Lies, Damn Lies

beautiful day

Uncharacteristically I have actually been making use of the fine weather recently, and have actually been leaving the household. Odd, I know, but we all have to change sometimes.

Bastard. Its a great word, and a useful insult, one that is considered quite harsh, despite its meaning being purely that your parents were unmarried, a rather common state of affairs nowadays. Oddly this does not work as an insult on women- you cannot call women bastards without looking odd. You can call men bitches, but thats generally when you want to imply they are really camp, and you can have the same effect by saying "camp bastard". I suppose this is because in ye old times it didn't matter if a woman's parents were married or not- she wasn't gonna do that well in the world. Having said that, saying the "bastard child" sounds cool. I'd love to be the "bastard child" of someone, although that would probably involve some tricky maneuvering with a time machine, and after all that effort I won't even know the advantage I've given myself if I've done my job properly. Really there are probably more effective uses of the time machine.

The more slangy a word is, the ruder it gets, generally. If you were to declare "Oh SEX!" when you dropped a fork on your foot (hey, it happens), at most you would get some very odd looks. However, synonyms for the same word will provde a look of disgust if small children are nearby. I think that is the bench mark of swearing- how sacred small children hold it. When I was 11 fuck was deeply rude- or at least I felt it was, and was to be held for very special occasions, although now I have the slightly unfortunate to use it as an adjective in my sentences, something I must remember to hold back on when talking to small relatives. Young relatives, that should be, I imagine being short does not make one sensitive to swear words, unless they are being directed at you, but then most people would take offence in that situation.

posted by Mr K @ 11:28 pm