Cursing, slang and other blends of the english language are just as legitimate as "standard" writing.
I recently passed around a draft of a short story I’d been working on for the last month. It concerns a kid named Javier from the Bronx, who is in search of love on Facebook. The story’s purpose, among other things, is to paint a picture of life for an inner-city teen and the role Facebook plays in youth culture. I wanted my story to be genuine, so I wrote in language commonly used in my neighborhood. This language includes cursing, slang, Spanglish and references some may find vulgar. Gauging the feedback I received, most enjoyed the story, but the language put some off. Some felt I overdid it and others couldn’t get through it because they felt there wasn’t a place for cursing and slang at all. At first I thought I was wrong, maybe my language was too vulgar, should’ve toned down the fuck’s and shit’s. And maybe that was true; I might’ve been too authentic. But the larger issue I realized was that some people weren’t appreciating the language. Some still held the belief that slang and cursing is vernacular of the uneducated and had no place in literature –– and that’s wrong. Read more »
