Headed back to school? Here’s your syllabus for Swearing 101.
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“For so universal an experience, a child’s discovery of curse words is the topic of surprisingly few picture books.” The New York Times reviews a new book that’s among the surprisingly few: Little Bird’s Bad Word, by Jacob Grant.
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“Son of the illegal lottery!” sounds filthier in Tagalog, we’re sure. More at Foul Mouth: a website about Filipino dirty words.
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After considerable deliberation and fucking around with shit, and probably a bit of “fuck it,” we’ve redone the look of the Strong Language blog a bit, including a new banner to make it bolder and to give us a more grabby icon for Twitter and elsewhere. Among other things, it features grawlix. Grawlixes. (Grawlices? Hm, no.)
You know what grawlixes are, right? Grawlix is a word invented by Mort Walker to refer to those various symbols – some typographic, others including skulls, spirals, and lightning bolts – that cartoonists use to represent swearing. (Read more about grawlix on my blog Sesquiotica if you want.)
Well, those are innocuous, right? Simply typography and cartoons, no swearwords actually presented. Suitable for all occasions.
Ha. Like fuck they are. Ask yourself if you would use “WTF” or “OMFG” with your Sunday school teacher (or equivalent adult authority figure). We know what the F stands for. Likewise, we know what grawlixes stand for. Continue reading
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