It’s funny that people think I’m going to curse up a storm upon meeting them.
It’s understandable. I tend to be rather profane on this here blog (er, this here motherfucking bastard of a blog). I like to curse! Profanity is a circus of language. It’s a spoken world of dizzying trapeze jumps and exploding clowns and lions eating bears or whatever the hell happens at the circus (I haven’t been to the circus in a long while, shut up).
But I thought I should warn you, since this seems like it might be of some disappointment:
I don’t actually curse that much in person.
At least, not in polite company. Like, if I just meet you, I’m not going to be like, “WHAT UP MOTHERFUCKER” and then give you a wedgie. I’m not going to abrade you with my beard and say words like “shit-turkey” or “cock-spackle” or “fuck-sundae” unbidden. I’m certainly not going to get on a panel (where children might be present) and talk about, y’know, jizz or whatever.
As I grow more comfortable with you, I may pepper in a little profanity. And if we become truly close — like, my beard cilia begin to harvest your flesh — I may utter a steady stream of gibbered profanities from the Time Before Man into your ear in a ritual unlocking so that I may milk your pineal gland of all its wisdom and turn you into another one of my Wendigo-Puppets.
(AKA “Wendogs.”)
But, just to warn you: I probably won’t be all that cursey when we meet.
Probably.
theycallmetater says:
I don’t curse a lot either, but in my case people don’t expect me to. I cures a lot more in my head than I do out loud.
March 18, 2014 — 1:00 PM
TymberDalton says:
I curse a lot… A LOT. I try not to do it in polite company, but sometimes, shit happens, ya know? LOL However, in mixed company, a habit that stuck with me from when my son was little was swearing…nonsense. Mudderfrakking, son-of-a-sea-cook, cheese-and-rice, you know?
But he’s 18 now. LOL *shrugs*
Although douchecanoe and twatwaffle end up in a lot of my books. LOL
March 18, 2014 — 1:01 PM
mosspaws says:
I could use a good wedgie…
March 18, 2014 — 1:04 PM
partlowspool says:
Gotta say, I’m a little disappointed. I was looking forward to hearing, “What up, my bitches,” but maybe I’m confusing you with Kathy Griffin. I bet you get that a lot.
March 18, 2014 — 1:09 PM
Jim Brewster says:
what the fuck, Chuck, that’s a shitload of profanity. I love it!
March 18, 2014 — 1:10 PM
lizlincolnwriter says:
Cursey McCursealot is the name of the character in my new picture book series.
March 18, 2014 — 1:16 PM
pioneercynthia says:
I just can’t decide which of the phrases in this post makes me the most gleeful.
March 18, 2014 — 1:23 PM
Fatma Alici says:
I’m the same way. If I meet new people I’m super polite with not a profanity in sight. Once people know me it is a one way ticket to gutter town.
March 18, 2014 — 1:24 PM
Desiree B says:
Well if you’ve grown up with cursing all your life (like me) you never notice it. Even now I was like “Chuck curses? WAH?” lol
March 18, 2014 — 1:26 PM
Nicole McInnes says:
“But I thought I should warn you, since this seems like it might be of some disappointment:
I don’t actually curse that much in person.”
Yeah, I was, admittedly, a bit disappointed at first upon discovering this. But then you called me “Dave” and all was right with the world.
March 18, 2014 — 1:28 PM
terribleminds says:
The Festival actually casually reminded me that, ahem, this is a family festival and in particular when I was speaking YA, I was maaaaaybe also talking to children… 🙂
March 18, 2014 — 1:34 PM
Rebecca Douglass says:
I was recently informed that the use of the word sh– meant I was no lady. Thank god.
March 18, 2014 — 1:32 PM
terribleminds says:
THEN I AM NO LADY. Though I dress as one when the moon is dark.
March 18, 2014 — 1:35 PM
Michael McDonagh says:
Knowing when and where is the difference between someone with a colorful vocabulary and an intolerable motherfuckign dickhead.
March 18, 2014 — 1:33 PM
Olivia Kelly says:
Heh. I actually get that a lot too. People expect me to be loud and cursey and spout sexual innuendos and filthy jokes in person, and….okay, I do that. But only once I’m really comfortable with you. Like, “Oops, I ate the rest of your taco even though you drooled on it!” comfortable.
March 18, 2014 — 1:39 PM
Matt Jackson says:
And if you’re real lucky…you can bump beards.
March 18, 2014 — 1:40 PM
donnaeve says:
I realized I cuss a lot when the lightweight ones like hell and damn slip out so indiscriminately – not even my tuned in, knows way too much for his age seven year old grandson picked up on them. Or maybe he used them after he got home. Maybe that’s why he’s not been back.
March 18, 2014 — 1:49 PM
Ken Kaplan says:
Your comments are fucking great.
