Profanity in Fantasy

[talyesin]

So lately I've had an epic (in the classic sense of huge, not the internet sense of awesome, though I have no doubt that it will be awesome also) fantasy trilogy, and I keep getting hung up on the issue of language. Not the write-it-in-English sort of language, but rather, the manner in which I will phrase sentences and in particular, dialogue

Comments

[kolvin]

I'd say follow your gut on this one. Swearing has been a part of language as long as language has been around. Words like "fuck" and "bugger" and all that lovely stuff have also been around for quite a while.

The problem most people have with profanity is entirely born out of their own conception that people did not speak that way in olden times when the people actually living in these times most assuredly did.

For good use of such profanities I'd like to point to cinematic source like Rome and Deadwood which made extensive use of profanities. Game of Thrones is a good written example, Guy Gavriel Kay also uses "foul language". It's not new and to me it sounds right.

Word substitution to me most often sounds wrong. Firefly did it well with Chinese swear words but "Frak" or "Frell" never felt natural to me. If you're gonna swear, do it with conviction.

[miseri]

Thinking about it, I'm pretty certain I've heard people say "what the frell" as far back as the early 1990s. Of course, that was in Singapore, half a world away from here.

[talyesin]

Frell comes from Farscape, a show from the late 90s...

[miseri]

I came to Montreal in 1996. This was definitely before Montreal, and before my military service, putting it around 1991 or 1992. It might have been an affectation adopted by a very small group of secondary schoolers; certainly, I don't remember hearing it after that.

I don't think I've ever seen Farscape.

[talyesin]

Yeah, Deadwood is one of the exact reasons why I'm so torn. Al Swearingen wouldn't have been nearly so threatening if he'd been saying "Tarnation! That consarn varmint!" as opposed to "Fuck! That fucking cocksucker!"

But watching a show and reading a book are two completely different mediums, with very different brain processes. Reading the same dialogue doesn't ellicit the same visceral emotional responses as seeing an actor perform the dialogue, with all the associated television tricks of score and lighting and camera angles.

[ai731]

When, exactly, is Deadwood set? Why do you assume that "Tarnation! That consarn varmint!" is more historically accurate than "Fuck! That fucking cocksucker!" ? My OED dates "cock" (as meaning penis) from 1600 AD, and "fuck" from 1500 AD.

[talyesin]

1880s. Both are historically accurate, but the former has fallen entirely out of disuse, thus seeming archaic, while the latter rings true with a modern audience.

The writers made the conscious choice to use modern swears, due in part to the fact that using more period-sounding language made everyone sound like Yosemite Sam.

[ai731]

"Period-sounding" has hit the nail on the head. It seems to me that this is all about what the audience expects to hear/read... On that score, my advice, for what it's worth, is to write in a way that flows well for you, and try not to worry so much about what your audience "expects".