Wotgoo

I was thinking about what kinds of swearwords people in fantasy worlds might use. I'm not sure why, because I don't really want there to be a lot of swearing in my book (or on my blog... sorry =/), but it crossed my mind and turned into a pretty hilarious tangent.

Think of the many prefixes of "shit." Bull. Horse. Well, okay, apparently in my world, two equals many. But if you lived in a place like Myriad, you'd probably be more likely to exclaim "FAIRYSHIT!" or "DRAGONSHIT!" or, if you were really enthusiastic, "KRAKENSHIT!"

Or maybe feces wouldn't be the base word at all. Maybe you could think of something even fouler, like the fetid trail of the swamp-dwelling Wot, and make that into a curse word. You might say "Wot-shmuck" or "Wotgoo" instead. It sounds silly to us, but I'll bet it wouldn't sound silly if you grew up around Wots, say in Gyllentide or Aaron.

Or take the f-word. It's actually an acronym for "fornication under consent of the king." Way back when, you had to go to the king for a fucking license if you wanted to get it on. But imagine a world where something is more tightly regulated than sex, something like magic. You may only be allowed to use Spells and Magicks Approved by the King, or SMAK.

So it seems that swearing is entirely cultural. If these are the sorts of words they use in Myriad, then none of you Versitan readers would be offended; perhaps it wouldn't be so bad to include them after all.