For F***’s Sake: Why Swearing Is Shocking, Rude And Fun WTF! Is swearing really good for you?
In 1992 the late Queen Elizabeth had a spectacularly bad year. Three of her children’s marriages imploded and the ensuing scandals were played out over the media. A devastating fire swept through Windsor Castle. She had to start paying tax.
This book thus begins by imagining what if, instead of using the understated phrase ‘annus horribilis’ to describe those 12 months, the Queen had effed and blinded through her speech celebrating 40 years on the throne?
The author of For F***’s Sake, Rebecca Roache, points out that such an event would have made headlines around the world. Yet, she asks, why the devil should this be? If someone had used such words among friends in the pub, it wouldn’t have raised an eyebrow.
As such, the book takes a philosophical approach to investigate what it is about swearing that leads us to react differently depending on who is using such words, and where and how they are doing so.
The book aims to define what swearing is: a combination of offensiveness, expression of emotion and some linguistic anarchy
(the f-word, after all, can be used as an imperative, adjective, noun, verb and adverb). Many people will be familiar with the idea that swearing tends to cluster around taboos – particularly themes like religion, defecation, disease and sex.
Times do change over what we find the most offensive – it’s hard to remember now what a stir
Rhett Butler’s ‘Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn’ made decades ago.
But what continues to make swearing really offensive is not what the words are but the unspoken and usually unconscious inferences that speaker and listeners make about each other. It is unique among etiquette breaches in that it is designed to convey disrespect.
However, in one of the most fascinating chapters, Roache argues that the real offence now is caused by slurs – such as the use of the n-word or other terms that target oppressed groups or minorities. Such slurs are not context-dependent like swearing is, although over time they can become inoffensive (the word ‘Tory’ was once a slur) or can be successfully reappropriated, as we’ve seen in the reclaiming of the word ‘queer’.
There’s also a lively discussion about the difficulties we have in deciding how much offence is offensive (for instance, how many swear words are allowed per half hour in Radio 4 comedy shows). It also delves into why quoted swearing is less offensive than unquoted swearing, and what difference we see in asterisking swear words as compared to paraphrasing or writing them out in full.
Roache, a senior lecturer in philosophy, certainly thinks four-letter words can be positive. For example, she highlights that swearing has been shown to foster social intimacy, and according to experiments it can help withstand pain. When researchers observed people submerge their hands in a bucket of very cold water for as long as they could bear it, those who swore were able to do so for longer.
This book is likely to be seized on most eagerly by any teenager who wants to challenge their parents by being pottymouthed, but less so by anyone who doesn’t like the air turning blue.
A warning: the pages are stuffed full of the most offensive swear words, which even I found a bit much to take. So not recommended for your aged auntie – but it doesn’t necessarily rule out the Royals. While Queen Elizabeth may have stuck to Latin, there’s an intriguing anecdote about Prince Philip being caught out using the f-word. My dear, they don’t give a damn...
Glenda Cooper