoritarianism, anti-semitism, racism, xenophobia, sexism, jealousy, profanity, satire, and controversy of all kinds" (Yes, but no different than Chaucer and Bocaccio, though better written.)

In his time, religious and moral curses were more offensive than biological curses. Most all original (before being censored) Shakespearean works contain very offensive profanity, mostly religious, which is probably one of many reasons that his works were and are so popular. (No. Shakespeare responded to religious persecution of closet Catholics by the Church of England during the reigns of Queen Elizabeth I and King James. He used writing as his means of expression.)

"Shakespeare pushed a lot of buttons in his day, which is one reason he was so phenomenally popular. Despite what they tell you, people like having their buttons pushed." Because his works contained so many of these profane words or phrases, they were censored to protect the innocent minds of the teenagers who are required to read them, and also because they were blasphemous and offensive. (Fanatics tend to find everything unlike themselves as offensive.) Almost all of the profanity was removed, and that that was not had just reason for being there. Some of the Bard's censored oaths are:

"G-d's blessing on your beard" Love's Labors Lost, II.i.203 This was a very rude curse because a man's facial hair was a point of pride for him. To play with someone's beard was to insult him.

"G-d's body" 1 Henry IV,II.i.26 Swearing by Christ's body, (or any part thereof,) was off limits in civil discourse.

"G-d's Bod(y)kins, man" Hamlet, II.ii.529 The word bod(y)kin means "little body" or "dear body," but adding the cute little suffix does not make this curse any more acceptable.

"By G-d's [blest] mother!" 2 Henry VI, II.i; 3 Henry VI, III.ii; Henry VIII, V.i Swearing by the virgin was almost as rude as swearing by her son, especially when addressing a catholic cathedral as Gloucester did in 2 Henry VI, II.i

Perhaps the two worst of these Shakespearean swears were zounds and sblood. Zounds had twenty-three occurrences. Ten of them were in 1 Henry IV. The rest appear in Titus (once), Richard III (four times), Romeo and Juliet (twice), and Othello ( six times). Iago and Falstaff were the worst offenders. Zounds has evolved into somewhat of a silly and meaningless word, but was originally horribly offensive. This oath, short for "G-d's wounds," was extremely offensive because references to the wounds or blood of Christ were thought especially outrageous, as they touched directly on the crucifixion. Sblood had twelve occurrences in all. There were eight times in 1 Henry IV (with Falstaff accounting for six), plus once in Henry V, twice in Hamlet, and once in Othello. 'Sblood occurs less than zounds, but is equally offensive and means basically the same thing. (Sorry. Sounds mild to me.)

Several other words came from Great Britain, but were not included in Shakespeare's works. Today the expression "Gadzooks" is not particularly offensive to most. Of course, most don't know what it originally meant. Gadzooks was originally slang for "G-d's hooks," and was equally offensive as it also referred to the crucifixion. An interesting note is that there is a store called Gadzooks which everyone thinks of as a pop-culture vendor to America's youth. Some shoppers would be very offended if they knew the true meaning of the store's name. Another word from this region is a Cockney expression, "Gorblimey," which is a word used to swear to the truth, and is a shortened form of "G-d blind me."

Hmm. If a swear word is a curse word, then why are we made to swear on a bible in a court of law? When we take an oath, don't we swear? What about marriage vows?

Also, in England, words such as bloody, blimey and blinkin' beginning with the letters BL are taken offense to because they, once again, refer to the blood of Christ and the crucifixion.

The military has an interesting technique for swearing their brains out without offending anyone. "They use the phonetic alphabet (A= Alpha, B= Bravo, C= Charlie, etc.) as a code for their swearing" For instance, instead of saying bullshit, they would say bravo charlie. Or instead of the horribly offensive, blasphemous cuss word, they could say "golf delta."

Most people are familiar with the swear words that are still used. (Do ladies still faint in their presence?)
These four-letter words aren't necessarily four letters long, but more or less, they get the same point across as their four lettered friends. Such words usually include krahp, ahss, schit, bhitch, phuque, and dhamn. (Refined WA spelling employed.) There are many variations on the usage and placement of these words, but they still pack a punch. (Whatever happened to the insidious gee whiz, gosh darn and golly?) The word krahp dates back as early as 1846, and is usually used as a euphemism for schit, yet many people find it equally offensive. As most cuss words do, krahp has several different variations, such as eat krahp, krahp-ahss, and krahpola. The meaning has not evolved since its first publication,

where it was defined simply as excrement. (Gee fella, you should get a load of modern commercials shown on television every day to children and adults talking about toilet paper, hemorrhoid fixers, vaginal creams, deodorants and penis stimulants.)

