How to curse by Sandra Horn

 

We’ve just been with a group of friends in Northumberland. Beautiful Northumberland. We are a disparate lot and apart from us Southerners, members of the group hail from Berwick on Tweed, Glasgow, Cumbria, Yorkshire. I just love listening to the musical lilt in the conversations around the table, and the discussions about all and sundry, in particular, words: ‘what do YOU call…?’ It made me think about how furious I get when our language is reduced – especially so-called ‘strong language’ which is anything but strong. Rather, it’s weak as it conveys so little except, usually, ire. It isn’t far removed from grunt-and-point to keep on saying ‘fuck’, for example – and, while I’m at it, its usage in everyday speech is relatively new. It makes me angry when it is used in films supposedly set in, say, the post-war years. It was then considered so rude and vulgar that it would have been very shocking to hear anyone use it, and if someone said it in front of a woman he (probably he) would have been knocked down/ostracised/reviled. Maybe amongst some groups of men it was in common parlance, but otherwise rarely if ever heard. Now it is on everyone’s lips, so to speak, and any shock value it once had is long gone. So where do we go from here if we want to convey something extreme? Do we need new curse words? Not really, we just need to know how to use what we already have to best effect.

 In Carlisle, there is a millennium pavement on which are the family names of the Border Rievers, so that everyone treads on them. The pavement leads to a tall stone carved with words from Gavin Dunbar, Archbishop of Glasgow in the late 16^th century.

 

 

 

 The Rievers were making so many people’s lives an utter misery (the lives of those who survived the raids, that is) that he cursed them in an impressive 1,000-word tirade, which was subsequently read from every pulpit in the Diocese. He used no swear words as we know them, he just let rip with pointed and unmistakeable words in the usage of the day: 

"I curse their head and all the hairs of their head; I curse their face, their brain, their mouth, their nose, their tongue, their teeth, their forehead, their shoulders, their breast, their heart, their stomach, their back, their womb, their arms, their legs, their hands, their feet, and every part of their body, from the top of their head to the soles of their feet, before and behind, within and without."

"I curse them going and I curse them riding; I curse them standing and I curse them sitting; I curse them eating and I curse them drinking; I curse them rising, and I curse them lying; I curse them at home, I curse them away from home; I curse them within the house, I curse them outside of the house; I curse their wives, their children, and their servants who participate in their deeds. I worry* their crops, their cattle, their wool, their sheep, their horses, their swine, their geese, their hens, and all their livestock. I worry their halls, their chambers, their kitchens, their stanchions, their barns, their cowsheds, their barnyards, their cabbage patches, their plows, their harrows, and the goods and houses that are necessary for their sustenance and welfare."

"May all the malevolent wishes and curses ever known, since the beginning of the world, to this hour, light on them. May the malediction of God, that fell upon Lucifer and all his fellows, that cast them from the high Heaven to the deep hell, light upon them."

And so forth. Strong language indeed. No amount of effing and blinding could make it any stronger. I’m not sure how I got here from chats round the table with northern friends, but for what it’s worth, here it is: our magnificent, rich and colourful language.

 

·        * Ill-wish

 

 labels: strong language, Gavin Dunbar, The Curse Stone, Northumberland