Cirrus@Austlit

'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)