This f’n essay was meant to be a late-addition sidebar in my f’n Cursed Objects. After f’n layout, we thought we might need to fill some f’n space, so I wrote this f’n essay. Turns out we didn’t need it, which was fine, I guess. Goddamnitalltohell.
In June 2001, Comedy Central’s animated television sit com South
Park debuted an episode called It Hits the Fan, in which characters
drop the S-bomb and its variations 162 times over the course of the
twenty-two-minute show without any obscuring bleeps. In addition to being a
television experiment, the story explored the idea that curse words were
literally such: words that were cursed. In saying S#%& so many times, the characters
became cursed, vomiting out their intestines and summoning a dragon.
But is there really more than a linguistic connection
between curse words and cursed objects? Can you have a cursed direct object? A
cursed object of a preposition?
Many of the cursed objects in this book have curses
inscribed or written directly on them. The Cursing Stone. William Shakespeare’s
grave. The Björketorp Runestone. Chain emails. Without the words themselves,
these objects would just be so much rocks and spam. So those words are curse
words. The words of a curse.
And that is also the origination of some of what we
colloquially call “curse words,” also known as cuss words, swear words,
four-letter words, dirty words, profanity, expletives, and “the words that got Lenny
Bruce arrested.”
According to Dr. Emma Byrne in her book, Swearing is Good
for You, curse words historically stem from three types of religious speech:
swears, oaths, and curses. These are words and phrases that, when spoken, were
believed to have supernatural power to influence events and affect people for
good or ill (although usually ill), either through requesting or demanding action
by some supernatural entity (usually a deity) or by profaning those supernatural
entities.
So, much like a cursed object, you could inflict harm and
death passively on a person with these cursed words. Just by telling them to go
to H-e-double-hockey-sticks. Or by throwing a “Damn you!” at them. And it’s a
lot easier than slipping them the Hope Diamond.
Over time, what has been considered profane-able has
broadened beyond religion. Like polite society. You can’t curse over dinner at
Grandma’s. And, as such, taboo terms for biological parts and processes have
been included in our everchanging list of words that you also can’t voice
during dinner at Grandma’s.
Eventually, we didn’t need any taxonomy of obscenity, as we
generally use all curses, swears, and profanity for the same reasons, in the
same contexts, and even according to the same formulations (for instance, we’ve
stuck just about every curse word in front of the word “sake.”). So all bad
language was lumped under “curse words,” although all the various synonyms are still
commonly used today.
All that said, today, a curse word can still bring harm as
much as any cursed weapon or cursed gravestone. And that’s when you aim one at
the wrong person. Because another synonym for curse words is “fightin’ words.”
Buy Cursed Objects: Strange But True Stories of the World’s Most Infamous Items on Amazon, IndieBound, Barnes & Noble, or Bookshop.
