At the end of the popular HBO series Succession, Siobhan “Shiv” Roy sums up the thwarted ambitions of the siblings against their father Logan Roy with the words “Mum f***** us.” The three words reflect the anguish of everyone who’s ever tried to cross swords with the all-powerful media tycoon. But they also sum up the normalisation of what would have once been considered foul and profane language.
That the show, which is littered with four, and worse five, six, seven-letter words, just won a series of awards at the 2022 Golden Globes, gives the stamp of approval to language which was once considered the domain of the streets and bars. Shiv’s colourful words, as indeed those of all the other characters in the series, are uttered with utter disregard for time, place or person. In fact, Logan Roy and his youngest son Roman seem to use “f**k off” almost as a kind of closing pleasantries, instead of the more normal see you or a bye or even a get to work.
Mind you, these are men and women in powerful boardrooms, the very acme of civilized society.
Common in interaction between fathers and daughters, mothers and sons, sisters and brothers and friends and foes, expletives have been mainstreamed and given the honourable status of gentle ribbing. Bollywood and its recent imitations for over the top (OTT) platforms still reserve the MCs and BCs for gangsters and the underworld in general. But no such false modesty pervades popular series on Netflix or HBO or Amazon Prime. And to think there was a time when the Motion Picture Association in the US forbade any profanity in films leading to a minor kerfuffle when Rhett Butler spoke that memorable line “Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn” in Gone With the Wind.
All that seems a long time ago. Profanity has seen continuous evolutions as social norms change and become more accepting. Scumbag, once considered a no-no since it meant a used condom, is now no more than a mild insult. Jackass similarly is barely unacceptable though the second half of it in itself may still raise a few eyebrows in conservative company. Bitch, once a profanity derisively thrown at a particular kind of woman, is now nearly a gender-neutral term of endearment. And maybe no offence needs to be taken since all it meant was a female dog which was ready for breeding.
Context perhaps is everything when it comes to the hoary history of expletives. What we consider profane or unspeakable today might have been quite acceptable earlier. Thus, copulation, a common enough activity ever since the world began, seems to have acquired an abusive connotation after the world discovered its four letter equivalent. Now of course, it has little do with sex and everything to do with frustration. Maybe there’s a psychological connection there. Psychologists point to the behaviour of patients suffering from severe schizophrenic psychosis and exhibiting behaviour which is commonly considered obscene but which to them is merely a manifestation of defiance and a form of enjoyment. Such patients are described as regressing to a state of infancy when we see little wrong in spitting at other people.
Viewed in that light, swearing in a moment of anger or distress or voicing an obscenity at a triumphant moment may just be a way of allowing yourself the freedom to be yourself unencumbered by the norms of social behaviour.
In his fascinating book Nine Nasty Words: English in the Gutter, author John McWhorter, a professor of linguistics, philosophy, and music history at Columbia University, says that swearing is actually associated with the more creative and emotive right side of the brain. We are more wont to, indeed almost encouraged to, give expression to our emotions through the use of unparliamentary expressions. It is a far cry from the prissy Victorian times when people conformed to what McWhorter calls “etiquette-book stipulation than reality”, by holding their tongues.
So in that spirit of self expression swear on and swear off.
Also read: Is the apostrophe facing a catastrophe?
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