Monday, February 4, 2019

Profanity in Fantasy

It is amazing when one finds a truly insightful statement in the YouTube comments section (and no, this is not sarcasm):

"Swearing is lazy. It shows a lack of vocabulary and imagination when conversing with others. That's why it's all the more impressive when someone threatens or insults someone without using any curse words. Real thought goes into what is said."

I post this because it captures with perfect eloquence and clarity why I loathe swear-words, never using them in life and avoiding then when possibly in Fantasy. (Yes, I know I read A Song of Ice and Fire and that it was/is stiff with profanity, but recall that I was once GRRM's most avid of fans, calling him the American Tolkien, and judged his work just masterful enough to tolerate the language.)

Indeed, growing up reading Fantasy and having parents who raise one to genuinely despise profanity and other forms of crude language is a blessing. Why? Because you learn to speak elegantly and use archaic words with deft precision.


Also, in place of such base and/or simplistic words, one learns to be creative. I say "silence" and, in place of swear-words, oaths like "Thank the flame", "Gods and sacred Goddesses", "Darkspawn", "Freya's tears", "By all the gods above and below the Earth", "Bones, Body, and Blood", "Fire and Hemlock". Oaths which, I think, prove the validity of the above quote.

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