For F*ck's Sake by Rebecca Roache

Author:Rebecca Roache
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 2023-02-15T00:00:00+00:00

You might be wondering: if we’re supposed to judge the blameworthiness of sweary behaviour by comparing it to non-sweary behaviour, how is this a way of judging the blameworthiness of swearing at all? According to this view, swearing looks like merely an aggravating factor: it can make already-objectionable behaviour (like, say, making threats) worse, but without any other objectionable behaviour, it’s not objectionable enough to regulate. In this respect, we can compare it to things like volume of speech and aggressive body language.

Let’s take a moment to consider this idea of swearing as an aggravating factor. The reality is more nuanced than it might at first seem. Swearing cannot make the difference between whether or not the speaker performs an illocutionary act. Chucking a fuck or a bollocks into an utterance can’t turn it into an order or a question or a threat if it would not otherwise have been an order or a question or a threat, and removing swear words from a warning or a resignation or an acceptance can’t stop it being a warning or a resignation or an acceptance. Swearing can, however, alter the mood of our illocutionary acts. It does this by expressing the speaker’s emotions and their attitude towards the listener and perhaps also the social context. A person who says to their employer ‘I fucking resign’, instead of simply ‘I resign’, not only resigns but also expresses a certain attitude towards their employer and/or their job. By expressing the speaker’s attitude in this way, it can intensify the act that the speaker is performing: swearing in the course of threatening someone typically emphasises the threat, making it seem more credible, authentic, and—well, threatening. If the illocutionary act in question is objectionable, as threats often are, the addition of swearing can be an aggravating factor. It can, in other words, make an already-objectionable act yet more objectionable. But this is not always the case, and it depends on the context and the relationship between the speaker and the listener. In some cases, swearing in the course of performing an objectionable illocutionary act can indicate to the listener that one is not serious, and so mitigates or cancels rather than aggravates the act. In cases where the illocutionary act in question is not objectionable, mitigating or cancelling it can turn it into something objectionable. The sweary insult in ‘I apologise, you shithead’ might indicate to the listener that the speaker’s apology is insincere, which undermines the reconciliatory effect that apologising typically has, and might make a future reconciliation more difficult. But context is key: in some cases, the same utterance might be more reconciliatory than a swear-free apology, because the swearing might inject a welcome bit of levity into an otherwise solemn business. And while swearing may in general lend a sense of urgency to an order, in World War I the familiar, everyday order to ‘get your fucking rifles’ was recognised as much less grave and urgent than the order to ‘get your rifles’ (Brophy and Partridge 1930).

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