Saturday 26 September 2009

The t-word, David Cameron and me

To offend or not to offend? When you pick some words you know there’s a risk that people will be upset. But other words are not so clearcut.


I’m talking about the t-word. Some people will know immediately what I mean. To them the t-word has the same meaning as the c-word and nearly the same strength. But others won’t be aware of the t-word as an offensive word at all. They think it’s a mild insult, literally a blend of twit and prat. That’s how I think of it, and that’s how I used it. That’s how my character Ty would use it. But that isn’t how everyone reads it.

One of the strange things about having your book on the Amazon Vine review programme is that the reviewers are reading uncorrected proofs - not the final version. So when an otherwise intelligent and thoughful reviewer (like all my reviewers so far!) commented unfavourably on my use of the t-word in her review, it gave me a chance to think. Was she a mad over-reactor? Or should I make a change?

I felt reasonably certain that most people used the t-word the way I did. David Cameron recently got into trouble for using it in a radio interview, making a lame joke about Twitter - he wasn’t even aware of what he’d said. Jacqueline Wilson had complaints when she used it in My Sister Jodie - and the book was changed, but  she was writing for younger children. When I Was Joe is for teens, it has a sprinkling of swear words including the one that begins with f. Was the t-word worse? For how many people? And did it matter?

I got my first clue when I asked my children about the t-word. What did they think it meant? They thought, like I did, that it meant an idiot. My husband  however turned slightly green. ‘Are you sure you should be using that word in front of the children?’ he asked. But the obscene meaning is obselete, I argued. He disagreed.

I ran a short unscientific vox pop on Twitter. Quite a few people did find the word offensive. All of them - like my husband and the Amazon reviewer, like the woman from County Durham who first complained about My Sister Jodie - came from the north of England.

Meanwhile in the comments on the BBC story about David Cameron someone tells an entertaining story of moving from south to north and shocking people with his liberal use of the t-word (just as my Mancunian mother-in-law surprised me the first time I went to Manchester when she shouted over the road to a neighbour ‘Hello, you old bugger!’)

So I discussed it with my editor - such a southerner that he, like David Cameron, was not particularly aware of the potential to offend. And we decided to change it. Because if you’re going to offend people you need to mean it. And I didn’t mean it in the way that people might take it in this case, and as it comes early on in the story it could give people the wrong idea about Ty. I don't think it's censorship, It's a writer trying to be as precise as possible in the way she uses language - right up to the deadline for making changes.

I’d thought that the mild version of the word was so generally used that the ruder one was old-fashioned or obsolete. I hadn’t realised that many people would not even know that there was an alternative milder version.

So, if you’re reading an uncorrected proof of When I Was Joe and you reach page 21, the t-word is now  ‘tosser’. I trust that’s just offensive enough for everyone
Update. Some great comments below, from top YA writers -  Luisa Plaja (Split by a Kiss and Extreme Kissing), Gillian Philip (Crossing the Line and Bad Faith) and Rachel Ward (Numbers).

18 comments:

  1. Interesting post.

    Course it will be a whole different issue when your book is "translated" for American audiences who don't know what the t-word nor tosser even mean. Really bothers me, actually. Authors spend all this time thinking about exactly which word to use, and it can get changed anyway.

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  2. I'm not sure what will happen for America - where it's coming out in hardback Autumn...or umm Fall...2010 - or indeed Australia (Feb 2010). There would have to be so much translation that I think it would be pointless - it's a very British book. Maybe a glossary? Or leave readers to work it out! Anyway I heard the T-word was very rude in America, not so?

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  3. If this is the T-word I'm thinking, I haven't heard it used here in America for quite some time. It's just not used very often because it is considered offensive. But I think if you used "tosser" hopefully readers could use the context of the sentence to figure it out on their own.

    So excited that we'll see it here in the States next year!

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  4. So in the US the meaning is the more obscene one...I think I've done the right thing. Thanks Shalonda.

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  5. Oh, that's interesting! I have a "tosser" in the final version of Split by a Kiss that was not "tosser" in the proof version too!

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  6. In the midwest of America, I never heard the t-word, with any meaning. Tosser I've heard before and even before I moved here had some sense of what it meant. Either way, though, I think you've done the right thing too. Let people get offended for the right reasons--not the wrong ones! =)

    I think letting kids figure out what the words mean, as long as it isn't too much, is part of what makes the book & its unique setting) come alive. Oh, how I wish Harry Potter could snog girls instead of just kissing them.

