Cussin

A friend of mine has gone for an ascetic existence, having denounced the demon drink, and even resolved to stop swearing. His point was that if he really needs to swear, if he really needs to make a point, then the impact will be far higher if he is not normally known as a foul-mouthed cusser who could swear for the Ireland professional truck driving team.

Personally, I like swearing. Swearing is a gift, if done properly, if done verbally. I reckon that all of the etymologists and their genealogy of profanities are full of horse manure. Quite frankly, profanities survive and become more popular if they have the right shape, the right combination of vowels that you can elongate indefinitely, and incongruous harsh consonants that you can abruptly start or terminate them with.

As a member of the Master Guild Of Swearing, I have been through a rigorous training programme. We learn to string together obscenities in unending streams by studying transcripts of the great Derek and Clive. We learn to change a cuss word from a noun, to an adjective to a verb as required. But my abso-bloody-lutely favourite way of swearing is to use bastardised tmesis – the splitting up of a compound word into parts, and then slotting a rude word in the middle.

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.