We use foul, repulsive language compulsively in casual conversation. An alien might describe us as a species obsessed with its intimate bodily functions
India’s cuss words are offensive, signal an escalation of emotions, and can lead to war. Of course, that’s what makes them useful. Illustration by C Y Gopinath using AI
Someone in my 38-storey building doesn’t put the trolley back where it belongs. Two trolleys are usually parked in the lobby for people with luggage or heavy shop-ping. Some tenants just abandon the trolley somewhere on their floor after use. Others put it in the lift, expecting that whenever it reaches the ground floor, someone will push it out. A few conscientious people take it back to the lobby, even if it means travelling 38 floors again.
The unreturned trolley is the second-most turbulent conversation in the building’s WhatsApp chat group, coming right after Why are there so many cockroaches? I am usually an interested observer, but a few days ago I was moved to respond when a tenant posted a photo of the trolley parked within the lift, and the message: Another selfish assh*le just leaves the trolley for others.
I posted a comment: I really feel that no matter what the complaints and grievances, or how strong the feelings, there’s some value in being civil. Words like assh-le don’t belong in a chat like this.
There was a whiplash reaction to being told not to swear. In civil, smiling Thailand, where I live, you won’t hear much scatology, but to English-speaking expatriates, being asked to communicate without swearing is a violation of a fundamental freedom. With swear words suddenly in the spotlight, I began paying attention to casual references to faeces, genitals, and other private parts in daily conversation.
Fair warning: the rest of this column may be peppered with words that make some queasy. Out of respect, I will misspell the really gross ones. If I write fcuk, please don’t be baffled. Or offended.
A beloved favourite is shit, a Swiss Army knife of a four-letter word that can stand in for just about any other word you choose.
If you’re the boss man, you’re a big shit. If you’re a celebrity, you’re hot shit.
Be authentic, genuine, and you’ll be the real shit. If you care for someone, you give a shit. Be a unicorn, and they’ll say you’re doing next-level shit.
Have you seen my shit anywhere? will be correctly understood as Where did I leave my things?
If things are not looking good, it’s a shitshow. If it’s dire, it’s a shitstorm. If they’ve called the police, then the shit has hit the fan.
The world swears, and the words are always intimate and crude. I’d expect India to lead, as it does in every other sphere. We are the country that has made a science out of defiling mothers and sisters when we swear. However, just like shit in English, India’s ma-bahen variants are offensive, signal an escalation of emotions, and can lead to war. Of course, that’s what makes them useful.
In July, I came upon a scholarly dissertation on filthy words used in chit-chat, called Vulgarity in online discourse around the English-speaking world. The authors looked at 20 English-speaking countries, including an ‘inner circle’ (eg, the US, UK, Australia) and ‘outer circle’ (India, Nigeria, Singapore). They labelled a word as vulgar if it had more acceptable variants. For example, fcuk has alternatives like sleep with someone or make love. Similarly, words like butt and arse have more circumspect cousins like behind and bottom. “Vulgar language,” they noted, “is the natural playground for unleashing our linguistic creativity. Consider colourful juxtapositions like dcikhead.”
The study analysed more than 1.7 billion words of online language, identifying 597 different swear word forms, including creative spellings like 4rseholes, and acronyms like wtf. The top three vulgar countries in the list were the USA, UK, Australia, and — a surprise — Singapore. The US is thrice as vulgar online as India, in English: vulgar words made up 0.36 per cent of all the words from their dataset. The most frequent word was fcuk, with a stunning 201 variants.
So why even discuss the cuss culture? Because swearing requires becoming numb to the real meaning of a word. A person who says Hey, I’m in a restaurant eating shit right now, but I’ll see you soon has blocked what that word stands for in reality, or else he would have barfed. We are able to throw around words like shitstorm and hot shit only because we have stopped paying attention to what they actually mean.
Like saying Love you too without remembering what love means when your significant other says I love you.
I taught a 10-year-old child with Asperger’s Syndrome for six months. He was clever to the point of brilliance, but every third word he said was a fcuk. I told him that, IMHO, people who used just one or two words for everything they wanted to say were probably not very intelligent. This riled him, and he agreed to think of alternatives to fcuk.
The following day, however, he came empty-handed. “I fcuking forgot,” he told me cheekily. “I was fcuking playing video games all fcuking evening.”
“In that case,” I told him. “I’d like you to spend the next two hours creating alternatives to that word.”
He gave me a broad, definitely devilish smile. “No wucking furries,” he said.
You can reach C Y Gopinath at cygopi@gmail.com
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The views expressed in this column are the individual’s and don’t represent those of the paper
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