It’s about my persona ain’t nothing like a man
that can do wha he wanna
Ain’t nothing like man on that you knew on the cornna
See ’em come up and fuck up the owna
See ’em throw up Westside California

-Ice Cube

Personally speaking, I do not prefer to curse. Even on this blog I usually try to find other avenues. But years ago I asked a relative with a similar stance towards profanity a simple question: If you’re quoting someone who cursed, do you quote them exactly or do you still put in your personal filter? His response was a hard-line  “absolutely not.” It was at that point that I began to think about the nature of profanity as a part of the English language.

We can substitute for cursing all we want (and I do), but that doesn’t take away from the fact that curse words carry a lot of meaning with them that is specific to the fact that they are considered profane. There is a certain and special kind of impact that comes from their context in society, and so when you decide to curse, you transmit a message well beyond the surface meaning or even the fact that it’s a profanity. It hints at emotion and personality and any number of things.

You might think that my description is vague, and that it applies to all words, but that’s exactly my point. They can be treated as a part of your vocabulary, like a tool from your toolbox to use when the time is right and when you want to or even need to convey a specific meaning. They can be misused and overused (as was the case with the act of “fifteening,” the addition of excessive profanities in old anime dubs in order to bump up their ratings), but that doesn’t take away from the fact that they say something.

At this point, my non-usage of curses is simply a personal and stylistic choice.

I occasionally find myself in an odd position where I am defending rap and hip hop from criticism. Now while I like rap well enough, I am not a particularly big fan of it, and so I feel kind of out-of-place doing so. However, I think that a lot of people misunderstand rap and hip hop specifically because of that liberal use of profanity on top of the general image of violence portrayed in a great portion of it.

So for me, my non-usage is merely a stylistic choice.

These days, I refer detractors to Ice Cube’s “Gangsta Rap Made Me Do It,” as an example of how words and phrases that can be considered offensive can be used to conjure up certain meanings and images in order to send a specific socially relevant message. If you’re unsure yourself, go ahead and have a listen.

Obviously, there’s explicit content.

I think this sort of thing is relevant to anyone who writes, and that includes anime bloggers.