Scrapbook for May

25.05.2026 – Masking bad language

I do not swear, except on occasions such as the moment I squirted salad dressing down the front of a fresh shirt or dropped the cap of the toothpaste tube into the toilet. When the time comes for me to answer to the Maker of the Earth and Seas for my misdeeds, it is my belief that said Maker will have more important things on his/her/its mind than my occasional curse at the hostile universe which said Maker has so carelessly established.

Thus any profanity on this website stems from others, not me. Although I avoid vulgarity myself, I have no qualms about reproducing in full other people's vulgarity – it is, after all what they said or wrote and by their words shall ye know them.

A bit over ten years ago I wrote a piece called Sanitised swearing, which looked at the use of bad language generally and in particular at the idiocy of what I called 'word masking', for example 'f*ck'. The dainty author may mask such words, but the reader still has to decode them back into their original form. Nothing is gained and no one is spared by doing this. The writer knows what is meant, as does the reader. The only argument in favour of masking is that it is often necessary in order to get past the digital gatekeepers which monitor comments and message boards.

The piece came back to mind the other day when I had to transcribe the word 'nigger' from two early soundtracks of the 'Little List' song from The Mikado. I still see no reason to mask this word with nonsense such as 'ni***r' or 'the N-word' – my task is just to reproduce reality, not condone or condemn it.

Given the shock and outrage that unmasked words such as 'nigger' can trigger in sensitive souls, I thought I had better restate my position on this subject. I still stand by what I wrote ten years ago: it is affected piety to mask words which we all know anyway.

12.05.2026 – Always wait for Frigid Sophie

Twelfth of May. Nought degrees Celsius and frozen rain shards on my balcony this morning; the frost has worked its secret ministry on the wood at the edge of the meadow:

Last night the first of the five Eisheiligen, 'Ice Saints', St Mamertus, handed over to today's saint, St Pankriatus, who once cost me the lives of a dozen lettuce seedlings planted when I was a little young(er) and foolish(er). Between us two, it's personal. Tomorrow St Servatius takes over, then it's the turn of St Bonifatius, finally concluding on Friday 15 May with St Sophia von Rom, called by German gardeners with grim Teutonic humour die Kalte Sophie.

In my village no one dreams of putting out their window-boxes until Frigid Sophie has been and gone, thus respecting the wisdom of the ages.

A couple of weeks ago, during a spell of mild spring weather, a climatologist asserted that, as a result of climate change warming, the fixed dates of the 'Ice Saints' should really now be moved earlier in the year. Fool. 'Who is this that darkeneth counsel by words without knowledge?' [Book of Job, 38:1]. If you listen to people like that you deserve to lose your lettuce and your expensive geraniums.