{"id":59304,"date":"2025-01-31T05:41:33","date_gmt":"2025-01-31T05:41:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peraltafinancing.com\/entertainment\/books\/curses-on-swearing-in-historical-novels-maggie-craig-scottish-writer\/"},"modified":"2025-01-31T05:41:33","modified_gmt":"2025-01-31T05:41:33","slug":"curses-on-swearing-in-historical-novels-maggie-craig-scottish-writer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=59304","title":{"rendered":"Curses! On Swearing in Historical Novels \u2013 Maggie Craig \u2013 Scottish Writer"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n<\/p>\n

\n

(This article was first published in the Summer 2022 edition of The Author<\/em>, the journal of the Society of Authors.)<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"
Snoopy Cursing the Red Baron<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u2018Maggie Craig! Your language!\u2019 Although I didn\u2019t entirely buy my cousin\u2019s wide-eyed look of shock, I told her it wasn\u2019t my language, it was the characters\u2019 language. If you\u2019re an early 19th<\/sup> century graverobber in old Edinburgh, I don\u2019t think you\u2019re going to say, \u2018Oh, drat,\u2019 when you\u2019re disturbed in your midnight work in Greyfriars Kirkyard by a breathless warning from your lookout boy that the constables are on their way.<\/p>\n

Likewise, if you\u2019re a Redcoat officer in mid-18th<\/sup> century Edinburgh in pursuit of Jacobite plotters. When your quarry escapes, you\u2019re unlikely to slap your hand against the wall, the words \u2018Oh, bother,\u2019 tripping off your tongue. The hero in my Storm over Scotland<\/em> series is a trooper and he swears like one.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t think I\u2019ve overdone it. Sometimes my Redcoat captain simply \u2018mutters a string of curses\u2019. Even when his war wound from Dettingen is playing up. He took a musket ball in the thigh there. Fired, as he puts it, \u2018by some misbegotten French bastard.\u2019<\/p>\n

I\u2019m old enough to remember when that word was truly shocking. I think it was Callan, <\/em>a 1960s tv series about a world-weary MI5 agent starring Edward Woodward, which normalised it. Now it can be used almost affectionately. Tolerance changes over time. Take the f-word. It\u2019s widely used on the Internet. Although it\u2019s not yet completely acceptable in other public discourse such as newspapers, I see it creeping in there too.<\/p>\n

As part of what we might call industrial language, it\u2019s been swirling around for centuries, in shipyards, the army and other male-dominated workplaces. Travelling down by train from Aberdeen during a very snowy winter a few years back, I sat across the aisle from two men who\u2019d clearly come off one of the rigs. They swore their heads off the whole way. Every second word.<\/p>\n

The sparkling snowy scenery on the other side of the window caught their attention, glistening white across the plain and covering Fife\u2019s Lomond hills. \u2018Beautiful, int it?\u2019 asked one. His pal heaved a sigh of pleasure. \u2018Aye. God\u2019s f***ing country.\u2019<\/p>\n

I feel my 18th<\/sup> century Redcoat wouldn\u2019t be authentic if he didn\u2019t sometimes curse. \u00a0It\u2019s taken me aback how offended some readers are by swearing, to the extent that it colours their whole view of the book. One reader in the UK wrote that she was disappointed by the \u2018foul language\u2019 and had put my book in the bin.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m glad she didn\u2019t read on to find the one instance in this book of the c-word. She might have turned a flamethrower on my poor novel. That word didn\u2019t come out of my mouth. My hero uses it to show his contempt for the young woman he\u2019s interrogating. He gets his comeuppance when he later falls in love with her.<\/p>\n

One American reader of the same book found the \u2018modern day profanities mixed with Scottish dialect unsettling.\u2019 I wondered if she thought people in Scotland in the past skipped through an endless Brigadoon and that swearing was a purely modern phenomenon.<\/p>\n

Another reader queried whether the f-word was used in the 18th<\/sup> century. Yes. It was. It probably goes back to the Middle Ages. In Scotland, an early record of its use was in the 1500s, in playwright Sir David Lindsay\u2019s Ane Pleasant Satyre of the Three Estaits. <\/em>The play was revived at the 1948 Edinburgh Festival, and subsequently.<\/p>\n

