A Guide to Swearing and Being Rude

by Eric Boa

"Haven't you finished yet?" "No. Bugger off!"

Words have always intrigued me. I amused my English teacher, the wonderful Jack Roberts, by weaving new words into school essays: perfunctory, desultory and mendacious were early examples. Not an easy task. I was hoping to impress and also showing off. Mr Roberts was perhaps more amused than impressed by my clumsy efforts, though I also got a hint of encouragement.

I revelled less in the array of new words that scientists use to be precise and unambiguous but more often confound. I stumbled through the technical descriptions used to identify plants and fungi and wondered if there was a better way to convey meaning. Why describe spores as subglobular and not almost spherical? Or cross-shaped rather than cruciform? Two words perform the same function.

Medicine is awash with similar examples, best seen in diagnoses and describing symptoms. I’ve just received a letter which tells me that an unusual spot on my left ala has arborising telangiectasia. Who knew that the side of the nose is called an ala? I’m still working on telangiectasia.

Language is at its most powerful when a vivid meaning is conveyed directly. I’m curious about how we swear and are rude to others. How we express disappointment, annoyance, pain and general frustration, all legitimate reasons for swearing. In the UK we make frequent use of adjectives or modifiers to indicate degrees of being upset. Thus bloody nonsense and bloody fool or even bastard stupid and the bastard lock is jammed. More annoyed? Try shit or shitty.  Really, really angry? I’ll avoid for now naming the obvious options, though our editor will be pondering how, without any intention to offend, I will reveal the strongest swear word.  I hope that the removal of vowels will suffice. You have been fckng warned*.

The most offensive swear words I know derive from copulation and the female anatomy. Other bodily functions also provide a rich source of swearing, particularly micturition and defaecation. One is frequently pissed off, for example. I had never heard the Glaswegian term keech until my friend David used it. Yes, this is a turd. At primary school we had our own variant, embellished for added effect, as in big fat smelly jobby. I can’t remember ever directing this at an individual. We got a thrill from simply saying the words. Yes, there is a thrill to swearing, something we don’t always acknowledge.

Big fat smelly jobby doesn’t work outside of Scotland, unless directed at a fellow Scot. It’s still the worse insult I can think of. Fortunately my cursing vocabulary has expanded though I still feel queasy about swearing unless I’m suitably worked up about something. Sadly, there has been an explosion in use of swear words to add emphasis. Was it really necessary for a friend at university to tell me that an exam had been fckng horrendous?

I worry about the increase in use of swear words in public and in print. It does little to enrich language, though sometimes it can be subtly subversive. Joe Mercer, a potty-mouthed football manager, gave a press conference when taking up a new post. My daily newspaper liberally quoted his barely comprehensible replies to questions, stuffed full of swear words. Offensive? Well, yes, but also an indictment of Joe Mercer and unexplainably funny. More recently. a group of comedians renowned for swearing and being rude on stage were hired to perform in Saudia Arabia. They have been roundly condemned by other comedians and activists concerned about the kingdom’s unsavoury reputation. I also read about this in the press, where one of the financially-seduced comedians was clearly upset by these critics and, quoting verbatim, called them cnts and that they should all fck off. All this from someone who presumably didn’t swear on stage or tell a joke about those who were cut up when they failed to get a visa from a Saudi Arabia consulate.

There are ways to be rude that don’t involve the use of swear words. I was once described by a fellow student as “looking like Rolf Harris – but not as handsome.” I was a little miffed. I had a beard and wore glasses but, unlike this then popular Australian TV presenter, could neither paint nor play the digeridoo. None of us knew at the time that Mr Harris carried out repeated sexual assaults on young women. What if my insulter had known this? A mildly offensive remark would have become something radically different, a personal and pointed attack rather than a casual observation which could and has been dismissed.

Being rude can easily be misinterpreted and ambiguity exploited to mask discrimination. I’m always wary when someone says “it was only a joke.” Insulting someone because of their race, nationality, gender, disability or immutable traits is not only offensive but unacceptable*. As a Scot attending an English secondary school, I took umbrage at the derogatory remarks about haggis, kilts and similar things that my fellow pupils imagined to be typically Scottish. I only realised that English pupils at a Scottish school had it much worse, with heartfelt insults that harked back to times when Scotland was being subjugated by its southern neighbour.

