Thursday, March 18, 2004

Ampersand won't tell us his favorite swear word! (Warning: the video in his link is chock full of naughty words, so don't click on it at work. It does include many cast members from The Sopranos and the West Wing, as well as people I'm sure are famous on their side of the pond.)

I am fond of "bugger." When they published Ender's Game in the UK, did they have to change the slang term for the aliens to something else? Words that are dirty in one dialect and not another (and foreign curses as well) are perhaps the most useful ways to swear - you get the emotional outlet without offending those around you as much. I've tried many times to stop cursing, mostly because it seems that people find it a sign of inarticulateness or lack of education, but, as Justice Harlan said, often a certain word "conveys not only ideas capable of relatively precise, detached explication, but otherwise inexpressible emotions as well." Sometimes there's nothing so satisfying as cussin' a blue streak.
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