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?
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
Also, an on-topic but more "colorfully" written analysis of curses from around the world can be found at: http://www.cracked.com/article_16275_9-most-devastating-insults-from-around-world.html
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.
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.