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hwangoWell, surprise, this week you get nonfiction.
I don't like profanity. I don't use a lot of it in real life, to the extent that you are far more likely to hear me say "dang it" or "heck" than even their only mildly more objectionable counterparts, which are themselves the only expletives that I use with any frequency at all. In truth, my speech patterns are so deliberately idiosyncratic that using any of those words is less common than me saying something like "regrettable!" or "unfortunate!" or even "everything is ruined forever!" in their place. In moments of extreme duress I might utter one particular word not allowed on network TV, but I'm usually annoyed with myself for doing so afterwards. The vast majority of objectionable words are words that I simply never use.
In early childhood, most of the swearing I heard in person was from people who were angry and shouting and not really thinking about what they were saying. Certain people I looked up to clearly didn't approve of that sort of thing, and it wasn't hard to decide which of these people I wanted to emulate. I remember other kids would swear when adults weren't around because I guess they enjoyed doing something that was forbidden. I recall trying it, probably at least partially in an attempt to fit in, back when I was still trying to do that. However, doing things only because they were forbidden didn't turn out to appeal to me, particularly when I didn't like the forbidden thing in the first place.
As I got older, I observed that some people used profanity rarely and only for extreme emphasis, and because they used it so rarely, the emphasis was effective. On the other hand, there were people who swore so many times in a single sentence that being vulgar was just their baseline, and it became essentially meaningless. This further reinforced my decision to avoid using profanity whenever possible. If things were ever bad enough for me to use some really objectionable words, people would know that things were dire indeed.
I prefer it if my books and media don't contain a lot of foul language. Partly this is because of my overall negative feelings towards profanity, but it's also because it often feels lazy. There are so many interesting words characters could be using instead! It's actively boring if they just keep saying the same thing over and over. Yes, I've made plenty of exceptions, but many of them were grudgingly made, and I have absolutely bailed out of books, movies, and even songs because I was just tired of the quantity or intensity of the swearing in them.
I tried to write a piece of humorous fiction based on this prompt, and I hated it. There wasn't any actual profanity in it, of course, but making light of something that really bothers me still felt like an unpleasant compromise. At one point, struggling for new inspiration, I did another search on the term to see if there was some other interpretation I could take for the prompt. That's when I stumbled across the literal translation for the word, and I decided that no, it might seem like a silly hill to die on, but that story is going in the garbage, and this week it's either post nothing or write this diatribe few people will probably relate to, and which required me to speak at length about something I don't like.
So, bleh. Perhaps this is at least a slightly interesting window into why you don't see a lot of cursing in my stories. Sure, it's great that it means they can be read by a wider audience, but that's just a side benefit. The main reason is that I just don't like profanity.
I don't like profanity. I don't use a lot of it in real life, to the extent that you are far more likely to hear me say "dang it" or "heck" than even their only mildly more objectionable counterparts, which are themselves the only expletives that I use with any frequency at all. In truth, my speech patterns are so deliberately idiosyncratic that using any of those words is less common than me saying something like "regrettable!" or "unfortunate!" or even "everything is ruined forever!" in their place. In moments of extreme duress I might utter one particular word not allowed on network TV, but I'm usually annoyed with myself for doing so afterwards. The vast majority of objectionable words are words that I simply never use.
In early childhood, most of the swearing I heard in person was from people who were angry and shouting and not really thinking about what they were saying. Certain people I looked up to clearly didn't approve of that sort of thing, and it wasn't hard to decide which of these people I wanted to emulate. I remember other kids would swear when adults weren't around because I guess they enjoyed doing something that was forbidden. I recall trying it, probably at least partially in an attempt to fit in, back when I was still trying to do that. However, doing things only because they were forbidden didn't turn out to appeal to me, particularly when I didn't like the forbidden thing in the first place.
As I got older, I observed that some people used profanity rarely and only for extreme emphasis, and because they used it so rarely, the emphasis was effective. On the other hand, there were people who swore so many times in a single sentence that being vulgar was just their baseline, and it became essentially meaningless. This further reinforced my decision to avoid using profanity whenever possible. If things were ever bad enough for me to use some really objectionable words, people would know that things were dire indeed.
I prefer it if my books and media don't contain a lot of foul language. Partly this is because of my overall negative feelings towards profanity, but it's also because it often feels lazy. There are so many interesting words characters could be using instead! It's actively boring if they just keep saying the same thing over and over. Yes, I've made plenty of exceptions, but many of them were grudgingly made, and I have absolutely bailed out of books, movies, and even songs because I was just tired of the quantity or intensity of the swearing in them.
I tried to write a piece of humorous fiction based on this prompt, and I hated it. There wasn't any actual profanity in it, of course, but making light of something that really bothers me still felt like an unpleasant compromise. At one point, struggling for new inspiration, I did another search on the term to see if there was some other interpretation I could take for the prompt. That's when I stumbled across the literal translation for the word, and I decided that no, it might seem like a silly hill to die on, but that story is going in the garbage, and this week it's either post nothing or write this diatribe few people will probably relate to, and which required me to speak at length about something I don't like.
So, bleh. Perhaps this is at least a slightly interesting window into why you don't see a lot of cursing in my stories. Sure, it's great that it means they can be read by a wider audience, but that's just a side benefit. The main reason is that I just don't like profanity.
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Date: 2022-08-14 02:05 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-08-14 08:06 pm (UTC)