Authors on the Boards

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

My parents started dropping the F word before I did. All of a sudden it was fuck this, fuck that, fucking.. and I was like, WHERE IS THIS COMING FROM? Don't you remember when you didn't let me have ice cream because I said shit!!!

I rarely use it IRL and sparingly online.

 

[JarodRussell]

The most important question is: will an author on the board get a warning or an infraction if he mistreats a character that has the same name as a TrekBBS member in one of the novels? Flaming, mocking, killing, that sort of stuff.

 

[Greg Cox]

Depending on one's background, it's easy to forget that it still bothers people. I once recommended a novel to an acquaintance, thinking it was right down his alley, only to find out that he stopped reading it because he encountered the f-word. (This was an epic space opera about an interstellar war, full of exotic alien worlds and big chewy sf concepts, mind you, not a gritty, hardboiled crime novel or something.)

Honest to God, not only did it never occur to me that this might be an issue, but I hadn't even noticed or remembered that there were any "fucks" in the book at all. All I remembered was the epic space battles, galaxy-spanning adventure, and that stuff. I hadn't even registered that the dialogue wasn't G-rated. The issue just wasn't on my radar.

"Oh, you're looking for a big new space opera? This is perfect for you--except for the language, I guess."

 

[ICW]

I grew up in the Bronx, NY, and the "F" word was just another word. Of course my parents told me to never say it when I was a child - and I obeyed - but once I grew up I realized the people I was around (family and friends alike) did not consider it to be some profane word. Rather, it was just a "colorful term" that would enhance a story or one's feelings.

 

[Greg Cox]

The most important question is: will an author on the board get a warning or an infraction if he mistreats a character that has the same name as a TrekBBS member in one of the novels? Flaming, mocking, killing, that sort of stuff.

Nah. We just do that to our friends!

 

[Christopher]

I'm surprised by how much profanity has been showing up in TV show titles the past couple of years. There was... well, let's call it Shatner My Dad Says a couple of years ago, and just in the past season, we've had two shows that were supposed to have a certain epithet for women in their titles but had it abbreviated or censored in both cases: GCB was supposed to be Good Christian Bitches, and there's the sitcom that ended up being called Don't Trust the B---- in Apartment 23.

(Personally I can't get over how the "S-word" has come to be synonymous with "stuff" and used casually in all sorts of contexts. I can't help taking it more literally and I find its usage in those contexts rather unpleasant.)

 

[Greg Cox]

Times have changed, maybe. When I sold my first Batman story twenty years ago, I wasn't allowed to have Catwoman call Vicki Vale a bitch. Not sure that would still apply today--although I've heard that "bitch" is still a problem with Scholastic Book Club.

(I was once asked to delete "bitch" from a book in hopes of being picked up by Scholastic. I complied.)

 

[Christopher]

^Well, as I said, in all those cases the titles had to be censored to avoid controversy, but it shows how the culture is in transition that there are suddenly so many TV producers who are trying to put profanity in show titles, or who don't see a problem with doing so even if the networks (or the protest groups who pressure them into making the changes) do.

 

[Sci]

^^ My favorite example of profanity in a production's title is probably still the film Young People Fucking. (This is a legitimate film, not a piece of pornography.)

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

Personally I'm enjoying the mainstreaming of cunt.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Knew a guy in High School who joined the Navy senior year. He came back from basic with a new way of speaking where every other word was an expletive.

 

[Captaindemotion]

Personally I'm enjoying the mainstreaming of cunt.

I find it amusing how in England, for example, calling someone a cunt is the most serious of serious insults. My friends and I use it against each other all the time, almost as a term of affection.

In fact, if we haven't been in contact for a while, we may text each other just to say 'Cunt' to remind each other that we're alive and we remember that the othera are alive.

 

[Spock/Uhura Fan]

^Well, as I said, in all those cases the titles had to be censored to avoid controversy, but it shows how the culture is in transition that there are suddenly so many TV producers who are trying to put profanity in show titles, or who don't see a problem with doing so even if the networks (or the protest groups who pressure them into making the changes) do.

What I don't like about it (aside from it being the case) is how one-sided it seems to be. Where are the "Don't trust the d-ck in apartment 39," and "Young Christian J-rk-Offs" shows?? We never seem to hear about those, but "cunt" and "bitch" both get used like "she" and "her."

 

[Captaindemotion]

Anyone who really wonders about how well or effetively the C word can be used ought to google Derek and Clive.

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

I dunno, where I live "dick" as a description of someone's behavior barely registers as profanity.

 

[Greg Cox]

And, of course, on DEXTER, Deb's nonstop profanity manages to be positively endearing . . . . .

 

[Timewalker]

I grew up having been taught that "Dick" is short for "Richard." Anything else means something unfriendly, negative, an expletive of sorts...

Profanity does have its place in the culture and in writing; I will concede that. But if/when it gets gratuitous, that's when I just wish the speaker/writer would get a thesaurus and use it. As Shakespeare showed, there are many ways to be an unpleasant person while using pleasant words.

 

[Lonemagpie]

Personally I'm enjoying the mainstreaming of cunt.

I find it amusing how in England, for example, calling someone a cunt is the most serious of serious insults. My friends and I use it against each other all the time, almost as a term of affection.

In fact, if we haven't been in contact for a while, we may text each other just to say 'Cunt' to remind each other that we're alive and we remember that the othera are alive.

That must be a Celtic thing, as we Scots do that as well

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

Profanity does have its place in the culture and in writing; I will concede that. But if/when it gets gratuitous, that's when I just wish the speaker/writer would get a thesaurus and use it. As Shakespeare showed, there are many ways to be an unpleasant person while using pleasant words.

But people disagree on when it's gratuitous and when it's colorful. Sometimes the point of the word choice is to cross a boundary. Pleasant words won't have the same oomph.

 

[R. Star]

I dunno, I always thought people that have to drop a curse word in every sentence, sometimes more than one in a sentence just lacked basic imagination. You can zing someone or express displeasure without said words.