The best way of being rude is not to swear but make a keen observation. As a keen musician, I’m fond of the description of modern jazz players who may be musically gifted but have never knowingly played a tune. Jonathan Aitken, a former British politician, said that Margaret Thatcher knew so little about the Middle East that she thought “Sinai was the plural of sinus.” I thought it would be fun to be rude about Hashing, a sort of fun-run that was popular amongst expatriate communities and families. We had a T shirt made in Bangladesh which had Catamites and Onanists Welcome at the bottom in small letters. Most puzzled about what this meant while the few who got it were more amused than insulted. Not in Indonesia, where I managed to add the words to a hashing T shirt. One of the runners was a devout Christian and knew her bible. Definitely not amused, as were others when told the meaning of the phrase. I had gone from being rude to insulting people.

About to curse the photographer

Context and circumstance alter the balance between being rude and unacceptably offensive. The bus from Molepolole to Gaborone in Botswana was, at least for us youthful volunteer teachers, an eagerly awaited weekly opportunity to head for decent food, the cinema and the bookshop. For others it was a journey to be endured rather than enjoyed. I was quietly contemplating life on one Saturday bus when an enormous row broke out between the bus driver and an uncovered and apparently serial fare dodger. The driver let rip with a torrent of vehement expletives. I was taken aback and rather shocked before realising that the other passengers were unmoved. They either didn’t understand what was being said, or they’d heard it before.

A teacher friend dressed up as a resplendent and very pink Barbie doll for a primary school event. A 10 year-old girl responded aggressively to a simple request. She told Toni to – and here I do need to go verbatim –  “Fck off you Pink Cnt.” Wow. Impressive in one so young. Also deeply offensive and aggressive, though distress changes to sorrow when you know that the child had a difficult home life and unresolved behavioural issues. I later used the same phrase, prefaced by “And remember …”, to spur my niece and her stepfather on in a cycle race. Crucially, they already knew about the school incident. There was a short pause and then slightly nervous laughter, as an aggressive insult became ironic.

Swearing can be unintentionally funny. When hitchhiking in Norway with Richard, our cleanly spoken editor, we were given a lift by a cultured and well-spoken theatre director. He was eager to tell us about his country and its cultural heritage. He began with a long discourse on Edvard Grieg, pointing out a place where the Song of Norway was filmed, then turned to another classical composer. He was particularly keen on Tchaikovsky, who he said was “fcking good.”

Scheiße! (in Austria)

Always be wary of swearing in a foreign language. It can often go wrong, even in neutral settings. I started to discuss French insults with a native speaker at a party, a jolly social affair. I naively thought I’d made it clear I wasn’t trying to be rude. It didn’t work and realised I’d made a big mistake. She was mortally offended when I said “Vas te faire encule” and “Va te fair foutre”, even though our conversation was in English. Stick to your native language when swearing abroad. I offered this advice to our French au pair. She had become increasingly irritated by British driving habits. I had failed to consider the possibility in multi-cultural London that her curses might be directed at another French driver. He gave as good as he got.

Widen your vocabulary when being rude. It may confuse and obscure the intended insult, but I really do prefer onanist to wanker. Egregious sounds better than totally shit. It helps if you imagine the ruder version, so that when you read or hear hubristic you substitute it with cocky bastard. There is however no denying the power of an aptly used swear word. I never heard my father swear until in my late teens he recounted a favourite moment from a Shaft movie, a series featuring a black detective, originally played by Richard Roundtree. My father loved a set piece where an elderly grandmother tries to leave a building but is brushed aside repeatedly as criminals are chased by the police. Her calm demeanour is destroyed as she finally gets to exit through the door and announces, direct to camera: “That’s the trouble with today’s youth: no fcking respect.”

The meaning or rude words can change by location. Try explaining what bugger means to anyone who doesn’t come from Yorkshire or hasn’t lived in the UK for some time. I spent a year as a secondary school teacher in Leeds, a constant struggle in keeping ahead of the curriculum while trying to control pupils. I finally gave in to frustration and told a pupil to sod off. It’s not a phrase that I had ever imagined to be rude. Not in Leeds and not in a Catholic school: you can’t say that. Other pupils chimed in as collective offense amplified my wrong choice of words. I’m still puzzled by their reaction, mainly because the pupils regularly swore in class, though not directly at me. Things calmed down and though I had managed to be rude, I never used the phrase again.

* Fashions change in swearing. In times when delicate sensibilities prevented explicit language, the UK clothes retailer French Connection replaced their name in shop fronts, billboards and advertising campaigns with the acronym FCUK.

** But you can insult yourself. Sammy Davis Jnr, a popular entertainer and actor, was asked what his handicap was at golf. His reply: “I’m a one-eyed, Jewish, black person.”