Very 'Colorful' Language indeed!

Many consider Ernest Hemingway, an American, to be one of the best writers of all time. Undoubtedly his anti-war themed novels are among the most famous and widely read. Even today, in most Canadian high schools his WWI inspired novel A Farewell to Arms is one of the required reads in the English curriculum.

I recently picked up his other war novel For Whom the Bell Tolls. This one is based on the events of the Spanish Civil War, where Hemingway fought for the Republicans. The most enjoyable thing in the book apart from all the other things is the way he displays the guerilla fighters’ character through their spoken language.

Even though the usage of profanity isn’t revealed explicitly, still it has a really strong effect because of the why it’s used. Most of the time the way they say things seems hilarious anyway, even without the swearing. Some of the subtle cussing-like words are left in Spanish as is, but other stronger ones are translated into loose English which obviously funny, seem to stick with you for a long time.

When our English 10 teacher started the unit on Shakespeare most of the students hated it. In an attempt to make things exciting she made us do an exercise on combinations of interchangeable swearwords used in the play, with just that it got everyone involved. The class was divided up into two groups and one side had to come up with a creative ‘compliment’ which the other would counter it with one of their own. By the end of class everyone had a clear advantage over everyone else in school: we had mastered the art of swearing in Shakespearean! It carried on for a few weeks but eventually didn’t catch on and died down.

I may be wrong, but it looks like the whole ‘!@#$%’ might have been invented by Hemmingway where the ‘un-nameable’ shows up again and again in For Whom the Bell Tolls:

“Where the un-nameable is this vileness that I am to guard?”

The word ‘obscenity’ is very effective because of the way it’s used, and yet still being readable. There are multiple variations of this throughout the book, each one more 'colorful' than the last:

“And I am tired of thy obscenity.”

This one’s a favorite of the poor/uneducated Guerilla fighters on the Republican side:

“I obscenity in the milk of thy tiredness!”

There are a lot of variations of the “I obscenity in the milk of thy_______” ending with something different after the thy.

“Then go and befoul thyself,” and others like it are also common.

When I read “Thy mother!” I just couldn’t stop laughing. This one really hit home because of its extensive use by Punjabis, for most it just seems to come out on impulse. Images of students from high school came popping up; a few of them just went around saying this, seemingly without even realizing it.

It's fairly long, but a good read nonetheless and more enjoyable than most others like it.