I reviewed Daisy Garnett's Cooking Lessons on here in January this year. I gave it a three star review on Amazon because I did like the format, the illustrations were delicious and some of the recipes were simple enough to try if you'd got less than a day to make them. What bugged me about the whole thing was the gratuitous use of swear words and the patronising attitude of the author to us lesser mortals who do not have a high class Italian grocer just round the corner.
I don't like swearing in normal conversation and I see no reason to put it in a cookery book (pace Gordon Ramsay). I have no problems with it in fiction where it can be very effective. Some kind soul has referred to me as a 'prissy humbug' because I have criticised the medium rather than attending to the message. I'm with Marshall McLuan on that one - the medium IS the message. In this case I didn't feel the medium - i.e. the language - was appropriate to the message and therefore detracted from it. Any cookery book is not going to get very far with many readers if it patronises them which was my other criticism of the language used.
The object of this post is not to have everyone tell me I'm not a 'prissy humbug' - because I know I'm not! It's to raise a question about whether swear words -particularly Anglo Saxon origin 4 letter versions - are necessary in a practical book such as a cookery book. To me it detracts from the 'message' if there is a message in a cookery book but others may not agree.
Showing posts with label swearing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label swearing. Show all posts
Monday, 4 May 2009
Monday, 9 March 2009
Mind your language
I was amused by an incident this evening when I called into Sainsbury's on my way home. A woman pushing a trolley and accompanied by an angelic looking 4 or 5 year old child was screaming at the top of her voice at 2 thuggish looking teenage boys who were using the F word rather more freely that is acceptable in polite society.
'I don't come shopping to hear people using that sort of language in my child's hearing.' Grabbing hold of a young member of staff. 'You need to bloody well get security to get these bloody people out of here.' Only certain swear words allowed presumably?
Security men are a new concept in our Sainsbury's and the two I've seen seem a bit weak and wimpish so I doubt they would have done anything. With a good hard push I could probably flatten either of them. They can usually be found standing at the door where you come in when perhaps they ought to be wandering around and keeping watch for the handbag snatchers or perhaps standing at the out door and checking people's receipts.
Any sort of crime is pretty hard to come by around here and people are very careless with their purses when they're shopping so I presume some opportunist thief has taken to snatching convenient handbags as the notice has only recently been put up.
'I don't come shopping to hear people using that sort of language in my child's hearing.' Grabbing hold of a young member of staff. 'You need to bloody well get security to get these bloody people out of here.' Only certain swear words allowed presumably?
Security men are a new concept in our Sainsbury's and the two I've seen seem a bit weak and wimpish so I doubt they would have done anything. With a good hard push I could probably flatten either of them. They can usually be found standing at the door where you come in when perhaps they ought to be wandering around and keeping watch for the handbag snatchers or perhaps standing at the out door and checking people's receipts.
Any sort of crime is pretty hard to come by around here and people are very careless with their purses when they're shopping so I presume some opportunist thief has taken to snatching convenient handbags as the notice has only recently been put up.
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