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... Why is it that I can curse a blue streak in writing (admittedly, mostly in fic/fanfic where it's in someone else's voice), and yet I have significant difficulty verbalising a curse word in RL?
No, seriously. My sister finds it mildly hilarious that there's actually an audible beat before I attempt a curse, and also an audible beat before something that was meant to be a curse, and came out much milder. I don't think I've ever successfully said the word 'fuck' out loud in my life.
Well, I have said it. But it always sounds wrong, to me and everyone else, apparently, because I stumble around it, everyone pauses immediately afterwards, and it just doesn't go very well.
(The presence of my sister helps, because the frequency of cursing goes up in her vicinity, and people forgive it more around her. My mother doesn't help, because all her curses come as violent exclamations. My mother goes "Shit! I forgot to buy milk!" the way someone else would go "FUCK!" when a sink-hole just opened under them. There's always a second of panic after my mother curses, while everyone dials back from "WHERE'S THE EMERGENCY, WHO'S HURT?" to "Oh, we forgot to get toilet paper.")
It's not even that I particularly want to curse, and can't. It's just that certain conversational junctures are apparently supposed to have cursewords in, and I never quite manage them right. I never say "Oh, fuck". I don't even usually say "Oh, shit". Mostly, I just go "Oh". I mean, I can go "Shit" in a particularly bad emergency. That's about all you usually get, though.
And yet, in writing, I can curse much more easily. The words just ... sound wrong, when I try to say them out loud. *shrugs* I don't know, I really don't.
No, seriously. My sister finds it mildly hilarious that there's actually an audible beat before I attempt a curse, and also an audible beat before something that was meant to be a curse, and came out much milder. I don't think I've ever successfully said the word 'fuck' out loud in my life.
Well, I have said it. But it always sounds wrong, to me and everyone else, apparently, because I stumble around it, everyone pauses immediately afterwards, and it just doesn't go very well.
(The presence of my sister helps, because the frequency of cursing goes up in her vicinity, and people forgive it more around her. My mother doesn't help, because all her curses come as violent exclamations. My mother goes "Shit! I forgot to buy milk!" the way someone else would go "FUCK!" when a sink-hole just opened under them. There's always a second of panic after my mother curses, while everyone dials back from "WHERE'S THE EMERGENCY, WHO'S HURT?" to "Oh, we forgot to get toilet paper.")
It's not even that I particularly want to curse, and can't. It's just that certain conversational junctures are apparently supposed to have cursewords in, and I never quite manage them right. I never say "Oh, fuck". I don't even usually say "Oh, shit". Mostly, I just go "Oh". I mean, I can go "Shit" in a particularly bad emergency. That's about all you usually get, though.
And yet, in writing, I can curse much more easily. The words just ... sound wrong, when I try to say them out loud. *shrugs* I don't know, I really don't.