March 18, 2014 — 1:55 PM
Baby June says:
I’m the same way! I love written cursing. Not in real life. In fact I don’t curse in real life at all. It’s odd, really–perhaps I am living out my dreams of unbridled self expression and rage and teenage rebelliousness through such glamorous, multi-use words as um yeah “fuck”.
Plus if you use a curse word, no emoticons are necessary. Observe: “What the fuck is that? :D” or “You are just a pile of shit. :P” or “Asshole. :/”
March 18, 2014 — 2:00 PM
Peter Hentges says:
If I should ever be in the presence of your flesh, your failure to utter “motherfucker” will be taken as I sign that I have plied you with too little single-malt.
March 18, 2014 — 2:07 PM
JoMax says:
Ahem…cursing or not, I’m looking forward to the Taco Council at the Phoenix Comicon (my second ever con of any kind). I don’t know what a Taco Council is, but I expect it’ll have chips and Chuckisms… Wendigisms, whichever, it’ll be a good time. And if, by chance, I’m lucky enough to shake your hand for all the ‘zer0-fuckery’ writing advice you’ve given over the years, I’ll weaponize pickle-farts or something as a shout-out. If you’re going to give a shout out, it should involve condiments.
March 18, 2014 — 2:19 PM
Sara Crow says:
…unless you’re in Kansas City during the weirdest weather weekend of the year, at which point you will regularly expel a string of exasperated curse words at every weather report. “What the fuck?” “What the fuckitty fuck!?”
March 18, 2014 — 2:28 PM
Ross Pullen says:
Chuck! I once left a comment about your need to curse so much. I said then and still do, the cursing is not the problem (I do and often) that I saw, it was that it seemed to be used when plain language would have served a better purpose. I did not receive a reply and don’t expect one here. I will say this. Of all the “internet personalities” that come across on my little screen, you are at the top of the list of those that I would enjoy meeting in person, sit and have something distilled or brewed, and have a chat about life; and not necessarily about the subject of writing. I am not expecting a reply here either. I am not a writer, but I tell a pretty good story, and I love the process. Recently launched a website and am sending out one chapter at a time. Havin’ a ball! I may succeed in this literary world, and I may not.The latter is likely, but in my mind I have already won the gold. rosspullen.com
March 18, 2014 — 2:46 PM
terribleminds says:
Certainly the profanity isn’t for everyone, but all sentences are about word choice, and my choice sometimes includes a good dose of naughty language. Thanks, Ross. — c.
March 18, 2014 — 3:04 PM
Jon Rieley-Goddard says:
This probably would preach, but I don’t have the bleeping bleepers to pull it off.
March 18, 2014 — 2:59 PM
davidturner583 says:
I imagine your wife on the very farthest end of the spectrum, her ears, mind, and soul positively drenched in a linguistic typhoon of filthy words. After years of being buffetted by profane winds, battered by scatalogical waves, she’s a leathery lighthouse keeper on a lonely spur of rock, resolute and weathered.
March 18, 2014 — 2:59 PM
terribleminds says:
Hah, Michelle probably curses as much as I do, if not more.
March 18, 2014 — 3:03 PM
davidturner583 says:
She’s not the warden; she’s also an inmate! The naughty words are coming from inside the house!
March 18, 2014 — 3:48 PM
eviljwinter says:
Well, shit.
March 18, 2014 — 4:02 PM
thesexiestwriter says:
We call those “sentence enhancers” around here, as spongebob seems to have saturated every pore and crevice in our house. I often wish that my “farkitty mcslutfuckers” and “Godamned sack of (insert animal private parts here)” could just be converted into dolphin and sea lion sounds so that I could stop having to explain things to my 8 year old.
March 18, 2014 — 4:02 PM
kerryjdonovan says:
Feck off. 🙂
March 18, 2014 — 4:25 PM
Marie says:
I have never been so disappointed in someone in my entire life.
March 18, 2014 — 4:57 PM
deanmcsmith says:
I learned how to curse in the Paras. I thought I’d learned all the interesting ones and then I came across ‘cockwipe’ in a book by Andy McDermott. Made my day it did, learning something new 🙂
March 18, 2014 — 5:30 PM
Nick Nafpliotis (@NickNafster79) says:
Just for the record: If I get to meet you at Phoenix Comic-Con (or at any other point in time), I would be the exact opposite of disappointed if you said “Whatup Mutherfucker?!” and gave me a wedgie.
March 18, 2014 — 6:26 PM
Toni says:
This is a fucking disappointment.
March 18, 2014 — 7:18 PM
Heather Dudley says:
I was really disappointed to miss you when you were in Macon at Crossroads (are you ever coming back, by the way? We miss you!) because I was expecting fountains of carefully crafted profanity. I’m thankful that in fact, I missed mostly just normal conversation. Still wish I’d managed to cross paths with you.
