Deborah Hill Cone: Nothing so sweet as *@%t#!ing

Opinion

This is going to be a fricking tricky column to write. If none of it makes any sense it is not my usual failure of erudition. Instead, you can blame the blighters who have been dicing and slicing my copy to make it seemly enough for a non-shrinkwrapped publication.

It's undoubtedly my own fault for deciding to write about cussing. I've been thinking about swearing after Maori Party MP Hone Harawira got into trouble for bad language in a letter to former Waitangi Tribunal head Buddy Mikaere. He used shocking terms like, let me see, "puritanical". Oh, and "mother******".

This is going to be embarrassing to admit in a column which my mum and dad read, but that counts as regular pass-the-salt verbal discourse in my world. Although there is usually less about the bastard whiteys and more bar-room bawdiness. I love to swear. No, really. I f***ing LOVE to swear. I get a zesty serotonin rush from my potty mouth. It's a cheap trick way to be naughty without breaking any laws (usually). Even the Scientific American agrees. New research shows swearing actually alleviates pain. They're not sure how it works but it is something to do with how our lizard brain processes emotion.

I grew up in a home where it was considered déclassé to say "Oh my giddy aunt", but now I find it deeply satisfying to eff and blind with impunity. The F word is the little black dress of swearing, but the C word is to be pulled out for special occasions. Handily, as a chick I can argue I am reclaiming it for feminism, much as black people reclaimed the N word. And so few words confer the power of the C word to offend quite so many people quite so quickly. Brilliant.

There are a few others that will make punters baulk: panties, gusset, Brussels sprouts, Jesus. But it is always more effective to juxtapose bad language next to an elegant verbal flourish just to show you really are an obnoxious wanker rather than simply never got School C. The ne plus ultra of swearing films has to be satire In the Loop, which gives us Malcolm Tucker and his inventive array of charming expressions.

The good thing is that it has become practically normal to imprecate like a navvy in the business world these days. Keep an ear out for it. Not in the official presentations at an AGM, but afterwards even the CEO or the liquidator knows the odd swear word is handy shorthand in the midst of an unremitting stream of neuron-zapping weasel words - "going forward" - to show you actually are human rather than a customer-facing jargon-spouting corporate automaton. This is to be welcomed.

On a symbolic level there is something heroic about swearing: bravely looking into the abyss and giving the finger to whatever unknown scary thing is lurking down there - sandal-wearers, phoneys, cyclists - a sort of one-size-fits-all fury. As it has become less and less acceptable to get angry - see my column last week about the pressure to be nice - those of us wretched souls who feel the mean reds on a regular basis need some kind of outlet. And it is hard to be really angry - as in "Is it just me or is everything shite?" kind of angry - without swearing. As Tucker says: "Am I calm? I'm f****ing Zen."

deborah@coneandco.com