Two Interesting Discussions

[erastes]

1. Gehayi has a great discussion about YA Paranormals and asks ten very pertinent questions about the issues within them that seem to be becoming worrying tropes. Go and read.

2. There’s been an interesting discussion on one of the author’s groups I belong to. It’s about a well-oiled subject which is brought up from time to time and that’s the usage of slang/coarse/”insulting” words for genitalia to describe genitalia. ETA: That being said – some authors simply do not understand the difference between A THEORY and ETYMOLOGY. Yes, the word cunt MAY have come from the goddess Cunti, but unless there’s a link between the orient and the germanic base of our word – then it’s NOT etymology!!

Some of the discussion focussed on the point that one writer was making that she didn’t think that male terms for genitalia were used to insult people as much as female terms were. I have to disagree there – insults such as prick, knob, plonker, shaft, dick, cock, knobhead, and many many others have been used for as long as there has been language to insult.

But what I’ve been thinking of in the past day or so is the reason WHY people use over-flowery epithets, or indeed any epithets at all.  Don’t get me wrong, I’ve used them, often verging on the purple, and have been rightly chastised for it. I tend to keep a tight rein on myself these days, and will call a cock a cock or a hole a hole/entrance etc rather than risking anything more pseudo flowery. 

What I hate to see (and this is most obvious when you get one of those “bumper books of gay porn”) is everyone using the same words—despite who or where or when they might be.  Onery marines will use exactly the same terminology as college freshmen once the clothes are strewn and I wonder if that’s because the authors watch a lot of porn and think that everyone does actually talk like that. It’s a bit like Georgette Heyer, whose characters ALL use the same highly suspect slang whether they are well bred duchesses, men who have been out of the country for ten years or servants.

I think you should consider your character when you come to these words, (obviously, it all depends on which POV you are in) and think hard about the type of words he would use when describing what he’s doing/feeling. The worst thing you can do, imho – ymmv, is to shy away from calling a cock a cock because it offends you. And that’s the feeling I get (more particularly when writers are writing about female genitalia perhaps) they hate the C word so they can’t use it – even if it’s EXACTLY what the character would say. Some guy from the streets with a penchant for gang rape is hardly likely to say “I felt up her sex and slid my member into her hidden place” after all – is he?

A good example is Alex Beecroft’s Shining in the Sun. She doesn’t swear like a docker, but she’s more than aware that some (not all, before you all jump on me and defend the yoof of today) young men use “fuck” with the same inattention as “you know” and the characters in her book swear a lot.

When I was in Ireland, nearly everyone I met there used “fucking” as an obligatory adjective for nearly every single word. I don’t think for one minute they knew they were doing it. It wasn’t for shock value, like some kids do, it has just become part of the language. When my mother pointed out to my boyfriend that he used the word before almost every single noun, he was amazed, and started listening to himself. For a week or so he became effectively mute in my mother’s presence, which was hilarious to watch.

When you write historicals, you need to consider even more. Not only do you have to try and use words that were used at the time, to the best of your ability, but (particularly in Britain) you have to consider status and class (not necessarily the same thing) – the age of the character, the mind set of the character etc etc. Also who is doing what to whom! A man in bed for the first time with a young lady who he has carefully seduced isn’t likely to use the same vocabulary as he would shagging a lieutenant he’s been regularly bedding for a year. But sad to say, I do see the whole “i’ll fuck you and you’ll like it, you bitch” coming up, no matter who is doing what to whom and when.

and on an entirely unrelated note: MGS: Peacewalker screencap. (a game I shall never own, I guess if it never comes to PS3) but hubba hubba. Snake x 4. That’s a writing bunny, right there.