[Gimli's love child]

Ok this may seem like a bit of a lame thread but its one thing about the series that has been getting to me more and more.

When these books first came out I thought the curse words used were damn cool in their originality like 'Hoods Breath' and 'Beru fend' and the fact that SE had developed a new form of cursing further immersed me in the whole Malazan world providing a nice break from this worlds boring realities. But more recently (especially Reapers Gale) words like shit and fuck have been creeping in and the fact that there is not consistency in the early books makes these seem really out of place and for me breaks the spell and sends me plummeting back to earth. One horrible moment in Reapers Gale...Errants butt hole!!!! Could you get more 21st Century Americanism? I just cant imagine old Whiskeyjack saying this ever! This actually made me drop the book and completely broke away from the wonderful and highly original world SE created.

Now this obviously is a long way from running these books but I do think it takes away from the whole story, anyone else thought this or am I being a bit picky?

[Coco with marshmallows]

actually, i believe i complained about this exact thing in an earlier thread about RG. So yes, i agree.

[Kurt Montandon]

Gimli said:

Now this obviously is a long way from running these books but I do think it takes away from the whole story, anyone else thought this or am I being a bit picky?

I was a bit annoyed by some of the more juvenile swearing in RG - it just didn't seem like the sort of stuff adults would be saying. Didn't mind that "fuck" and "shit" got heavy use, though - I think any culture is going to come up with such euphemisms, and we're just reading the translations.

Things like "the Errant's fart" or whatever, though, were just silly and annoying.

[Aptorian]

I didn't like it either, specifically because they don't show in the prior books. One of the quotes people like most from RG was when Ruin gets owned and a soldier says "fucking dragon". It completely ruined it for me.

And the explanation that we are just hearing the translation doesn't make any sense at all, cause then Hoods balls, etc would also be translated.

I don't mind an author using the word extensivly. I thought China Mieville carried it of easily in the Bas Lag books.

[Where is Dassem Ultor?]

This has been discussed before and, yes, the use of "current" curse words was annoying.

[BridgeBurner]

Aptorian;235372 said:

One of the quotes people like most from RG was when Ruin gets owned and a soldier says "fucking dragon". It completely ruined it for me.

There are enough people who agree with you here.

[Optimus Prime]

I didn't mind "shit" and "fuck". I can imagine in any war there was tons of fucking cursing...i mean shit!

Apt I loved that line from RG...oh well to each his own I guess.

[Cougar]

I think it's a fair call everything we are reading is supposedly translated, it's not like we all run around shouting "by Allah's arse" or " by the balls of Buddah" all the time "Jesus Christ!" is pretty common but anywhere outside of the bible belt and the vatican city it's regarded as rather mild. The fact is that using unpleasant swearing like fuck is just an indication that they are using a severe swearword. I absolutely destested in Babylon 5 when they invented that totally pony swear word 'fraggin'.

I can't agree with Apt "Hood's balls" is translated, you don't translate a name and clearly balls is translated. It's just that with "fucking dragon" both words are translated, unless they already use the word dragon.

The anomally in translation if we are going to be pedantic is that they use Dragon (instead of say Eleint) and Human which are English words and yet they still use Jaghut (rather than Tuskygreeniceman), Fokrul Assail (rather than Jointywhitepsychopath) etc rather than translating these.

[Crow Clan Baby]

I find myself agreeing with Cougar on this one.

Although they do seem out of place when they're used all the same...

[Cougar]

Crow Clan Baby;235435 said:

I find myself agreeing with Cougar on this one.

Although they do seem out of place when they're used all the same...

Good god! this is a landmark day for me [calls mum]

[wipes away tear] god bless you crow clan baby

[Coco with marshmallows]

i think most people's problem stems from the fact that the words haven't come up before.

I mean considering the emotional gauntlet that so many characters have gone through, you would expect the words to have shown up before now. I think we could have accepted it if, for example, some of the troops on the Chain of Dogs had used the terms, or even the 9th squad when they walked up the hill at the start of GotM, having lost 1200+ fellow Bridgeburners that morning.

There have been plenty of times when these expletives could have been used before now, but they hadn't, making it very jarring when they did show up.

[Kalahinen]

Aptorian;235372 said:

One of the quotes people like most from RG was when Ruin gets owned and a soldier says "fucking dragon". It completely ruined it for me.

The same with me, Aptorian. The more I read RG the less I liked the Bonehunter/Bridgeburner -soldiers.
Still, I have to say that I understand the use of the word from a writer's point of view.

[Dolorous Menhir]

I thought it disrupted the storyline too - the "fucking dragon" bit didn't follow on from previous dialogue, did it?

[vrai]

Ah, s***, f***, c***, d***, I didn't notice the cuss words at all. What a maroon.

[Cougar]

I do agree with Coco and DM it does seem out of place that we never heard it before but it doesn't really bother me at all there could be lots of reasons we haven't heard it.

If we are nit picking you could say that perhaps the word being translated is only used in certain situations and is only approximated to fuck, I don't know.

[Urb]

I also didn't care much for the "fucking dragon" bit. Like Apt said, it ruined the whole scene for me.

Maybe we should set up a poll and see if it has an effect on SE?
Urb likes to think SE sometimes reads what is posted in these forums.

[Hoods Balls]

Hood agrees with you here, sadly the use of these curses diminish the SE magic style of writing.

Ah Lunch! time to go and scewer some balls on my hairy arse then

[Spindrift]

to be honest it wasn't jarring for me at all. There were plenty of other typical SE curses in there weren't there?

/likes fucking dragons. wait... what?

[Flawed]

I'm not sure the swearing has any decremental effect on the books. Its so few and far between. Purposefully designed in this way so it is the biggest exclamation achievable at the time.

The whole F ing dragon this was good i thought. Very funny and exactly what i was thinking at the time.

I'm sure those of you with slightly bigger brains then me can probably think of something else that may of gone well in that scene but i thought it summed it up well.

[Mentalist]

At some point in GotM, someone utters "hell"

SE admitted in one of his interviews that that was a mistake.
about substitute/made up swear words--it works when doen right. I remember enjoying constantly headring "dreck" in Shadowrun novels...

as for the generic swearing in RG, didn't really do much for me either way--too used to it from GRRM....