Profanity in science fiction
Encyclopedia
Profanity
in science fiction (SF) shares all of the issues of profanity in fiction in general, but has several unique aspects of its own, including the use of alien profanities (such as the alien expletive "shazbot!" from Mork & Mindy, a word that briefly enjoyed popular usage outside of that television show).
states that there are no hard-and-fast rules for the use of profanity in SF stories, despite what may have been expected of writers in the past. The onus is squarely on the writer to determine how much profanity to use, to enquire as to each magazine publisher's individual limits, and to think about the effect that the use of profanity will have on the reader, both in terms of how the reader will perceive the characters and in terms of how the reader will be offended by the story as a whole.
Card urges those writers who do decide to omit profanity from their stories to omit it completely. He regards the coinage of "tanj" ("There Ain't No Justice") by Larry Niven
as a "noble experiment" that "proved that euphemisms are often worse than the crudities that they replace", because they make the story look silly. In Card's opinion, such nonce word
s simply don't work.
Ruth Wajnryb shares this opinion, stating that the reason that "tanj" or "flarn" don't work as profanities is that they are not real, and are "just a futile attempt to give clean-cut stories some foul-mouthed action".
Jes Battis observes, in contrast, that the use of "frell" and "dren" in Farscape
allowed the television series to get away with dialogue that would normally never have made it past broadcasting and network censorship. The words translate, respectively, to "fuck" and "shit" and are used as both interjection
s and noun
s in the series. In the episode "Suns and Lovers", for example, Aeryn Sun says "frell me dead!" as a exclamation of surprise, much as a real-world person would utter "well, fuck me!" or, indeed, "fuck me dead!" Battis also notes that Firefly
used a similar strategy, by using Mandarin Chinese and Cantonese for all profanities, also using the word "gorram" as a replacement for "god damn", a phrase usually considered to be highly profane. Likewise, dialogue in Babylon 5
is liberally peppered with the words "frag" ("Fuck") and the Narn word "Shrock" ("Shit").
Parke Godwin opines that excessive profanity, as a part of naturalistic dialogue, "dulls much modern fiction and too many films" and states it to be a pitfall for novice writers, or for writers who never grow up, to fall into. He states that it is a "lazy copout that no longer frightens horses in the street, merely annoys and ultimately bores an intelligent reader". He advises writers that "less is more", and that if it really is the right thing for a character to be salty, it should be made clear to the reader why, observing as an example that in his science fiction novel Limbo Search the profanity used by character Janice Tyne is a symptom of her fear and tension, caused by being burned out at age 27 and afraid of the future.
Wanda Raiford observes that the use of the nonce word "frak
", for "fuck", in both Battlestar Galactica
series is "an indispensable part of the naturalistic tone that show strives to achieve", noting that it, and "toaster" (a racial epithet for Cylon
s), allow the show to use obscene and racialist dialogue that no real-life educated American adult would consider using the real-life equivalents of in polite company. She compares the racial hatred associated with the use of "nigger" (an utterance of which she states to have preceded and accompanied "every lynching of a black person in America") to the racial hatred of the Cylons, by the humans, that the use of such phrases as "frakking toasters" indicates in the series. She also observes that several of the characters, including Gaius Baltar
, are "frakking toaster lovers".
made use of this concept in the episode "Vox Sola". The second example Card provides is that of alien cultures where the idea of property ownership
is considered to be as obscene as pederasty
. Douglas Adams
's The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
at one point mentions that the word Belgium
is the worst profanity in the galaxy.
The 2005 video game Star Wars: Republic Commando
introduced an expletive to the popular Star Wars
franchise, the word being 'fierfek'. This word is described in-universe as being an alien loan-word originally meaning 'poison', but has been adopted by the game's special forces
protagonists as a curse word to make the illusion of playing as commandos
more believable.
characterizes as "something truly amazing and subversive" and that Scott Adams
calls "pure genius", has also escaped its original context. Originally spelled "frack", it along with "felgercarb" were coined by writer Glen A. Larson
for the 1978 Battlestar Galactica
, for much the same reasons that "frell" and "dren" were coined for Farscape: the ability to use profane dialogue, with words that would be immediately understood as synonymous with the real profanities that they stood in for, without falling foul of network censorship and broadcasting restrictions accompanying its original Sunday evening broadcast timeslot.