Another US reader found my novel set in 19th<\/sup> century Edinburgh, \u2018harsh and not clean.\u2019 She objected both to the graverobber\u2019s swearing and to the sex scenes. As I\u2019ve discovered, there are various categories in American genre romance. At one end of the spectrum, there\u2019s erotic, passionate, steamy. At the other end you find Christian romance and Sweet and Clean romance. Swearing is a no-no, as are love scenes which go beyond kissing. Sometimes I wonder how these people manage to reproduce.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve seen one romantic novel advertised recently as \u2018No steam.\u2019 To which the appropriate answer might be that short, sharp four-letter word. Out of interest, I read a Christian romance. Set in the American backwoods in the 19th<\/sup> century, it\u2019s well-written and the love story is indeed sweet and tender. What unsettled me was how the lovers bond over their mutual appreciation of the hero\u2019s lethal hunting rifle.<\/p>\n

I find it sad that some people only want to read books which don\u2019t challenge their world view. I fully accept their right to do so but strongly object to how they clearly see themselves as occupying the moral high ground. Sometimes I long to grab these self-appointed moral arbiters by their metaphorical lapels and challenge their self-righteous prejudices.<\/p>\n

\u2018How dare you reduce this book into which I poured my heart and my soul, not to mention my extensive research, as \u2018not clean\u2019? How dare you blithely state that you put my book in the bin because you were offended by a few swear words? Don\u2019t you think it\u2019s pathetically judgmental to describe a passionate love story as \u2018steamy\u2019?<\/p>\n

