RUDE WORDS

I was chastised the other day for using – ahem – the ‘c-word’ in a blog post. As the chastisement was done privately, the chastiser will remain anonymous. I won’t name you, Mum.

            It got me thinking, though, about words we consider dirty or unacceptable, and how they got that way.

            Take the aforementioned ‘c-word’ for instance. It derives from a Latin word meaning simply ’wedge’, or ‘triangle’. Fairly self explanatory; and taken at its face, much less offensive than some other terms for that particular organ.

            Our sex-organs especially nearly always leave us groping for a euphemism. What few people realise is that even the supposedly ‘correct’ terms began as Latin slang: penis was colloquial for ‘tail’; vagina for ‘sheath’ – yes, the place you put your sword.

            We’re driven to even more absurd flights of coyness over what to call the small room where we relieve ourselves. There is not actually a word for it in English that didn’t begin as a euphemism.

            Once, on asking for directions to ‘the bathroom’, I was reprimanded by an elderly friend who curtly informed me: ‘It’s the lavatory’. Evidently she didn’t know that lavatory comes to us from Latin via French: lavatorium, lavatoire, lavatory; it means ‘washing place’, or if you prefer, ‘bathroom’.

Even the word toilet originally described a lady’s make-up table (Fr: toilette, from toile – the embroidered cloth which covered it). Powder-room, privy, water-closet, WC and so on, all euphemisms. As soon as it becomes too clear what we’re actually talking about, we get embarrassed and change it again; linguists call it ‘the euphemism treadmill’. The most straightforward approach would be the honest, Anglo-Saxon derived: shitter.

In life – and in writing above all – it’s probably best to just say what we mean. However, words come to mean what the reader or listener thinks they mean; and there’s never a need for egregious bad language.

Used sparingly, curse-words make their own point. I used ‘the c-word’ in a passage describing the internal dialogue of depression. I could have used any number of words, but none had the same power, or communicated as effectively what I wanted to say. Bastard didn’t do it; neither did mongrel, prick, son-of-a-bitch or any other. In the end, ‘Everything reminds you you’re a cunt’ was the right sentence for the purpose. If it’s confronting on the page, imagine hearing it in your head, in your own voice, several dozen times a day. Point made?

I use a couple of general rules for rude words and writing:

First, they’re not punctuation. Overused, they lose their punch and precision.

Second, and most important, if you’re going to swear, then swear; fuck or cunt, not f_ck or c_nt. Don’t mess around with blank spaces in the middle of words.

That’s for p_ssies.