Monday 5 February 2007

To Swear Or Not To Swear

Swearing. Some people choose to punctuate their sentences with Anglo-Saxon vernacular and some choose to go for mild expletives. I can only think of one real proper guttural word that still causes winces when uttered but anything else is pretty much sprinkled about with abandon.
Personally, i go for the mild expletive option but occasionally a word seems to slip out of the real heavy stuff into acceptable usage and lately one word in particular seems to have slipped down the outrageous ranks to everyday vocabulary.
I do not know if the word is used elsewhere, but once upon a time if you called someone a 'Tosser', you could expect at the very least a swift return of verbals.
It seems to of become one of those descriptive words that has lost it's real meaning, like Berk, and although you wouldn't choose to use it in polite company, you could get away with using it elsewhere if you desired, including Sky News which is where i heard it this morning. If it is good enough for Rupert Murdoch's Corporation then it is good enough for me. That Rupert Murdoch, what a Tosser.

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

Here it would be someone who makes a salad, or pitches in a softball game.

Falling on a bruise said...

The origin of the word is someone who, to put it politely, takes matters into their own hands. Ahem.

Anonymous said...

LOL,Lucy! You just had me rolling around laughing!
I have spent time in the UK I understand the meaning and use of 'tosser' and I have used it here in aus a couple of times!
Now ,I will make you laugh!
People over here look at you dumb-founded! They have never heard of the word....thats when I walk away smirking and thinking ...."you tosser"!
Zoe xxx

Falling on a bruise said...

Brilliant stuff Zoe. I don't know if the W*nker word is still relativly unknown in the USA but it used to be slipped into Buffy and Angel quite a bit by the English actors.

Anonymous said...

Yes - tosser is a very British term, but most of us in NZ have heard of it via TV.

I don't like gratuitous profanity, as you probably know ;-)

iMuslim said...

Lucy... did you used to watch Buffy & Angel?

Falling on a bruise said...

I was a HUGE fan of Buffy & Angel and it was actually one of the programmes i watched from the start rather than after everyone else is talking about it. I was genuinely ticked off when it ended.

iMuslim said...

Luuuuuuuuuuucy! We are kindred spirits (of sorts)!

I was a MEGA HUGE fan of B&A too!!

I also watched every single episode from the beginning. I only missed one or two on the date of the episode being aired, but i quickly caught up asap.

Buffy is the only TV show i have ever followed from start to end, and even went to the lengths of buying video/DVD box sets so i could watch them in advance!

However, i never saw the last season of Angel... it aired after i made the decision to seriously cut down my TV viewing. I never felt as much affinity for Angel, as i did Buffy, so i wasn't so bothered.

Angel got all weird in series four, with Cordy sleeping with Angel's son - it felt wrong to me; pervy in a way.

Falling on a bruise said...

Its strange because hardly anybody watched Buffy/Angel when i watched it so i would go into work bursting about last nights episodes and nobody to join in my bursting.
I also preferred Buffy but the Angel storylines were a bit darker and i liked that, as well as liking the actor who played Angel.

iMuslim said...

Yeah, few people were into Buffy as much as i was. A couple of my friends liked it (one had a thing for Alyson Hannigan a.k.a. Willow) but they didn't get all excited like me!

Angel S1 wasn't that good, but i really liked S2 & S3.

The whole Conner storyline was inspired. Great moments from it were:
Darla sacrificing herself for her unborn baby.
Wesley kidnapping him thinking Angel was going to kill him because of a prophecy he intepreted, which turned out to be a huge time-traveling conspiracy!
The baby gets kidnapped AGAIN by the old dude who's name i forget, and they disappear into another hellish dimension (heart breaking stuff)
Wesley gets his throat slit and kicked out of the "gang" for his mistake which sends him into a pit of darkness... now he becomes a real kick-ass demon hunter rather than a big wuss!
Cordy becomes half-demon.
Conner returns as a bitter teen!

I could go on forever!

However, i hated the Cordy/Angel love story thing. What a horrible couple! Cordy was her funniest when she was taking the mick out of Angel, not going all goey-eyed at him!

The finale of S4 was kinda horrible too, as it left you with a big question: was it a happy ending or did evil triumph?

Buffy was also dark in places. The whole Spike/Buffy affair in S5 was totally black, and quite uncomfortable to watch in places.

Btw, sorry to go on like a crazy lady about this! I can only imagine how odd i must sound to your readers who don't know anything about B&A!

iMuslim said...

Pedantic self-correction: Spike/Buffy affair was in S6, not 5... i'm such a geek!

Falling on a bruise said...

Go on about B&A as much as you like iMuslim, it is very rare that i meet anyone who liked it as much as i did.
I have many favourite episodes from both but i did enjoy the ones in Angel where they went to Laurens dimesnsion. Lauren was such a good character as was spike although he did turn quite wussy over Buffy.
The sarcastic Cordelia in Buffy was good, but the loved up Cordelia who turned into a higher being in Angel was a bit boring.
Apparently, Angel got cancelled at short notice so the end was a bit confusing with the final credits rolling just as they went into battle with the hordes of evil things.
Arguably, B&A were the best ever programmes on my TV set.