The word ahss had its first publication as a swear word in the Oxford English Dictionary in 1556. "Whyyped...at the cartt es arse...for vacabondes." This is not the definition commonly used today, but is still a vulgar way of using the word. This means the back of an object, whereas the more widely used definition is of the rump, the buttocks, rectum, and anus. The more common

definition was first recorded in Covent Garden Drollery. The word actually started out as rs, then evolved into arse, and finally evolved into ahss. (If Bill Cosby uses it, how bad can it be? In his famous performance, Himself, he used it like this:

"Why do use drugs?"

"It intensifies one's personality."

"Yes, but what if you are an ahsshole?")

Schit is, when used as an interjection, an expression of strong disgust or disappointment, but is, when used as a noun, anything inferior, ugly, cheap, or disgusting. (Heck, that could be my first wife, my lawyer or my banker.) Schit can be placed with just about any word and make a cute little expression. Some examples are, schit head, schitting bricks, and the colorful little phrase, schit or get off of the pot. (What else should a landlord say?)

Bhitch was first used in 1400 in F&H, and has, quite amazingly, maintained its original meaning for over five hundred years. It's definition was a malicious , spiteful, promiscuous, or otherwise despicable woman. It is also used today to describe a sexually promiscuous young woman, a male homosexual who plays the female role in copulation, an ill tempered homosexual male, an

infuriatingly large object, or something especially disagreeable. (Life's a bhitch, ain't it?)

There are many other forms of the word, such as bhitch kitty, or bhitch session, which is basically when a group of people get together and whine about how terrible their lives are, quite fun! Phuque is probably the most offensive swear word used. The earliest use of it is in Verbatim in 1500, which says, "Non sunt in celi/quia fuccant uuiuys of heli." The meaning, unlike the anguage, has remained the same, however. It still means to copulate. (Well, what the phuque is unpleasant about that? It's also the most useful word in the English language and can take any form.)

Some popular variations of it are phuque a duque, phuqued by the fickle finger of fate, phuqued up and far from home, and phuquing A. (He forgot phuquer, phuquingly, phuquist and a whole bunch more.)

The word dhamn itself is not extremely offensive, but is rather used as an intensifier of other words or phrases. When placed with G-d, however, it becomes a horrible, blasphemous word, which is, to many, more offensive than phuque. This type of thinking goes back to the sixteenth century when religious curses were far worse than biological. G.D. goes back to 1697, when Daniel Defoe said, "G.D. ye, does not sit well upon a female tongue."

Swear words can be used in pairs such as phuquing bhitch to intensify and make the swearing humorous. They can also be used as compliments. Words like "bitchen" have been used since 1957 when Gidget said, "It was a bitchen day too. The sun was out ... in Southern California."

Profanity has evolved from the religious curses of Old England and the biological curses of today not only in meaning, but also in intensity. Besides G.D. , the only curses that are offensive today are the biological curses that make sentences, movies, and just about anything more graphic or offensive than had the word been left out.

Much of what our unknown author says is true in the historical sense. But the application of profanity today goes far beyond common sense when we deliberately teach it to our children in movies, cartoons and television shows, especially cable. I doubt if any of us has not cursed under some circumstance, like stubbing a toe, losing a wallet or discovering a deception. And just who taught us to use those words? Mom and dad, first of all; our friends on the streets, of course; then the schools by pointing out how bad the words are; and finally the religious institutions, threatening eternal dhamnation for saying

such things.

Think about it. What do people think when someone leaves for the rest room? When ya gotta go, ya gotta go, right? They may not mention schit, but they certainly think it. And when two people are in love and express the need to be alone, what do we think? People gotta do what they gotta do, right? In other words, phuque, though when we are romantic we all prefer to think of it as the act of love. Just words, obviously, but some carry more impact that others, or once did. Nowadays, all words are becoming mixed into one, big, meaningless pot.

Should you use profanity? It's a personal choice. To write believable dialogue, you cannot avoid it unless you are writing about Quakers or some other religious group of people. Today's culture uses so much profanity in so many ways, especially in humor and entertainment, it may be more difficult not to use it in order to be convincing. That is something only you can decide. Either way, your reputation will probably not hang on it unless you cater to a very small, nearly extinct group of readers.

W. A. Rieser