The producers re-spelled the word "frak" for the 2004 Battlestar Galactica series, in order to make it, literally, a four-letter word
; the word appears in several Black Library
novels before then, most notably the Ciaphas Cain
series. It has escaped, in both forms, from the series to a whole variety of other contexts, from a Dilbert
cartoon strip where Dilbert
mutters it, through other television shows including The Office
, Gossip Girl
, Veronica Mars
, 30 Rock
, and Scrubs
, and Robert Crais
' Elvis Cole novel Chasing Darkness, to everyday spoken use.
The BBC Two
science fiction television series Red Dwarf
replaces most of its characters' profanities with obscure insulting terms, mainly "smeg" which some people claim is a shortening of "smegma
" although it being just coincidentally similar, leading to the term "smeg-head". Other common insults were "goit" and "gimboid".
Profanity
Profanity is a show of disrespect, or a desecration or debasement of someone or something. Profanity can take the form of words, expressions, gestures, or other social behaviors that are socially constructed or interpreted as insulting, rude, vulgar, obscene, desecrating, or other forms.The...
in science fiction (SF) shares all of the issues of profanity in fiction in general, but has several unique aspects of its own, including the use of alien profanities (such as the alien expletive "shazbot!" from Mork & Mindy, a word that briefly enjoyed popular usage outside of that television show).
The level of profanity in SF
In his advice to other SF writers, Orson Scott CardOrson Scott Card
Orson Scott Card is an American author, critic, public speaker, essayist, columnist, and political activist. He writes in several genres, but is primarily known for his science fiction. His novel Ender's Game and its sequel Speaker for the Dead both won Hugo and Nebula Awards, making Card the...
states that there are no hard-and-fast rules for the use of profanity in SF stories, despite what may have been expected of writers in the past. The onus is squarely on the writer to determine how much profanity to use, to enquire as to each magazine publisher's individual limits, and to think about the effect that the use of profanity will have on the reader, both in terms of how the reader will perceive the characters and in terms of how the reader will be offended by the story as a whole.
Card urges those writers who do decide to omit profanity from their stories to omit it completely. He regards the coinage of "tanj" ("There Ain't No Justice") by Larry Niven
Larry Niven
Laurence van Cott Niven / ˈlæri ˈnɪvən/ is an American science fiction author. His best-known work is Ringworld , which received Hugo, Locus, Ditmar, and Nebula awards. His work is primarily hard science fiction, using big science concepts and theoretical physics...
as a "noble experiment" that "proved that euphemisms are often worse than the crudities that they replace", because they make the story look silly. In Card's opinion, such nonce word
Nonce word
A nonce word is a word used only "for the nonce"—to meet a need that is not expected to recur. Quark, for example, was formerly a nonce word in English, appearing only in James Joyce's Finnegans Wake. Murray Gell-Mann then adopted it to name a new class of subatomic particle...
s simply don't work.
Ruth Wajnryb shares this opinion, stating that the reason that "tanj" or "flarn" don't work as profanities is that they are not real, and are "just a futile attempt to give clean-cut stories some foul-mouthed action".
Jes Battis observes, in contrast, that the use of "frell" and "dren" in Farscape
Farscape
Farscape is an Australian-American science fiction television series filmed in Australia and produced originally for the Nine Network. The series was conceived by Rockne S. O'Bannon and produced by Jim Henson Productions and Hallmark Entertainment...
allowed the television series to get away with dialogue that would normally never have made it past broadcasting and network censorship. The words translate, respectively, to "fuck" and "shit" and are used as both interjection
Interjection
In grammar, an interjection or exclamation is a word used to express an emotion or sentiment on the part of the speaker . Filled pauses such as uh, er, um are also considered interjections...
