Like a bad virus, swearwords are starting to get everywhere. A recent visit to a bookshop really turned me OFF! Sure, I cuss and swear myself from time to time.
But on the cover of a book? No way.
Here’s a selection I got from just 2 sections of the bookshop: holistic health and personal growth. Why? What are the authors trying to do? Shock and upset us into buying their books? Surely not…
OK, for those who don’t know my blogs and writing style, you need to get behind me for this. Most times I do the health news. But I have a very large definition of health and wellbeing, which takes in just about EVERYTHING: a happy, harmonious and intelligent relationship with your lover, your kids, your bank manager, the planet, politicians (at least try!), television programs, books, wildlife, scenery, beauty, your transport and so on. God as well (better get that one right).
So when dudes go polluting my world with shocking, ugly words—for which in the old days we would leap to protect women and children—I get very agitated. These words exist and we are told they come from Anglo-Saxon beginnings. Most of the 4-letter words started as Anglo-Saxon terms: the F-word, sh*t
But there are words shaped by their usage. I was shocked to hear the Anglo-Saxon word CUNT on American TV, especially shocked considering American puritanism. It wasn’t bleeped out, so apparently no big deal. But in England, this is by far the most foul, extreme and filthy swearword; way worse than F**k. Nobody would say it in polite company and especially not on TV or radio.
Sex Pistols
My wife is a close friend of the wife of one of the Sex Pistols (should that be Pisstols? Haha!) I remember well the first broadcast of a 1976 TV segment in which presenter Bill Grundy taunted the Pistols, to get them to mouth obscenities, notably the F-word. The oinks* duly obliged and the moment went down in TV history; not the best kind of history, I may say.
A memo from studio producer Mike Housego (who was in charge of the program as it went out live) to the program’s overall boss reveals that after the show ended the group were led back down to the Green Room. While the Pistols were there, the memo reveals, harassed workers on the program were receiving so many calls of complaint from viewers that they couldn’t answer them all.
It was a classic case of any publicity is better than no publicity. Apparently, the uproar led to the Pistols being trailed by newspaper reporters for the rest of the band’s existence.
Fast forward 52 years and by this time even the sublime Judy Dench yells “F*ck off” in the memorable TV film “Tea With The Dames” (Dame Judy Dench, Dame Joan Plowright, Dame Maggie Smith and Dame Eileen Atkins, filmed on the lawn having tea and some very funny bawdy conversation!)
Mind Your Language Shakespeare!
Shakespeare none other, remember, was very smutty and filthy. When Juliet says to Romeo “What satisfaction canst thou have tonight?” I’m sure the audience (mostly men) jeered and roared at the innuendo!
I have a book by a woman who picked out all the juicy bits. [Filthy Shakespeare by Pauline Kiernan]
Bawdy Bill even spells out the word CUNT in the comedy Twelfth Night, when Malvolio says (reading from a letter from Countess Olivia): “These are her very C’s, her U’s and her T’s (read ‘N’ for and), and thus she makes her great P’s (piss).”
It’s hard to suppose all this is just a great coincidence. Shakespeare was too good a writer to fluff it. He DID mean it, I’m sure (and there’s lots of it by the way!)
In Henry V, act 2, scene 3, Shakespeare, Pistol (yet another urination pun?) is a coward and a bully, married to the brothel madam, Mistress Quickly (punning on quick lay or quick screw). According to Pauline Kiernan, herself quite witty, Pistol “roars through Shakespeare’s history plays like a sex dictionary on legs.”
You may know the English word Bowdlerized, which refers to Shakespeare’s “cleaned up” dialogue, the result of efforts of Dr. Thomas Bowdler in 1888. Phew, at last we can share the bard with our kids!
OK Here’s An Antidote!
Let’s savor some nice words. There are beautiful words out there. Not just words like love, justice and harmony, which are beautiful in their way. But beautiful SOUNDING words, like:
Lugubrious, ululation, diaphanous, euphonius, fugacious, tintinnabulation, cynosure, surreptitious, peregrinate, woebegone… If you don’t know these words, look ‘em up, I dare you!
Some words I still have to look up each time I meet them: exomologesis, for example; palimpsest and insouciant. They just won’t stick in my mind!
Many years ago my newsletter used to finish with a segment called “What’s In A Word?” and I would pick a word and explain its meaning and origins. I was quite moved when I finally wound it up; someone wrote to me very upset. Apparently, he and his family would open the newsletter and gather round and discuss the word of the week! I was very honored…
Anyway, back to core medicine and healing next week. I just have a rant like this now and again!
To your good health,
Prof. Keith Scott-Mumby
The Official Alternative Doctor
*Oink: yob, slob, guttersnipe, low life; doubtless from the noise that pigs make!