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  7. That's very interesting, Keren - I knew what 'twat' meant but didn't think it was considered offensive till the whole David Cameron incident. I always assumed it was a less offensive substitute for the 'c' word, in the same way you get varying words for male genitals that are more or less offensive. I think I'd still use it, in the same way I use 'feck', but I would probably think twoce about it now.

    I had 'tosser' taken out of a story for Evans. That's another one I knew the meaning of but didn't regard as particularly offensive. And I know 'bugger' definitely varies in its offensiveness! All very fascinating. I do think swear words can be tremendously effective when used carefully - there is no real substitute for the 'f' word, but overused it does get silly.

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  8. I might even think twice rather than twoce...

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  9. Gillian - I was somewhat jealous of your use of feck and fecking, a very good way around it. I use fu' and fu'in' in some short bursts of gangsta speak, but as - luckily for me and my readers - the whole thing isn't written in gangsta, it isn't always the answer. Tosser is about the same level as wanker, bugger etc I think, fine in small doses for the 12plus.
    Luisa - I was very interested to see that Young Loaded and Fabulous whch my daughter reviewed for you is full of swearing..perhaps a new genre called gritty unrealism?

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  10. oh and..does that mean Gillian that you didn't know the twit/prat definition at all, which we can perhaps now call the 'David Cameron'?

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  11. Ooh...swearing is a very tricky thing. I cut out 75% of the swearwords from the first draft of 'Numbers'and I still get comments about the language. (Okay, the first draft was filthy, although actually it was more true to the way my characters would speak 'in real life' as many kids use swearing naturally without even thinking about it.) Couldn't bring myself to use the 'c' word though - there's something about that one that still shocks me, don't know why.

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  12. I think the spectrum of swearing - from 'mild and acceptable' to 'absolutely shocking' - is fascinating, and so culturally bound. I suppose we can only reflect it a tiny amount in fictional dialogue, the same way we can only reflect a small amount of other natural language features (disfluency, hesitance, etc). There are some teen titles where swearing is a feature of the voice, though - Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist is one that springs to mind.

    Keren, I love the idea of 'gritty unrealism'!

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  13. I discussed with my editor my use of the words Jesus and Christ - I had particular reasons for wanting Ty to use it a lot, he asked me to tone it down a bit for fear of causing offence. A very difficult one for me to judge, as a non-Christian, so I took his guidance.
    Mostly though, especially in Almost True where there's a lot of swearing, I try to get around it without using the actual words.

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  15. Using a term that means a pregnant fish is taking swearing too far?
    I used "Oh my days" which my daughter's more religious friends use to avoid upsetting any or all around them - that didn't get passed my Australian Beta reader.

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  16. People need to chill the twat out...it's four letters. If you are offended, it's only because you think you should be offended. It's all in the mind...
    Nice blog by the way.
    http://plentymorefishoutofwater.blogspot.com/

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  17. Thank you for giving this such thought. I know that many authors feel they should be able to use any vulgarities they like, but when it comes to purchasing for my middle school library, I do draw the line at gratuitous f-bombs. Most of the books that circulate are ones that I personally hand to students, and I'm old enough that I do not feel comfortable recommending a book with bad language. I have Joe on my TBR list-- I'm still interested in reading it even if I can't buy it!

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  18. I have to say that I also draw the line at gratuitous swearing..but as we generally don't have middle schools here, the line for me is the primary school/secondary school divide at 11/12. I would be one of those annoying complaining parents if my child came home from primary school with a book with swearwords in it, because I don't think it should be offered in a primary school setting. Once they are at secondary school though, I think there should be as wide a choice of books as possible, and children are generally hearing and using all sorts of words, and must decide for themselves if they find a book inappropriate or offensive. Most books handle the use of swearwords responsible and well, the book that surprised me (as I mentioned in a comment above) was Kate Kingsley's Young, Loaded and Fabulous - a British Gossip Girl lookalike, which my daughter loved - everyone in it swears like sailors. I hope you like WIWJ..but there are one or two f-bombs lurking, I have to admit. And an awful lot of Jesuses and Christs.

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