People I know tend to cuss an awful lot. I don’t, for reasons I’ll explain later, but it occurs to me that people are talking about and doing some funny shit today for some reason. And cussing can be hilarious if done right. Doing it right requires discussion, though, because for some, cussing is like a firearm and giving someone a gun without talking about gun safety is likely to have someone wondering what just happened to their foot, if not their face.
So before another jaw gets blasted off by a stream of interesting verbiage, let’s talk about some fucking profanity.
Cluster F-Bombs
The aforementioned close acquaintances use ‘fuck’ pretty liberally. In fact if you get them going on a particularly passionate rant, ‘motherfucker’ pretty much takes the place of the comma. This can be pretty funny in the right hands. Good writers can use profanity for the sake of wit. People like the aforementioned, Yahtzee and David Thorne.
The problem is a lot of people who aren’t good writers seem to think that your level of wit is directly proportional to the amount of cussing you use in your writing. This has caused some to consider the liberal use of ‘fuck’ as a sign of low intelligence. “Smart people have better ways to express themselves,” is one sentiment I’ve heard expressed. While I agree that most people tend to abuse this rather versatile word, I don’t think a case can be made that anybody who uses it with abandon is dumb. Just most people. Since most people are pretty fucking stupid. I mean, have you seen the way they fucking drive? It’s like they’re behind the wheel of their fucking Porsche going, “GEE I REALLY HOPE I CAN MAKE IT TO MY SALES MEETING IN TIME, THOSE TPS REPORTS REALLY NEED TO BE DISCUSSED BUT FIRST I NEED MY DOUBLE MOCHA CHAI LATTE BECAUSE I’M JUST NOT FUCKING PRETENTIOUS ENOUGH TODAY SO GET OUT OF MY WAY HARD-WORKING PERSON IN A REASONABLY-PRICED CAR BECAUSE I’M MORE FUCKING IMPORTANT THAN YOU ARE.”
As you can see, I’m not one to use ‘fuck’ all that liberally. Funnily enough, that kind of carpet-bombing of the word can be hit or miss for me. I tend to go a different route with my use of profanity.
The Precision F-Strike
See this? This is my weapon of choice. In general I like rifles, and specifically the Barrett anti-matériel rifle makes me salivate in a pretty disturbing way. Now, imagine that the .50 caliber slug in the chamber of that bipod-mounted beast has the word FUCK engraved on it.
That’s how I roll.
The way I write and speak, I’m not given usually to lay on the profanity on a liberal basis. Rather, I save the cussing for the sake of emphasis. That doesn’t mean I’m afraid of it or anything. In fact, if I get worked up over something enough, or start over-reacting, the select fire switch on my .50 caliber delivery system of FUCK will go from “single” to “burst fire” or even “fully automatic.” In normal conversation, though, and especially when doing something like IT CAME FROM NETFLIX!, I’m pretty patient. I get going on a particular point. I let the words flow in the right direction. I wait for it. And then, just when the moment is right, I hit that fucking sweet spot.
What it boils down to is that you need to be aware of what you’re good at. Some people are great at weaving profanity into the flow of their writing even through liberal use for comedic effect. Others punctuate particular passages with it to drive their points home. It’s going to vary from person to person, and using it doesn’t necessarily make you stupid.
Supporting things like this and calling Obama ‘irresponsible’ because he wants to make health care affordable for every US Citizen, that tends to make you a fucking dumbass. Because you know the folks out there who love their country, their guns and their Rush & Glenn & Sarah will take those little sights to mean those dirty hippy fascist socialist Democrats need to be shot to make room for right-minded God-fearing flag-saluting honest politicians who’ll put Jaysus and the Yoo-nited States first so let’s go get ’em, pardners! YEEEEEE HAW!
You know it’ll happen. Because people are fucking dumbasses.
Shit. Politics made it into my blog again.
Ah well. At least I have Jack Bauership, thanks to the new guy at work.
In blogland, I think most people write the way they talk. You don’t swear a lot. I, by contrast, do.
So yeah.
I think we all know how my dirty sailor mouth works. But in my writing I try to be a bit more reserved, keeping in mind that my precious little mother likes to read anything I publish.
You should have seen how horrified I was the first time my husband dropped the f-bomb in front of my mother. I did a marvelous impression of a beached trout gasping for oxygen.