‘I want to get across […] the genuine power of words’.
On the topic of swear words: While part of me understands that swearing might make a person appear uneducated – why is it that in the vast spectrum of available lexical choices you are unable to express your aggression, your excitement, your anger, your sadness? – there can be no doubt that Cassie hits upon the satisfaction of profanity. The fucking glorious expression that comes from a word that makes the prude cringe and the child gasp and giggle. Perhaps, in fact, it is not that our minds cannot express a feeling; rather, that the feeling is so grand as to be inexpressible by our words. Tell me that the glory of intimacy, as sweat drips down your back and you can just about catch your breath as an ‘oh’ escapes your lips, does not deserve to include an exhilarated, intense, ‘fuck’ – that most-glorious word. Tell me that walking home in the darkness with only the minor comfort of your iPod, and the major discomfort of the night’s unknown, does not deserve the frightened ‘shit’, when someone almost walks into you coming around the corner; you clutch your phone, and probably your heart, and this is it – but it’s not, and you have expected the worse, and were wrong – it’s ok; but tell me, tell me that in that moment of fear, that word did not say it all. Tell me that when your heart breaks for the final time and the boy you once loved has a face which now only throws gasoline on your flames of hatred, where before his face inspired a smile, a flutter in your chest, to call him a ‘cunt’ does not express every moment of love and hate intermingled.
Tell me.
Today (28/1/2013) Cassie expressed to – and I hope she does not mind me expressing this – me a hatred for the word ‘bitch’. This had never been a word I’d considered much, let alone thought of as particularly harsh or offensive. But Cassie is right: the word expresses so much hate, so much chauvinism, so much objectification, so much disrespect. It is a word that we probably throw around – as I certainly have – without really thinking. But it is so ideological, so dark.
And so we take a moment to think:
Not swear words, but sexuality:
Recently a colleague drew my attention to LGBT groups which are actually known as LGBTQ. For me – and perhaps I do not know enough about rights, about definitions, about diversity – the ‘Q’ does not express anything more, anything different, to the other letters. For me the ‘L’, ‘G’, ‘B’, and ‘T’ tell me all I need to know. To say queer seems to devalue people’s ability – indeed people’s right – to self identify.
I was led to think a little, too, about what these words do, what they mean. In allowing a friend of mine to call me ‘faggot’ without a hint of irony, without a moment of being offended, do I enable all other less-tolerant-than-him males to call me a faggot with the intention of being offensive? Or rather, am I allowing him to be comfortable, and encouraging these others to feel the same. For me, it is about knowing how those people feel, knowing that we are comfortable together, knowing that my friend isn’t being offensive. So perhaps this is my call.
On the power of phrases:
Chuck Palahniuk’s Diary notes: ‘It’s so hard to forget pain, but it’s even harder to remember sweetness. We have no scar to show for happiness. We learn so little from peace’.
Perhaps this is why phrases, like those Cassie notes, are so important. We have a tendency to feel that what we call ‘honesty’ does people a favour; ‘You’re fat’ will make that sad teenage girl think about her diet – but she can’t help a poor metabolism and a compulsion to eat for comfort. ‘You look terrible’ will make that exhausted boy think about giving himself a break and finding a way to take things easy – but those black circles around his eyes are more than a mark of tiredness, they are a mark of fear and shame.
We think we are helping people by being truthful. And we think that complimenting people is unnecessary. But every reader here will remember the time they were called ‘ugly’, or ‘fat’, or whatever else. They won’t remember every time someone said ‘well done’, or ‘your hair looks nice’, or ‘thank you’. And there must be something wrong there.
And while we dwell in an important place, think about calling someone ‘fat’, or ‘ugly’, or anything else that makes you feel big and makes the other person feel small. Frankly, I’d rather be called ‘ugly’ than ‘two-faced’, rather ‘fat’ than ‘selfish’. If you must be destructive, at least find something truly negative to say, like ‘liar’, or ‘disrespectful’, of ‘false’. Your skinny legs and pretty face won’t make your mind happy and your heart pure.
So:
Even as an English (and, of course, Drama) student, I marvel at the power of words. I marvel at how frankly ignorant I can be, how ignorant we can all be, about how loaded, how meaningful words can be.
Every word on this page has a meaning. Every word is important.
Every word deserves respect. And every word possesses power – so much ‘fucking’ power.
And until now not a thought was given to all this. Not by me.
SM.