NEVER HEARD SUCH LANGUAGE

When I was young, older people (women, especially) were apt to utter “language!” as a reproof when someone said something that they perceived as offensive. It was shorthand for “Please do not use bad language”. ‘Bad’ or ‘strong’ language consisted of the milder swearwords or anything generally considered vulgar or blasphemous. Expletives – “four-letter words” – were never used, save in very male company, hence expressions such as “swearing like a trooper”. And if you were unguarded enough to use ‘strong language’ without first looking about you (in the street, for instance), a man would be bound to come up to you and say, politely but firmly: “Would you mind moderating your language? There are ladies present”. These days, I am sometimes minded to approach young women who are giving it out loudly: “Please, miss, have a care. There are gentlemen present”. But they wouldn’t get it.

Nobody needs reminding how words that at one time could only be spoken sotto voce are now routinely shouted by six year-olds from the proverbial rooftops, not in order to give offence but because they are used as unselfconscious emphasis. The sense of taboo has simply fallen away. The only word restrictions that survive are upon those that might insult individuals who are different from oneself.

In 1914, Bernard Shaw could cause a theatrical frisson with – and at the same time get away with – having Mrs Patrick Campbell utter “Not bloody likely!” in the Galatea role of Eliza in the first run of his 23rd play, Pygmalion. By the time of My Fair Lady, the musical version of Shaw’s play 42 years later, ‘bloody’ had lost its power to cause a “sensation” and Alan Jay Lerner’s Eliza was instead given a vulgarity, yelled in support of her horse in the second race at Ascot: “Come on, Dover!!! Move your bloomin’ arse!!!” (I replicate Lerner’s own multiple exclamation marks).

Shaw understood exactly what swearing was about. It expressed anger, acute pain or, as in Eliza’s case, vehemence in an abrupt and graphic manner. But it was not suitable in ‘polite society’ where such evident lack of self-control sorted ill with the mores. Now that there is no longer any such thing as politeness or, according to Margaret Thatcher, society, the ‘shock’ of ‘language’ has declined.

Instead, expletives are discussed in semi-academic terms in books (eg The F-Word: the Complete History of the Word in All Its Robust and Various Uses, ed: Jesse Sheidlower) and even on telly (eg Dr Germaine Greer advocating the use of ‘cunt’ in a short visual essay). This gives the lie to the argument that ‘four-letter words’ are the purview of people who are barely one up from illiteracy.

But I always knew that was untrue. When, in the late 1960s, I read English at University College London, there were two heads of the Department. Prof Frank Kermode was the most elegant, witty and enthralling lecturer I can hope to hear. As I write, he continues to publish elegant, witty and enthralling books in his mid 80s. Joint head was Sir Frank’s fellow Manxman, Prof Randolph Quirk, now Baron Quirk of Bloomsbury in the London Borough of Camden, to give him his full, splendid title. Lord Quirk was also a witty man. While Sir Frank’s area was literature, his was language. His wonderful book, The Use of English, is still the standard text.

Now, because I stupidly failed Part I in Old English, taken a year before Finals, I had to resit the paper and, along with other failures, I received extra tuition from Prof Quirk himself. My fellow students were less diligent about attendance than me, so I sometimes found myself alone with the daunting professor. The absences irritated him. He would throw open his door and bellow into the corridor: “Where are those cunts?” The air, as they used to say, was blue. Nobody, though, could accuse Prof Quirk of having no alternative words to hand. He was utilizing the full range of language and, you could posit, appropriately in the circumstances.

Victorian novels would convey frustration by having a character (always male, I think) cry “D–– it!” or some equally bowdlerized term. This could be understood by a lady reader to stand for “dash it!”, a mild enough imprecation for her to imagine if not actually to utter. Before and since that time, many mild oaths have been corruptions of blasphemous exclamations: “zounds!”, “lawks-a-mercy!”, “lumme!”, “blimey!”, “struth!” being derived respectively from “God’s wounds!”, “Lord have mercy!”, “God love me!”, “God blind me!”, “God’s truth!”. These euphemisms avoid a breach of the Third Commandment: “Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain".