s and noun
Noun
In linguistics, a noun is a member of a large, open lexical category whose members can occur as the main word in the subject of a clause, the object of a verb, or the object of a preposition .Lexical categories are defined in terms of how their members combine with other kinds of...
s in the series. In the episode "Suns and Lovers", for example, Aeryn Sun says "frell me dead!" as a exclamation of surprise, much as a real-world person would utter "well, fuck me!" or, indeed, "fuck me dead!" Battis also notes that Firefly
Firefly (TV series)
Firefly is an American space western television series created by writer and director Joss Whedon, under his Mutant Enemy Productions label. Whedon served as executive producer, along with Tim Minear....
used a similar strategy, by using Mandarin Chinese and Cantonese for all profanities, also using the word "gorram" as a replacement for "god damn", a phrase usually considered to be highly profane. Likewise, dialogue in Babylon 5
Babylon 5
Babylon 5 is an American science fiction television series created, produced and largely written by J. Michael Straczynski. The show centers on a space station named Babylon 5: a focal point for politics, diplomacy, and conflict during the years 2257–2262...
is liberally peppered with the words "frag" ("Fuck") and the Narn word "Shrock" ("Shit").
Parke Godwin opines that excessive profanity, as a part of naturalistic dialogue, "dulls much modern fiction and too many films" and states it to be a pitfall for novice writers, or for writers who never grow up, to fall into. He states that it is a "lazy copout that no longer frightens horses in the street, merely annoys and ultimately bores an intelligent reader". He advises writers that "less is more", and that if it really is the right thing for a character to be salty, it should be made clear to the reader why, observing as an example that in his science fiction novel Limbo Search the profanity used by character Janice Tyne is a symptom of her fear and tension, caused by being burned out at age 27 and afraid of the future.
Wanda Raiford observes that the use of the nonce word "frak
Frak (expletive)
Frak is a fictional version of "fuck," "shit" or "damn" first used in the original Battlestar Galactica series. It continues to be used throughout different versions of the franchise as an expletive....
", for "fuck", in both Battlestar Galactica
Battlestar Galactica (2004 TV series)
Battlestar Galactica is an American military science fiction television series, and part of the Battlestar Galactica franchise. The show was developed by Ronald D. Moore as a re-imagining of the 1978 Battlestar Galactica television series created by Glen A. Larson...
series is "an indispensable part of the naturalistic tone that show strives to achieve", noting that it, and "toaster" (a racial epithet for Cylon
Cylon (reimagining)
Cylons are a race which appear in the reimagined Battlestar Galactica television series and its prequel Caprica. They have several forms, some of which resemble and even mimic the behavior of humans, while others are mechanical in appearance and function.In the first DVD, one of the show's creators...
s), allow the show to use obscene and racialist dialogue that no real-life educated American adult would consider using the real-life equivalents of in polite company. She compares the racial hatred associated with the use of "nigger" (an utterance of which she states to have preceded and accompanied "every lynching of a black person in America") to the racial hatred of the Cylons, by the humans, that the use of such phrases as "frakking toasters" indicates in the series. She also observes that several of the characters, including Gaius Baltar
Gaius Baltar
Gaius Baltar is a fictional character in the TV series Battlestar Galactica played by James Callis, a reimagining of Count Baltar from the 1978 Battlestar Galactica series...
, are "frakking toaster lovers".
Fictional profanities in SF
Profanity in SF also encompasses the idea of things that alien cultures might find profane, and the notion that what non-humans and humans find to be profane may differ markedly. Card observes that human profanity encompasses words dealing with sexual intercourse and waste excretion, and states that that tells one something about human beings. He proceeds to suggest that what aliens might find to be profane can be a useful tool for suggesting the alienness of a culture. The first example of this that he gives are alien cultures that have no trouble with words about sexual intercourse, but that find words to do with eating to be profane. Star Trek: EnterpriseStar Trek: Enterprise
Star Trek: Enterprise is a science fiction television series. It follows the adventures of humanity's first warp 5 starship, the Enterprise, ten years before the United Federation of Planets shown in previous Star Trek series was formed.Enterprise premiered on September 26, 2001...
