Effing and Blinding

I originally made a few notes earlier today before I left the house, to remind me what I intended to write about. I still have the notes here; indeed I still have complete recall of what I was thinking about. However, though it all remains I feel the moment has passed, and as I sit here at nearly 1 am in the morning the news that earlier grabbed my attention seems old and distant. I guess it shows how fast moving the modern news cycle is. Or at least how social media momentarily elevates things above their importance.

What it was that caught my thoughts was the green-haired chick in Scotland getting arrested for holding a sign. The sign read: "F*ck Imperialism / Abolish Monarchy".

Obviously it's wrong to arrest someone for holding a protest banner, that kind of goes without saying. The f-word confuses things a little though. Does it therefore count as obscenity?

For me personally that would make no difference - free speech is free speech, pick your own words. This was actually the specific point I was going to consider here though: the way "swear" words are a weird form of blasphemy.

I've mentioned this before but I always find it very interesting how swear words have this power and status. For instance if we catch our finger or stub our toe we often cry out either a swear word or a religious phrase in anger:

"F*ck!" ; "For Christ's Sake!" ; "Flaming hell's fire!" ; "Sh*t!" ; "Bloody hell!"

Sometimes we even combine a swear word with a religious theme: "F*cking hell!" (That's quite a common one lol.)

It's like religious phrases and swear words both carry this similar weight and force. They're words we scream out in anger or desperation, or use for emphasis.

We even label swear words with religious type language. Swear coming with connotations of swearing an oath and the more American term "curse words" obviously suggesting curse. Like you're casting a spell on someone, or invoking a god. We also have the term profanity suggesting something profane.

I'm not entirely sure why this is, but again I always find it interesting and noteworthy. Why does the word c*nt have so much more force than the word vagina. Is it purely cultural conditioning?

The topic also inspired me to look up the phrase "effing and blinding". I understood that the "effing" related to the f-word, but I always wondered what the "blinding" meant. Apparently it relates to blimey - from "God blind me!" So again we have the swear word with the religious exclamation.

Blank Signs

Finally there was also a related story today about another anti-monarchy protester being questioned over a "blank sign". Back in March there was a story from Russia about a protester being arrested for holding a blank sign. So I thought these stories bookended things quite nicely.

[Given the moment has passed I've still managed to jot down a fair bit.]