Another ‘objection’ to swearing.

 

This one is a favourite among snobbish schoolteachers. They look down their noses and say ‘Resorting to profanity is a sign of a limited vocabulary.’ This is bullshit of course: much swearing shows a wit and imagination almost as great as that of the ‘conceits’ of the English Renaissance Metaphysical poets, and the Scots have a tradition of ‘Flyting’: a great string, often lasting pages or minutes, of highly creative invective.

But OK; people with small vocabularies often do swear a lot. Perhaps they haven’t had the dubious linguistic ‘advantages’ of schoolteachers. So they use the few words at their command to their full capacity, and good for them. I am thinking of the army mechanic leaning into the open bonnet of a truck: a passing officer says ‘I say, sergeant, what seems to be the trouble?’ The mechanic raises his head and says ‘Fucking fucker’s fucking fucked.’ Brilliant. With one word and its cognates, he has explained not just that the truck is seriously damaged, but also just how he feels about it.