Swearing, Orwell and being made in the image of God

[spally]

[Warning: I don't normally swear on this blog but this post includes some swear words. Just letting you know if you need to prepare yourself!]

'It's a beautiful thing, the destruction of words. Of course the great wastage is in the verbs and adjectives, but there are hundreds of nouns that can be got rid of as well. It isn't only the synonyms;

Comments

[unmowngrass]

Really excellent piece, really made me think, thank you!

[tibbycat]

I'll never forget the look of horror towards me from a little boy in Georgia in the US when I uttered in public the very Australian words, "bloody hell" :p

As a former student of linguistics I definitely have to take the opposite viewpoint of you Spally and also express you how happy I was when we last met up and I heard you utter in frustration the word 'fuck' about something we were talking about. I couldn't help but smile at how 'real' it was and how justified it felt at your frustration on the topic.

Swearing/cursing/taboo words are entirely culturally relative and in one hundred years from now (or even less time than that most likely), words such as 'fuck' and 'shit' will have fuck all effect as expletives and new ones will be created to take their place.

When I first became a Christian I was paranoid about swearing so I self-censored how I spoke to risk offending other Christians because of interpretations of James 3 and Ephesians 4 with which I no longer agree

[spally]

That's true about the changing of language. I know that meanings in words shift but I guess my Orwellian argument doesn't really leave room for that! That's what I get for basing an idea off a dystopian vision :P

We were actually talking about swearing in the bible at work yesterday, reading 1 Corinthians. I think he uses the same word there in chapter 4. He talks about how the world treats him (and the other apostles) as crap that gets scraped off someone's shoe.

I just had a thought - it's kind of interesting that when Paul swears in the bible, he seems to always be applying the word/idea to himself and his peers. I can't think of an example where he swears at or about other people. That's crazy! I don't know anyone who uses swear words like that today.

[tibbycat]

I meant to reply to your reply here awhile ago but I went to hospital for my Sharpay nose job which has been kinda hurty ever since.

I was saying to Brad the other day though how pleasant it was to receive your reply which was so much more intelligent than the usual "but Mark you said a four letter word and you're not repentant so you're obvs not a Christian anymore!" Christian reply I've received on this topic from others :p

Actually I think where you might be right about the Orwellian argument is where we see certain phrases used as euphemisms in political speech. For example, "enemy combatant" instead of "prisoner of war", or "queue jumper" instead of "asylum seeker". That reminds me exactly of 1984's concept of double speak