March 18, 2014 — 8:33 PM
terribleminds says:
Heather —
I don’t know if Crossroads is happening, but the next time it does, I’m there! 🙂
— c.
March 18, 2014 — 9:25 PM
Steve Vernon says:
Face it Chuck – (or should I call you Cursey?) – certain readers are ALWAYS going to get a writer’s work confused with the writer himself.
For example – “Oh, you write horror? You must have had a twisted childhood. Do you have to skin a squirming kitten with a rusty razor blade before beginning a brand new manuscript – or does the chainsaw slaughter of a half a dozen live chickens suffice?”
I’m thinking of that author’s photo of Robert Parker on the back of so many of his older paperbacks – the one that showed him in sunglasses, a leather jacket and a pair of nasty looking dogs…
That wasn’t Parker. The real Parker was a pussycat. He just happened to write about a tough dude.
Or – to quote Jessica Rabbit – “I’m not bad. I’m just drawn that way.”
March 18, 2014 — 10:16 PM
Mozette says:
Wendigo? Dude… you have got to be a Supernatural fan… that thing’s from the first season, where they torched that disgusting skinny-arse bastard with a flame-thrower.
You know, when people read my stuff – which isn’t very often, unlike you lovely people – they seem to think I swear and curse like a blue streak. Well, yeah I do, but then, there’s a few things about me people should know:
* I live on my own. Swearing is a part and parcel of my home. If you’re gonna visit, I’ll curse and swear like you’re not here – get used to it, and join in or go home. 🙂
* I live in an area where saying ‘fuck’ for every second or third word is, well, a part of the vocabulary here. And if you starting speaking as though you’ve swallowed a thesaurus, people look at you strangely.
* I keep to myself a lot… so when I do come out of my hidey-hole of townhouse, people rare know what’s going to come out of my mouth. Usually it’s ‘good morning/afternoon’… and I don’t normally know my neighbours all that well. 😛
So swearing and cursing is just a way of life with me. My folks hate it, my brother thinks it hilarous and my friends have grown accustomed to it… it’s just a part of me. 🙂
March 18, 2014 — 10:29 PM
Globi says:
Glad to hear that! I was wondering what your kid’s first word was!
March 18, 2014 — 11:15 PM
Anna Silver says:
“Profanity is a circus of language.” I want that on a t-shirt.
March 18, 2014 — 11:39 PM
Adrienne says:
Hell yeah! I’d buy one.
March 19, 2014 — 4:59 PM
David Glynn says:
At that hallowed ground where biscuits and swearing (that’s cookies and cursing to you Seppos) meet, let me give … Adriano Zumbo’s motherfucking Salted Caramel Tim-Tams!
I dare you to find some and eat them, Chuck. I fucking dare you. Just take care, because the salt in the salted caramel is actually heroin. True story.
March 19, 2014 — 1:12 AM
David Glynn says:
Let me give “you” …
Always. Proof. Comment. First.
March 19, 2014 — 1:17 AM
Wendy Christopher says:
When swearing is used creatively – as you do, Chuck – it can be a joy, the chilli in the con carne. The ones that use the f-word every other word just to tell you they went down to the shops to get a pint of milk… well, they’re just trying too hard to be ‘clever’ and sounding like a bit of a spanner in the process.
In my current w-i-p, my characters swear a LOT of the time (did you see how I blamed them and not me there? No wonder non-writers think I’m a little bit weird…) So yeah, if I ever get around to getting the thing published, the mum-in-law reading it is gonna be interesting..!
But now I’m a stay-at-home mum I don’t curse nearly as much as I used to when I was a software technician (working in a highly male-dominated environment’ll do that to you after a while 😉 ) But even there the guys always seemed shocked when I did it. It was probably because I have a face like a Fisher-Price toy – they used to say seeing me swear was like seeing a toddler swear because I ‘didn’t look the type.’
I consider you the Jedi Master of Cursing, Chuck – using The Force at the right moment, for the right purpose.
March 19, 2014 — 4:02 AM
angelacavanaugh says:
I actually don’t curse at all. Not a single dirty word. There are some television shows that I don’t even say the names of. It can be a little handicapping. I’m not even sure why I don’t. I just don’t. What is funny, and perplexes my boyfriend, is that I thoroughly enjoy things that do have a lot of profanity. I like watching HBO and Showtime shows. I like your blog. Maybe I just feel like gratuitous is interesting? Language, sex, violence… Maybe I’m just gratuitous in the other direction.
March 19, 2014 — 5:38 AM
Matthew Eaton says:
Sometimes you just have to do what is normal and natural to you. If you don’t, it shines through all the smoke and mirrors and reveals to people how you aren’t being yourself, and we all don’t want that.
Besides, you know what they say about people who swear. They are the most trustworthy people in the world.
