I had a real potty mouth when I was a kid. Eventually I learned that overuse of profanity lessens its impact, and I began saving it for when it was really needed. Mark Twain said that in times of great stress, profanity affords a degree of relief denied even to prayer. The biggest problem with profanity today is its lack of variety. Most people just cannot swear imaginatively. Some of Shakespeare's characters were marvelously imaginative in their profanity, though of course fictional characters have the advantage of their authors' leisure time in thinking up their curses. Today, it's mostly just the f-bomb. If I were a teacher, I'd grade kids on their profanity. Too much use of the same "dirty" words would lower their grades, but really original, imaginative profanity would raise them.
What's really interesting, and telling, is that the words we consider profane are mostly the Anglo-Saxon words referring to bodily functions, while their synonyms derived from Latin are permitted. When I worked on a dairy farm in North Dakota, the stuff cows leave in their wake was always referred to by words that have come into English via Latin, and never the words that have come down from Anglo Saxon.
As for criticizing Dale's lack of proofreading, I cannot think of a better place to speak of it than on these forums. Of course, if the moderators disagree, they can deal with it in the usual ways; deletion, warnings, banning, etc. It's not as though I come here just to criticize. I don't even bother going into the forums for the series that don't interest me. I love all the books set in the Keeleyverse, so I think I'm permitted to criticize their one weakness, which is poor editing, or, I suspect, none at all.
What's really interesting, and telling, is that the words we consider profane are mostly the Anglo-Saxon words referring to bodily functions, while their synonyms derived from Latin are permitted. When I worked on a dairy farm in North Dakota, the stuff cows leave in their wake was always referred to by words that have come into English via Latin, and never the words that have come down from Anglo Saxon.
As for criticizing Dale's lack of proofreading, I cannot think of a better place to speak of it than on these forums. Of course, if the moderators disagree, they can deal with it in the usual ways; deletion, warnings, banning, etc. It's not as though I come here just to criticize. I don't even bother going into the forums for the series that don't interest me. I love all the books set in the Keeleyverse, so I think I'm permitted to criticize their one weakness, which is poor editing, or, I suspect, none at all.