made use of this concept in the episode "Vox Sola". The second example Card provides is that of alien cultures where the idea of property ownership
Ownership
Ownership is the state or fact of exclusive rights and control over property, which may be an object, land/real estate or intellectual property. Ownership involves multiple rights, collectively referred to as title, which may be separated and held by different parties. The concept of ownership has...
is considered to be as obscene as pederasty
Pederasty
Pederasty or paederasty is an intimate relationship between an adult and an adolescent boy outside his immediate family. The word pederasty derives from Greek "love of boys", a compound derived from "child, boy" and "lover".Historically, pederasty has existed as a variety of customs and...
. Douglas Adams
Douglas Adams
Douglas Noel Adams was an English writer and dramatist. He is best known as the author of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which started life in 1978 as a BBC radio comedy before developing into a "trilogy" of five books that sold over 15 million copies in his lifetime, a television...
's The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is a science fiction comedy series created by Douglas Adams. Originally a radio comedy broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 1978, it was later adapted to other formats, and over several years it gradually became an international multi-media phenomenon...
at one point mentions that the word Belgium
Belgium
Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...
is the worst profanity in the galaxy.
The 2005 video game Star Wars: Republic Commando
Star Wars: Republic Commando
Star Wars: Republic Commando is a first-person shooter Star Wars video game, released in the US on March 1, 2005. It was developed and published by LucasArts for the Microsoft Windows and Xbox platforms. The game uses Epic Games' Unreal Engine...
introduced an expletive to the popular Star Wars
Star Wars
Star Wars is an American epic space opera film series created by George Lucas. The first film in the series was originally released on May 25, 1977, under the title Star Wars, by 20th Century Fox, and became a worldwide pop culture phenomenon, followed by two sequels, released at three-year...
franchise, the word being 'fierfek'. This word is described in-universe as being an alien loan-word originally meaning 'poison', but has been adopted by the game's special forces
Special forces
Special forces, or special operations forces are terms used to describe elite military tactical teams trained to perform high-risk dangerous missions that conventional units cannot perform...
protagonists as a curse word to make the illusion of playing as commandos
Commandos
Commandos is a stealth-oriented real-time tactics game series, available for Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X. The game is set in the Second World War and follows the escapades of a fictional British Commandos section. It leans heavily on historical events during WWII to carry the plot...
more believable.
SF profanities that have escaped their original contexts
As mentioned, "shazbot!" briefly enjoyed popular usage outside of the television show. Battlestar Galacticas "frak", a word that Lee GoldbergLee Goldberg
Lee Goldberg is an American author, screenwriter and producer, known for his work on several different TV crime series, including Diagnosis: Murder, A Nero Wolfe Mystery, Hunter, Spenser: For Hire, Martial Law, She-Wolf of London, SeaQuest, 1-800-Missing, The Glades and Monk...
characterizes as "something truly amazing and subversive" and that Scott Adams
Scott Adams
Scott Raymond Adams is the American creator of the Dilbert comic strip and the author of several nonfiction works of satire, commentary, business, and general speculation....
calls "pure genius", has also escaped its original context. Originally spelled "frack", it along with "felgercarb" were coined by writer Glen A. Larson
Glen A. Larson
Glen Albert Larson is an American television producer and writer best known as the creator of Battlestar Galactica, The Fall Guy, Magnum, P.I. and Knight Rider.-Career:...
for the 1978 Battlestar Galactica
Battlestar Galactica (1978 TV series)
Battlestar Galactica is an American science fiction television series, created by Glen A. Larson. It starred Lorne Greene, Richard Hatch and Dirk Benedict and ran for one season in 1978–79. After cancellation, its story was continued in 1980 as Galactica 1980 with Adama, Lieutenant Boomer and...
, for much the same reasons that "frell" and "dren" were coined for Farscape: the ability to use profane dialogue, with words that would be immediately understood as synonymous with the real profanities that they stood in for, without falling foul of network censorship and broadcasting restrictions accompanying its original Sunday evening broadcast timeslot.