‘Stronger’ language seeped into literary novels in the early 20th century. Joyce’s Ulysses and Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover were banned outright in Britain for years. After the trial that liberated the latter book, Penguin’s famous edition circulated widely if discreetly. I remember my teenaged delight at finding a copy secreted in the kitchen drawer. Though notably prudish in all things sexual, my mother could not resist finding out what the fuss was about.

As early as 1934, Cole Porter could remark wittily on the sexual language beginning to appear in the novel:

In olden days a glimpse of stocking
Was looked on as something shocking
But now, God knows,
Anything goes.

Good authors too who once knew better words
Now only use four-letter words
Writing prose –
Anything goes.

Note that Porter’s “But now, God knows,” is frequently modulated to the more acceptable “Now, Heaven knows,” in recordings of the song.

For my generation, the literature that caused a prurient rush to the bookshops included Henry Miller (Tropic of Cancer and Tropic of Capricorn), Hubert Selby Jr (Last Exit to Brooklyn), William Burroughs (The Naked Lunch) and John Rechy (City of Night and The Sexual Outlaw). These were ‘hot’ novels, not just for the ripeness of their language but more so for the inordinate behaviour that they limned. There is a (conscious) blurring here of the line between literature and pornography, preserved only by the seriousness of intent – or, some would say, the self-serving pretension of the writing.

The function of swearing, it could be argued, is to give offence. While expletives did their job, writers drew attention to themselves by employing them. But there is a perfectly respectable argument for making use of the language that is actually used in society, for writers seeking accuracy and candour in their reflection of people’s talk ...

In 1986, the National Theatre mounted The Petition, a new play by Brian Clark, much of whose work had been written for television. Sir Peter Hall cast Sir John Mills, infrequently seen on stage, opposite the charming and dignified Rosemary Harris. I saw the play in its transfer to Wyndham’s in the West End, where its audience seemed to be even more elderly and conservative than would venture to the National. A distinct froideur wafted from the stalls to the stage when Sir John was obliged to call Miss Harris “a cunt”. To most of the audience, I feel sure, such a word was deeply offensive, inappropriate and uncalled-for, both in such a play and in the mouth of a beloved senior actor. They did not want to be obliged to hear ‘gutter’ language and they resented it. I have some sympathy for their view.

My father and I were watching the late-night programme BBC3 (on BBC2) in November 1965, when that estimable imp, Kenneth Tynan, was asked by the host Robert Robinson whether sexual intercourse might be permissible on the stage of the National Theatre, where Tynan was literary manager.

“Certainly” said Tynan, seeming to answer a different question altogether. “| think there are very few rational people in this world to whom the word ‘fuck’ is particularly diabolical or revolting or totally forbidden”. Coming back to Robinson’s point, he went on: “I think that anything that can be printed or said can also be seen”.

Tynan’s conclusion is a major provocation and merits debate. Sadly, his uttering of ‘fuck’, the first recorded instance on British television – conceivably on any television – raised the mother of all hullabaloos. There were questions in the House (in 2006, the great broadcasting issue exercising MPs was Radio 4’s decision to axe the early morning theme tune) and Tynan’s dismissal from the NT was widely called for. Happily, Tynan’s boss, Sir Laurence Olivier, held his nerve and the storm blew out.

Four decades on, ‘fuck’ is heard far more on television than, say, ‘socialist’, ‘existentialism’, ‘poetry’ or ‘modesty’ ...


To read the rest of this disquisition – on the general corruption of language, not merely the rise of "bad language" – see the chapter 'Never Heard Such Language' in my book Common Sense, which is available as a download, entirely free, by clicking on the sidebar link called

COMMON SENSE: The BOOK

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