Before I get started I'd like to warn this post will hold offensive language, they will be there as demonstrations and not directed nor targeted at anyone, if you're sensitive to that sort of language I'd suggest skipping this post. Thank you for understanding. I was writing a scene where the characters were in a heated argument and swearing seemed fitting, though I'm not comfortable using common English swears as I find them too crass to use in a novel unless I want the swear to feel like a punch to the gut. However fantasy swearing tends to feel... Odd. The classic dwarven swears for example of "By my beard" or "By the forge" etc seem sort of out of place, these are common place words so it lacks the impact. So I want to see if there's a trend as to what composes swear words in various cultures and languages to see if I can find some pattern to exploit to craft them based on the races and cultures of my world, individuals of a same race but from different nations could even have different ones which I think would help make the world feel more complete. So to those willing to help: Where are you from, what's your native language and what's the general theme of your "home" swearing and vulgar terms? For example in Quebec where we speak French our swears are very much religious terms, "Criss" being a modified version of "Christ" as in Jesus Christ. "Tabernacle", "Calice", "Ciboire" etc being other religious objects, though as a non religious person I'm not sure what each of these refer to. As for English most of what I have heard seem linked to sex and bodily functions. From body parts to acts. This post being in English I feel a bit uncomfortable writing them in such a public format but you probably know what I mean. I'd also like to know terms other than just swearing, vulgarities for example could help find a pattern. Also please don't refer to anything that is racially charged. Racial slurs and racism in general can be done based on where a race lives or stereotypes of it which is much easier to think of than vulgarities. Calling a Dwarf a "Mole" would likely act as a very good racial slur. Thanks to everyone who'll be giving me a hand! P.s. Before anyone says it, since there's always someone who does, I know I could google this, however there's something different about learning directly from someone rather than out of a textbook of sorts. If learning could be done properly through nothing more than a computer screen or a few pages of paper we would have done away with teachers a long time ago. Also this would allow me to shorten the time I span actively looking these things up and allow me to learn more things faster. So thanks to anyone willing to help me be lazy!
What do you mean? I don't mind reading them, I'm just not the kind of person who expresses them freely in the open. Despite having the mouth of a sailor among my friends.
You said you weren't comfortable using common English swears because they seem to crass to use in a novel. I speak English so...
Ah I see, though maybe you know some that are colloquialisms? Depending on where you grew up. That's a severe lack of originality if everyone over an entire world only had a single curse word!
Well, I grew up in Delaware, Tennessee, and Maryland. I also spent time in Kentucky and Virginia. I've been to every state on the east coast and live in New York. They're all pretty much the same, it's just the accents that make them sound different. ETA: although there are some good ole' boys in the mountains (TN and KY) who still call people 'yella' bellied sap suckers' and such. It's more the older folks though.
Thank you, I guess with in this age of information language is somewhat homogenized with those who learned them from before being more distinct out of old habits. So in a medieval setting even the same language would have larger differences the further the distance though I'm sure they'd have similar themes in say villages with similar surroundings. After some thinking I came to the hypothesis that swears and vulgarities tend to be words and things that aren't socially acceptable to speak in public or blatantly. French being religious in their swearing would likely hint to a highly religious past of the language while sexuality might have been a somewhat heavier taboo in English instead. So perhaps in a world where a ruler essentially has ownership of your life the use of the ruler's name as an insult or something political as a vulgar term (as well as religious terms since religion tends to be more severe in medieval settings) could serve as decent swearing. Assuming a human society at least. To take the example of Dwarves again maybe something more linked to natural disasters could do well. "You caved-in skull!" for example. Though that'd work for insults I can't think of it as sudden expressions like how one would scream if they stubbed their toe or nearly got their skull caved in by a giant rock or something like that.
I'm originally from Iran, which makes my native language Farsi or Persian, whichever you wanna call it. I'd say our swear words are mostly related to private parts, bodily functions and sexual stuff, though religious swear words exist as well. Personally I don't have any issues with using real-world swear words in a novel, people swear so it makes completely sense for book characters to do so as well. Besides, real swear words usually tend to have more of an effect on the reader than made-up ones, since the latter won't have the same cultural connotations to reader would. Also you're saying English swear words are to crass for a novel and while I absolutely respected your point of view on this, consider that the whole point of swear words is to be crass and inappropriate. Having said that, I've read books that use fictional, made-up swear words and make it work really well. Best examples that come to mind are the works of Brandon Sanderson, specifically his high fantasy stuff. Sanderson's really great a world building and creating diverse, interesting cultures. And he comes up with great swear words for his worlds and cultures that are based on the beliefs/history/mythology and other aspects of these worlds. For example in his Stormlight Archive series, most swear words are based on 'storm', because in that world storms are big part of their lives and cultures. Their world is ravaged several times a year (at random times) by this mega storms called highstorms so their lives has been pretty much shaped by this natural phenomenon in their worlds. Swear words include 'Storms!', 'storm you/him/her/them' and 'storming' (used the way we use 'fucking'). In Sanderson's Mistbron series the world is ruled by this oppressive, tyrannical figure called Lord Ruler who's both their emperor and their god. So people swear by his name, as in 'by the Lord Ruler' . There are other examples too in his other works, and they all work pretty well imo.