The producers re-spelled the word "frak" for the 2004 Battlestar Galactica series, in order to make it, literally, a four-letter word
Four-letter word
The phrase four-letter word refers to a set of English-language words written with four letters which are considered profane, including common popular or slang terms for excretory functions, sexual activity and genitalia, and sometimes also certain terms relating to Hell and damnation when used...
; the word appears in several Black Library
Black Library
The Black Library is a division of Games Workshop which is devoted to publishing novels and audiobooks set in the Warhammer Fantasy Battle and Warhammer 40,000 fictional universes...
novels before then, most notably the Ciaphas Cain
Ciaphas Cain
The Ciaphas Cain series is a collection of science fiction novels set in the Warhammer 40,000 universe. They center on the eponymous character, an Imperial Commissar of the Imperial Guard, and his varied and colorful career.-Novels:...
series. It has escaped, in both forms, from the series to a whole variety of other contexts, from a Dilbert
Dilbert
Dilbert is an American comic strip written and drawn by Scott Adams. First published on April 16, 1989, Dilbert is known for its satirical office humor about a white-collar, micromanaged office featuring the engineer Dilbert as the title character...
cartoon strip where Dilbert
Dilbert (character)
Dilbert is a fictional character and the main character and protagonist of the Dilbert comic strip. He is a white collar office worker who has a rare medical condition characterized by an extreme intuition about all things mechanical and electrical , an idea that was explored in the animated...
mutters it, through other television shows including The Office
The Office
The Office is a popular mockumentary/situation comedy TV show that was first made in the UK and has now been re-made in many other countries, with overall viewership in the hundreds of millions worldwide. The original version of The Office was created by Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant. It...
, Gossip Girl
Gossip Girl
Gossip Girl is an American young adult novel series written by Cecily von Ziegesar and published by Little, Brown and Company, a subsidiary of the Hachette Group. The series revolves around the lives and romances of the privileged teenagers at the Constance Billard School for Girls, an elite...
, Veronica Mars
Veronica Mars
Veronica Mars is an American television series created by Rob Thomas. The series premiered on September 22, 2004, during television network UPN's final two years, and ended on May 22, 2007, after a season on UPN's successor, The CW Television Network. Veronica Mars was produced by Warner Bros...
, 30 Rock
30 Rock
30 Rock is an American television comedy series created by Tina Fey that airs on NBC. The series is loosely based on Fey's experiences as head writer for Saturday Night Live...
, and Scrubs
Scrubs (TV series)
Scrubs is an American medical comedy-drama television series created in 2001 by Bill Lawrence and produced by ABC Studios. The show follows the lives of several employees of the fictional Sacred Heart, a teaching hospital. It features fast-paced screenplay, slapstick, and surreal vignettes...
, and Robert Crais
Robert Crais
Robert Crais is an American author of detective fiction. Crais began his career writing scripts for television shows such as Hill Street Blues, Cagney & Lacey, Quincy, Miami Vice and L.A. Law. He lists amongst his literary influences the authors Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett, Ernest...
' Elvis Cole novel Chasing Darkness, to everyday spoken use.
The BBC Two
BBC Two
BBC Two is the second television channel operated by the British Broadcasting Corporation in the United Kingdom. It covers a wide range of subject matter, but tending towards more 'highbrow' programmes than the more mainstream and popular BBC One. Like the BBC's other domestic TV and radio...
science fiction television series Red Dwarf
Red Dwarf
Red Dwarf is a British comedy franchise which primarily comprises eight series of a television science fiction sitcom that aired on BBC Two between 1988 and 1999 and Dave from 2009–present. It gained cult following. It was created by Rob Grant and Doug Naylor, who also wrote the first six series...
replaces most of its characters' profanities with obscure insulting terms, mainly "smeg" which some people claim is a shortening of "smegma
Smegma
Smegma is a combination of exfoliated epithelial cells, transudated skin oils, and moisture. It occurs in both female and male mammalian genitalia.-Human smegma:Both females and males produce smegma...
" although it being just coincidentally similar, leading to the term "smeg-head". Other common insults were "goit" and "gimboid".