'Bugger, rooted, bloody oath…
'What is it about Australians and swearing? We've got an international reputation for using bad language and letting rip with a choice swear word or two. From the defiant curses of the convicts to the humour of Kath & Kim, Amanda Laugesen, Chief Editor of the Australian National Dictionary, takes us on an engrossing journey through the tumultuous history of Australia's bad language.
'Bad language has been used in all sort of ways in our history: to defy authority, as a form of liberation and subversion, and as a source of humour and creativity. It has also been used to oppress and punish, notably Indigenous Australians and women. Revealing the fundamental tensions, conflicts, preoccupations and anxieties that have shaped our past and continue to shape our present, the story of bad language is a story about what it means to be Australian.'
Source : publisher's blurb
'This is not the first Australian literary work of note to be called Rooted. Alex Buzo’s play of the same name caused some fuss in 1969, when his Norm and Ahmed was causing even more, with its actors in Melbourne and Brisbane being charged with using offensive language. They said fucking – the devastating racial slur it modified at the play’s end was apparently of less concern. In the half century since, racial slurs have displaced obscenity as ‘the bad language of our times’ (242). Tracking such shifts is one of the great strengths of Laugesen’s fascinating account of Australians’ historical use of profanity, obscenity, expletives and derogatory language.' (Introduction)
'This is not the first Australian literary work of note to be called Rooted. Alex Buzo’s play of the same name caused some fuss in 1969, when his Norm and Ahmed was causing even more, with its actors in Melbourne and Brisbane being charged with using offensive language. They said fucking – the devastating racial slur it modified at the play’s end was apparently of less concern. In the half century since, racial slurs have displaced obscenity as ‘the bad language of our times’ (242). Tracking such shifts is one of the great strengths of Laugesen’s fascinating account of Australians’ historical use of profanity, obscenity, expletives and derogatory language.' (Introduction)