Swear words are generally derived from subject areas which are deemed unacceptable, dirty or unsafe. A lot of English swear words stem from the Victorian era which is why they focus on body parts and bodily functions. The problem you'll have with making up your own is that they won't have the same historical connotations. The word "cunt" is considered possibly the most obscene English word, but it's literal meaning is just a vagina. There's nothing offensive about that whatsoever, so it's the perceived connotations that give the word expletive usage. So basically, if you make up swear words based on other concepts, the risk is that the reader won't get the sense that the characters are swearing. If you want the characters to swear, why not just use swear words?
That's very true. I guess I find them crass in writing because I so rarely saw them written in novels. Probably because most fantasy novels I read were aimed at teenagers such as the "Dragon lance" series. I guess I can probably compromise by having insults be cultural in origin and having the actual swearing be the same things we use today. Thanks for the hand and advice!
@Literacyr If you're writing for an adult audience then you shouldn't shy away from adult language. If I read a novel in which the characters called each other 'nincompoops' and 'silly billies' then I wouldn't be able to take it seriously. And I wouldn't be in the least bit offended if the characters used a suitable swear word instead. As long as it's not gratuitous (which could become irritating) it will be fine.
Have you read A song of Ice and Fire books? (the series on which Game of Thrones is based?) the books are littered with swear words, words like 'fuck' and 'cunt' and others like them are used so often. A lot of books aimed at adults have swear words in them. Another book series I've read with a lot, and I mean a lot, of swearing is the Cormoran Strike series of mystery crime novels by J. K. Rowling, I've seriously lost the count of F words in these books.
I haven't read the game of thrones books, for whatever reason the show didn't appeal to me and the base material doesn't draw me any more than the show did.
I respect that, as much as I love both the show and the books, it's understandable that it wouldn't appeal to everyone. The world of ASOIAF is dark and grim, the good guys don't always win (read most of the time), and they don't necessarily always live either. GRRM doesn't pull any punches when it comes to portraying the reality of living in a world like Westeros. Political intrigue is a huge part of the series ( though the show has diverged from that in that last few seasons).
There's no substitute for fuck. And there's a shitload of other threads on this already if you want to check them out: https://www.writingforums.org/search/6751861/?q=Profanity&o=date&c[title_only]=1&c[node]=12
I'm going to have to solve this problem eventually. I'm using the word "damned" because the idea of condemning something to, or condemning something as having come from, some dark place separated from all warmth and goodness, seems translatable. But that's not enough. Eventually I'm going to have to search for all instances of the string (expletive) and figure out what to do with them.
I'm good for one or two a week usually. ETA: I've never understood the substitute profanity thing. If they're using all the other English words, why not the swears.
The bodily function and some other profanity may translate with few or even zero adjustments, yes. But religion-specific and other culture-specific profanity is going to need some work.
Contrary to my normal method of speaking, I rarely swear in my writing. I like to make it count. The fuck this and fuck that just becomes meaningless after awhile. Profanity is like any other word, it loses all meaning with overuse. And don't get me started about the "realism" of sailors, soldiers, or corner-boys swearing every other word. Realism is boring... especially in speech. If we wrote out every word of how people really speak it would take a page and a half for two characters to say hello. You're still good with shit, fuck, ass, tits, and cocksucker right? What's left? Hell, damn, and Jesus Christ?
In any sort of historical/fantasy setting, curses involving disease are probably pretty good. When he's fatally wounded in the fight between Tybalt and Romeo, Mercutio calls down "a plague on both your houses." Sounds pretty tame now, but the bubonic plague's last tour of London was something like seventy or eighty years after Romeo and Juliet, and I don't think people had much idea what to do about such things beyond quarantine. Like @Homer Potvin, however, I think that while profanity is perfectly acceptable in writing, it should probably be more limited in usage than it is in the real world. "Realistic" speech is never real; if you read an actual transcript of a conversation, it's just tedious. Side note: I find parental substitutions hilarious. My friend's kid has picked up, from her father, the habit of saying "Sweet fluffy monkey mohawks!" when amazed or thwarted. Probably beats "Holy motherfucking shitballs" when coming from a ten-year-old.
Maybe have a look at curses popular in previous centuries that have now fallen out of use. Words that sound quaint or meaningless now would have been considered a hideous insult at points in the past (for example, Loki's "mewling quim!" line in The Avengers)., so you can use them with less risk of "lowering the tone", since even if someone knows what it meant, there won't be the same visceral reaction.
Aeons ago in my youth, it was quite socially unacceptable to use the word "fuck" in mixed company (ie. male and female genders together). A workmate found it very difficult to stop using the word and after many requests he finally decided to substitute "ordinary" for the word. Everyone knew what he was saying and eventually some of my colleagues started to react to the word "ordinary" as if it was a swear word. One thing that most curses have in common is that they are short, and can be said with real venom ("fuck, "cunt", "slut","prick", etc), and if anyone was seeking to create their own swear words, keeping them short will be an advantage, I think. "Conjugate them!" for example, is far harder to deliver with impact/anger/distaste than "fuck them". And overuse sees impact lessen dramatically as well as understanding. But I think the OP has much the right idea - introducing unique curses to give a distinctive slant to the speech and a sense of if not of place, then a different society. This cannot be a bad thing, unless you go OTT, which some authors have done. I believe A Clockwork Orange is a case in point, but I've never read the book, so I can't be sure.