March 19, 2014 — 7:40 AM
njmagas says:
Back when I was studying languages much more regularly than I do now, I got into the habit of using foreign curse words. The benefit was that people tended to understand my meaning from the tone, but couldn’t be offended by the unknown words. This backfired however, when I started to associate more and more with the people whose native languages I had become comfortable cursing in. Yeah, I don’t recommend shouting ‘shit’ within earshot of an older, well respected teacher, in his native tongue.
March 19, 2014 — 10:09 AM
Kathryn Goldman says:
Chuck, I probably cuss way more than you. But I can’t bring myself to put cuss words in writing. No permanent record I guess.
My biggest concern has always been about cussing and raising kids. So, after raising a couple of kids here’s my tip (guideline more than a rule) for those going through the kid raising process now:
It’s OK to cuss AROUND them, just not AT them.
They come to understand that it’s just part of mom’s fabric.
March 19, 2014 — 10:25 AM
Adrienne says:
I totally agree. I have gotten a lot worse in the past few months, and I try so hard not to curse around the kids, but I’m only human. When my seven year old yells SHIT because he just died in Super Mario, I confess, I do think it’s funny, but my rules are 1). know the meaning of the word (and how many kids actually know what they are saying?) and 2). no yelling at the kids and punishing them for saying a word they no doubt picked up from me. After I’m done laughing, I calmly tell them that it isn’t a good word for them to use. Then I usually have to leave the room because I’m still laughing…
March 19, 2014 — 5:14 PM
Marc Cabot says:
I don’t have a problem with cursing in appropriate contexts, and I find our gracious host’s artistry quite enjoyable.
As for me, I very, very rarely curse. (I blame my Iowa upbringing.) When I do, everyone who knows me knows it is time to look for cover. I like it that way. I have a level to go to when my usual snark-magic just isn’t getting the job done, and it sends a clear signal.
Even the characters in my rather graphic erotica don’t do it much. One of my recurring characters, a succubus, said the word “fucking” to another character in a scene I wrote the other day and I realized it was the first time she’d ever said it, or the word “bitch,” which she’d used just prior. (She had used the word “fuck” to describe the actual carnal act before, in private.) And, sure enough, she used both words because she was really fucking mad and getting ready, literally, to cut a bitch.
March 19, 2014 — 10:29 AM
James F. Brown says:
So, Chuck, When you write by hand, is it block letters, or cursive? IMWTK!
March 19, 2014 — 11:14 AM
The Lonely D12 Team (@thelonelyd12) says:
You were exactly what we expected. I cannot say we expected your plan to be to harvest us with your beard but we knew that you would be tempting us with milk and honey for some reason.
March 19, 2014 — 12:28 PM
Cairo says:
This post has made me a Wendog. My mom grew up in East New York, which is why my first word was “fuck”. Holy shitballs, I fucking love you, Wendig!
March 19, 2014 — 1:52 PM
Kelli Riffle says:
I knew I fucking cussed too much when I tried to quit and use use more tact and my daughter told me it was part of my charm.
March 19, 2014 — 4:31 PM
Melissa Yuan-Innes says:
In a way, I’m the same. Everyone thinks I look sweet, which doubles their horror if they read about blood, swears, and evil in my writing.
The difference between us is that a lot more people know me in person than my writing, whereas I think you’re much more famous. Infamous?
Minor fact: I’m not so good at curbing my curses in front of my kids, so we just caution our 7 y.o. son not to use those words at French Catholic school. But I hardly ever swear as an emergency room doctor. If I do, it means a patient is in serious trouble.
March 20, 2014 — 7:19 AM
punkeroo2 says:
I don`t think I have ever written any profanity, but my personal usage varies with environment. If I am being a track rat (grooming race horses) or a line worker I can swear a blue streak, though perhaps still less so than lifers. If I am being a scholar (university) or Model Parent my speech miraculously cleans itself up, with only the occasional slip. At home I vary between the two extremes depending.
Oddly, in my current Classical Greek class we are reading Aristophanes` Lysistrata, which is dirty as hell, and yet even as a 40 year old among 20 year olds I find myself avoiding the precise translation of certain words and phrases.
March 20, 2014 — 12:13 PM
OzFenric says:
I generally choose not to swear – at all – IRL. But your characters are not you and the other day my protagonist was feeling pretty overwrought. Once I’d gotten what was in her head onto paper it shocked me, and that’s the point – for me, profanity should be used sparingly for effect. Works in real life. Probably works in fiction too.
March 20, 2014 — 5:37 PM
Jane says:
So many great comments – and it looks like many of the people who are here with any regularity are also inveterate users of profanity, but equally fitted with that knob that goes from 0 to 12 and can *usually* be trusted to self-regulate appropriately for the company of the moment.
March 21, 2014 — 6:17 AM