An Essay by Jeremiah Murphy

This is something that’s been low-grade bugging me for a while, and I’ve decided that I’m going to come right out and complain about it. I know several of you do this, which has stopped me from saying anything.

Before we go on, I want you to know that there are certain words I’ll never say, and they are all slurs. Most of them, I just don’t say at all. For example, there’s a seven-letter word that starts with W that refers to a person of Mexican heritage. I don’t say “W-word.” I don’t hint at it at all. There is no reason for me to say it, ever, so there’s no reason to bring it up, even obliquely.

In the case of a very bad word to refer to Black people, this one is so rooted in this culture that occasionally, you have to refer to it (hopefully without using it as intended), and “N-word” will do. There’s the case of the “R-word,” an attack on people with certain disabilities, I don’t use that word either, neither in its pure form or the abbreviated version. (Confession: in a moment of anger a few years ago, I used the real word to refer to Senator Tom Cotton, but that’s because he was acting like an R-word. I apologized to my audience immediately.)

There’s the “C-word,” the one that’s not that big a deal in the United Kingdom but is the worst word in America. I’ve never said the word aloud, but I’ve written it a few times in my novels, for shock comedic effect (like when I had a prim and proper mother call a ten-year-old girl a C-word). It’s best if you limit it to one C-word per novel. Other than that, there is no need for me to even say “C-word.”

You may have figured out my point, but I’m going to spell it out. If you’re not going to say or write it, don’t. It’s one thing to bleep out a word on Arrested Development. It’s another thing to bleep repeatedly for comedic effect. It’s yet another thing to be bleep out movie clips because YouTube’s draconian ratings system won’t let you monetize unless they can control your language. (There was one video I couldn’t get through because they bleeped out the word “sex.” In an essay about Ezra Miller.) But the people I’m complaining about aren’t even bleeping.

The aforementioned video about Ezra Miller put transcripts on the screen. When the word “sex” came up, which it did because it’s Ezra Miller, they spelled it like this: “s*x.” Why didn’t they just say sex? Are the potentially offended people supposed to read that and think, “That Ezra Miller person sure loves the saxophone”?

And that brings me to you. I see posts from friends and relatives where they will write f**k, and there’s no reason to censor the word “fork.” Sometimes they will go so far as to say “f*ck.” Why? I mean this sincerely, why? First off, why are you censoring yourself in the first place? Is it because you don’t want to say a bad word? You’re saying it. There is no difference between “fuck” and “f*ck.” It doesn’t fool people into thinking you’re not a bad person. You wrote “fuck.” Are you worried about offending someone? You said “fuck,” and they will be offended anyway, even if it’s a quote. The same goes for “s**t,” “a**hole,” “c*ck,” “d**k,” and, yes, I’ve even seen “c*nt.”

I have a potty mouth, and I have since I was a kid. In the musical Guys and Dolls, they extoll the virtues of the past by saying, “Good authors too who once knew better words; now only use four-letter words writing prose; anything goes.” I had a teacher in high school steal and read my journal and write in the margins that I cussed too much. So many people have told me that it’s a sign of laziness to use swear words. Well fuck all of you.

I can self-censor. I’ve don’t use the word at work. It is rare that I will make a Facebook post that has foul language in it (not counting my essays, in which anything goes). But I don’t understand what is so taboo about bad words. They’re a part of our language. They have rich meanings, and they’re very descriptive, not just in their literal sense or shock value. They even have very specific rules. For example, if you want to insert the word “fuck” into “absolutely” for emphasis, there is only one syllable it fits between. Otherwise, it’s like trying to say supercalifragilisticexpialidocious after you’ve had a root canal. I fantasize about using the word “fuckery” in a work email because there’s no other word that describes what I’m dealing with.

I’m not trying to turn you into potty mouths. I have friends who don’t swear, ever. (I did have a friend who never said fuck until the time he whispered it in my ear with no witnesses around, then denied it, just to fuck with me.) Most of the time, I don’t notice until they are about to say a swear word (mostly when quoting someone) and bleep themselves out. They don’t call me foul-mouthed for saying bad words, I don’t call them prudes for not. But one thing they don’t do is shut the “f*ck” up. They’ve made their commitment.

The people who write “f**k” understand the value of the word. If they didn’t, they wouldn’t use it. They’re not fooling anyone. You won’t commit to swearing, you won’t commit to not swearing, and that’s pretty weak. Say it or find some other way of expressing it. It’s time to sh*t or get off the pot.