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What do you all think of 'tag' words, that certain characters use? For example, in the Sword of Truth series, Zed is always saying "Bags!". Whenever that word is said, you know its Zed saying it. Personally, I feel it adds to the uniqueness of a character. If done right, of course. "Bags!" always made me chuckle, and gave me the impression of a not-quite-sane wizard. Are there any tag words you absolutely despise, or love? How do you go about making your own characters tag words?
This brings me to my next question. Cursing in Fantasy worlds. Obviously, you can't have your characters saying modern English swears. So how do you make your own curse words? Many fantasy writers choose to use the worlds religion and Gods -- For example -- "By Crom!" in the old Conan books. I find this acceptable, but oftentimes feel the characters have a lack of variety. After all, our own curse words aren't limited to just religious figures. How can one create believable curse words, without pulling the reader out of the fantasy setting?
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For me, I find that the most troubling dialogues are those in which the author doesn't clearly establish a dialect. There are often mixed references from different eras or regions and frankly sound half-cooked.
I saw the greatest book at Barnes and Noble that was several hundred pages of well researched and authentic terms and phrases of pirates and rogues. I almost bought it because it was just great. I just tried to google it to link it but I couldn't find it. I'll keep looking although this might not be actually what you are looking for but it could give you some ideas of how to establish your dialect and phrases.
Something that has helped me is looking through a French dirty phrase book. Sometimes just the bizzare translations of language can lead to a phrase that may suit you.
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I project that the purposes are a readily identifiable character recognized from a quirky disposition and/or showing an emotionally responsive utterance. Interjections and discourse markers fit the bill for both. Nor do they need to be single words. For the love of Providence. About as tight as a tick on a hound's backside. Couldn't get a red hair between them two. Or for made up swears, for example, given a character who's erudite to the point of annoyance but loveable nonetheless for the rigid use of language as idiom, like, excretory orifice, feces slinger, motherlover, scat-head, louse picker, mouth breather.
Conventional discourse markers can be empty of meaning and therefore of little contribution to a story. Like, you know, well, now, um, and so on. Of they can be regional idioms that are quaintly empty of meaning but in context sing loudly. Shad, nothing but shad in the net. Around these parts, shad is any species of inedible fish, and often used as a discourse marker-interjection. Shad, did you see that one?
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Thanks both of you. I'll try my luck searching for some of those books you mentioned, Bent. I'd never thought about other languages. Interesting idea.
Extrinsic, thanks for that. I was hoping it was something good to do, as I really felt it added flavor. I'd never really thought of taking the cultural context into view. I should really try doing that.
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Some mentioned are excellent. Curses and cussing are not the same thing. First Cussing.
One could use as an example where the editor (Perry?) in the superman series was GREAT CESAR'S GHOST! In one of the original series, they tried to pull someone over the editor and superman by painting a guy dressed as Cesar in glow paint and as the ghost.
Fiddle sticks, was a popular one. In my Waxy series, one of the teddy bears has a foul mouth and will say things like Rotten Bananas, Celery, and a really dirty one is Brussel Sprouts! Sharply spoken random utterances not having to do with the project at hand would do the job.
It really comes down to how the words and terms are used, more than what it is.
One could have a scene where a youngster says "Your story is lavender." and then have his mom grab him by the ear and wash his mouth out with soap, while admonishing him forcefully about how she is not going to have foul words used in her house. After that, you can have him using Lavender in a phrase and everybody would know he was cussing up a storm.
In other words, the cussing does not have to be scatological in nature to be effective. Not all societies have taboos against the same things we do.
Now curses, is looked at as sending a curse on someone, using magic. I heard that Israeli mothers won't curse their children. About the closest thing they will use when their children are acting up really bad, is to tell them, "I hope you have children exactly like yourself." Depending on the world you are working, the curses could have real power or no power. Utterances like 'Damn You', could actually have a real effect.
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Tag words can convey many things. One character that I've had lots of fun with in my trilogy is a young girl around seven years old or so. She's seen a lot for her age but is still very much a child. She has a habit of combining her words. One of her favorites is "kinda". Another is "gonna" or "wanna". Stuff like that. She also likes to cock her head to one side when she's trying to explain something that she really has to think about. Another mannerism is she'll let out a huge huff when she gets aggravated at others that don't understand what she's trying to tell them. All these things build the character, and I keep it consistent to give it believability.
I, too, have used phrases with characters from certain cultures involving religion, but I try to keep it unique to each region or world. I've found this works well for me.
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Robert Jordan covered this topic to some extent in the Wheel of Time. Different people swear differently, depending on their culture and what's sacred to them. Light! Luck! Blood and bloody ashes! Mother's milk in a cup!
One character, a princess, liked to learn swear words wherever she could, but since she just learned by overhearing, she used them in the wrong context and the other characters just laughed inside at it.
Warning about that last link - if you are offended by the curse words of our language, you may want to stay away from it. I wouldn't ordinarily post it, but since the topic of this post is foul language, I find it appropriately on-target (as I did in the last thread, where I also posted it). Cracked is generally a funny site and doesn't have anything work-forbidden, but it usually is written in the kind of language you wouldn't want a 9-year-old to hear.
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In the world in which The Shaman's Curse takes place, there are six different cultures that interelate--or fail to inerelate. Right now, each one swears more or less by what they believe in. Although I may take some suggestions from here to develop some more colorful language as well.
Examples: The cultures that believe in multiple deities swear "Lords of Creation" or "Merciful Sea Gods" respectively.
The culture that believes in a single creator god swears "Merciful Maker".
The more "primitive" cultures tend to have more spirit-based, animalistic beliefs. One plains-living group swears by the biggest things around them "Sky above and earth below". The other two don't swear. One doesn't swear because they only believe in evil spirits and you don't want to call them any closer to you. The other is a very peaceful, non-violent group. They just don't swear because they don't.
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I don't know if you'd call it swearing, but almost anyone makes some kind of an exclamation when they're surprised... unless they are very far removed from what we Earthers consider the norm .
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