#24 - Why F^%~ S-!& N^# C*$$ in English

Why Foreigners Should Not Cuss in English

(and Why English-Speakers Should Be More Careful Too)

If there are two words that English will permanently imprint on almost every language in the world, they are probably "OK" and "Fuck."  The popularity of OK is understandable--it's useful, simple, contains only two letters, and even comes with a nifty hand gesture.

But "fuck"?  I mean, I know everyone thinks that swear words are super cool 'n all, but every language has their own swear words.  Why do they need to borrow ours?  Of course, there is always the novelty of being naughty in another language.  How many people have I met who told me (either jokingly or not) that the first words they learned when they came to a new country were the dirty words?

And let's face it--we encourage this.  "Fuck" has become the infallible wingman of every late-night TV joke, every comedy sketch, every TV drama, every exciting story told by anyone under the age of 30, and the marrow and bone of exclamations both good and bad.  "That episode was so fucking cool!" or (a title from one of my favorite slam-poetry experiences) "I can't date you, cause your tattoos are fucking stupid."  During that poem, even the people in the room with very limited English all laughed, cause EVERYONE understands the word "fuck."

Or do they?

I'll save you the suspense.  No, they don't.  They really, really don't.  Erego, my piece of advice to all my French (and other foreign) friends out there--please, please stop using English obscenities, unless you are really fluent in the language.

Yes, swear words have become a part of everyday speech to the younger generations of anglophones.  We use them all the time with our friends and these words are all over both mainstream and social media.  However, these are still vulgar words that have the power to seriously offend people--and that's what I think a lot of foreigners don't really understand.  To them, English cuss words are just cool.  They're fashionable.  They're a way to cuss without really cussing.   Above all, many foreigners have no idea when it's acceptable to use these words and when it's not.

I was in an office building near Paris once, and I started chatting with a businessman and woman in the elevator.  When they found out I was American and an English teacher, the young businessman said (in French), "Oh, yeah, I speak English.  You just say "fuck" between every other word, right?"  He was kidding of course, but he also clearly had no idea that this was an incredibly rude thing to say to complete stranger.

Another time, I was in an orchestra rehearsal--a rather casual, amateur orchestra rehearsal, but still--and we had just finished discussing something and were about to continue playing, when one guy shouted out in English, "Let's go bitches!"  I turned to him and repeated exactly the same thing back to him in French, and there was a moment of stunned confusion as he and everyone else looked around and some people muttered, "That's not really what it means, is it?"

"That's exactly what it means," I said.

Last but not least--I used to teach at a high school in Paris, and I can't tell you the number of times I had to stop everything in the middle of class because somebody tossed out the N-word.  My students were always utterly astonished when I explained to them that this is one of the dirtiest words in the English language and if they ever used it in the United States, they would probably get punched in the face--and deservedly so.  "But madame!" they would insist, "We hear it all the time in songs!"  It's true, and rather difficult to explain, that some black people do call each other by that word, but that in general it's still deeply offensive.  I never did get them to understand how a such a "bad" word can still be used freely throughout an entire genre of popular music, but I hope at least that I convinced them not to say that word themselves. 

There are a million other instances where I've heard people drop English swears (usually "fuck") into a French conversation in really inappropriate or awkward places.  But even if used "appropriately," with friends in a very informal setting, swearing in awkward or stumbling English just sounds very odd.  Personally I find it really off-putting.  I don't know why, but I feel that you need to speak fluently to swear, otherwise it just doesn't work.

English-speakers could also take a lesson away from this: why do we swear so much?  Does it really add anything to the story I'm telling to say that it was "fucking amazing" instead of just "amazing"?  Are jokes actually that much funnier with a little F-bomb?  Personally, I've started playing a game.  When I hear someone (especially a comedian) use the F-word, I imagine what it would sound like if they left that word out.  Was the joke actually funny?  Would people still laugh, without that bit of vulgarity?  Half the time, I decide the answer is no.  I think swearing has become a cheap way to emphasize things and a very cheap way of making half-baked jokes sound funnier.  Show me a comedian who doesn't swear at all and can still make the audience laugh that much, and then I'll be really impressed.

I have no intention of getting up on a soap-box and making this into some moralistic speech about "young people these days" or the "degradation of society/language," etc.  I actually think the use of swear words can be hilarious (if done cleverly), and they do carry a whole lot of connotations and attitude that can really add something to a dialogue or a comedy skit. 

Can you imagine Pulp Fiction without swears?  HA!  Don't be ridiculous....

Also, I understand (and enjoy) the fact that languages evolve, that new words replace the old, change meanings, and that some words which were once inexcusable become banal.  Once upon a time, taking God's name in vain was considered cursing.  How many people these days would even think twice about exclaiming, "Jesus Christ!"?  Language grows and develops with the culture around it, and that's fine. 

However, I am trying to point out that our cuss words have arrived at a very weird place where they're still kind of bad--bad enough to make people laugh at jokes that aren't funny, and also bad enough to upset people when used in anger--but they've also been trivialized.  Dirty words have always depended partly on context, but I think nowadays we've pushed this to new extremes.  Since context is now everything, and these words can either be completely acceptable or completely offensive depending on the situation, I think we just need to be extra conscious of how and why we use them--and that is doubly true for foreigners.  The textbook definition doesn't matter nearly as much as the time, the place, the tone of voice, and the audience, and these are far more difficult things to master in a foreign language.