Ah, well. A writer can dream. Better to mutter a string of curses and move on.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(This article was first published in the Summer 2022 edition of The Author, the journal of the Society of Authors.) \u00a0 Snoopy Cursing the Red Baron \u00a0 \u2018Maggie Craig! Your language!\u2019 Although I didn\u2019t entirely buy my cousin\u2019s wide-eyed look of shock, I told her it wasn\u2019t my language, it was the characters\u2019 language. If […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":59305,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[101],"tags":[17820,33252,5801,17819,4147,3905,33253,11398],"dealstore":[],"offerexpiration":[],"class_list":["post-59304","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-books","tag-craig","tag-curses","tag-historical","tag-maggie","tag-novels","tag-scottish","tag-swearing","tag-writer"],"yoast_head":"\nCurses! On Swearing in Historical Novels \u2013 Maggie Craig \u2013 Scottish Writer - Som2ny Network<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=59304\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Curses! On Swearing in Historical Novels \u2013 Maggie Craig \u2013 Scottish Writer - Som2ny Network\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"(This article was first published in the Summer 2022 edition of The Author, the journal of the Society of Authors.) \u00a0 Snoopy Cursing the Red Baron \u00a0 \u2018Maggie Craig! Your language!\u2019 Although I didn\u2019t entirely buy my cousin\u2019s wide-eyed look of shock, I told her it wasn\u2019t my language, it was the characters\u2019 language. If […]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=59304\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Som2ny Network\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2025-01-31T05:41:33+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/Snoopy.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"700\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"700\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"5 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=59304#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=59304\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"admin\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/#\/schema\/person\/b85e3c3dc0e1daea076524dc8810c371\"},\"headline\":\"Curses! On Swearing in Historical Novels \u2013 Maggie Craig \u2013 Scottish Writer\",\"datePublished\":\"2025-01-31T05:41:33+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=59304\"},\"wordCount\":920,\"commentCount\":0,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=59304#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/Snoopy.png\",\"keywords\":[\"Craig\",\"Curses\",\"Historical\",\"Maggie\",\"novels\",\"Scottish\",\"Swearing\",\"Writer\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Books\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=59304#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=59304\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=59304\",\"name\":\"Curses! On Swearing in Historical Novels \u2013 Maggie Craig \u2013 Scottish Writer - Som2ny Network\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=59304#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=59304#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/Snoopy.png\",\"datePublished\":\"2025-01-31T05:41:33+00:00\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=59304#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=59304\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=59304#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/Snoopy.png\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/Snoopy.png\",\"width\":700,\"height\":700},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=59304#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?bp_activities=1\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Curses! On Swearing in Historical Novels \u2013 Maggie Craig \u2013 Scottish Writer\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/\",\"name\":\"Som2ny Network\",\"description\":\"Daily Deals\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/#organization\"},\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Organization\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/#organization\",\"name\":\"Som2ny Network\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/\",\"logo\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/4a0953c4-logo-300x86-1.png\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/4a0953c4-logo-300x86-1.png\",\"width\":300,\"height\":86,\"caption\":\"Som2ny Network\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\"}},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/#\/schema\/person\/b85e3c3dc0e1daea076524dc8810c371\",\"name\":\"admin\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/729ae85bf62b9917e93538db2f2688ca?s=96&r=g&default=https%3A%2F%2Ffivemor.com%2Fwp-content%2Fplugins%2Fbuddypress-first-letter-avatar%2Fimages%2Fdefault%2F96%2Flatin_a.png\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/729ae85bf62b9917e93538db2f2688ca?s=96&r=g&default=https%3A%2F%2Ffivemor.com%2Fwp-content%2Fplugins%2Fbuddypress-first-letter-avatar%2Fimages%2Fdefault%2F96%2Flatin_a.png\",\"caption\":\"admin\"},\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/fivemor.com\"],\"url\":\"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?author=1\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Curses! On Swearing in Historical Novels \u2013 Maggie Craig \u2013 Scottish Writer - Som2ny Network","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=59304","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Curses! On Swearing in Historical Novels \u2013 Maggie Craig \u2013 Scottish Writer - Som2ny Network","og_description":"(This article was first published in the Summer 2022 edition of The Author, the journal of the Society of Authors.) \u00a0 Snoopy Cursing the Red Baron \u00a0 \u2018Maggie Craig! Your language!\u2019 Although I didn\u2019t entirely buy my cousin\u2019s wide-eyed look of shock, I told her it wasn\u2019t my language, it was the characters\u2019 language. If […]","og_url":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=59304","og_site_name":"Som2ny Network","article_published_time":"2025-01-31T05:41:33+00:00","og_image":[{"width":700,"height":700,"url":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/Snoopy.png","type":"image\/png"}],"author":"admin","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"admin","Est. reading time":"5 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=59304#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=59304"},"author":{"name":"admin","@id":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/#\/schema\/person\/b85e3c3dc0e1daea076524dc8810c371"},"headline":"Curses! On Swearing in Historical Novels \u2013 Maggie Craig \u2013 Scottish Writer","datePublished":"2025-01-31T05:41:33+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=59304"},"wordCount":920,"commentCount":0,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/#organization"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=59304#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/Snoopy.png","keywords":["Craig","Curses","Historical","Maggie","novels","Scottish","Swearing","Writer"],"articleSection":["Books"],"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"CommentAction","name":"Comment","target":["https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=59304#respond"]}]},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=59304","url":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=59304","name":"Curses! On Swearing in Historical Novels \u2013 Maggie Craig \u2013 Scottish Writer - Som2ny Network","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=59304#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=59304#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/Snoopy.png","datePublished":"2025-01-31T05:41:33+00:00","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=59304#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=59304"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=59304#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/Snoopy.png","contentUrl":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/Snoopy.png","width":700,"height":700},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=59304#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?bp_activities=1"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Curses! On Swearing in Historical Novels \u2013 Maggie Craig \u2013 Scottish Writer"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/#website","url":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/","name":"Som2ny Network","description":"Daily Deals","publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/#organization"},"potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/#organization","name":"Som2ny Network","url":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/4a0953c4-logo-300x86-1.png","contentUrl":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/4a0953c4-logo-300x86-1.png","width":300,"height":86,"caption":"Som2ny Network"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/"}},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/#\/schema\/person\/b85e3c3dc0e1daea076524dc8810c371","name":"admin","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/729ae85bf62b9917e93538db2f2688ca?s=96&r=g&default=https%3A%2F%2Ffivemor.com%2Fwp-content%2Fplugins%2Fbuddypress-first-letter-avatar%2Fimages%2Fdefault%2F96%2Flatin_a.png","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/729ae85bf62b9917e93538db2f2688ca?s=96&r=g&default=https%3A%2F%2Ffivemor.com%2Fwp-content%2Fplugins%2Fbuddypress-first-letter-avatar%2Fimages%2Fdefault%2F96%2Flatin_a.png","caption":"admin"},"sameAs":["https:\/\/fivemor.com"],"url":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?author=1"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59304","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=59304"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59304\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/59305"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=59304"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=59304"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=59304"},{"taxonomy":"dealstore","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fdealstore&post=59304"},{"taxonomy":"offerexpiration","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fofferexpiration&post=59304"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}