bogmusic

I heard a song by Lily Allen a few times on the radio recently; I don't recall which channel or channels it was on, probably NRK P3 was one of them. I'm not a fan of her music; I find it pretty bland at best, but more usually just irritating. But anyway, that's not the point, nor is the target of her lyrics.

It took me a while to figure out what the song was called. It sounded an awful lot like Fuck you, but I thought, nah, nobody would call a song that and release it for airplay. Must be a mockney-fied Fank you (Thank you), I thought. But no, sure enough, the song is called Fuck you, and stations like P3 are quite happy to play it. Digging further I find that the song has been number one in Belgium, and has reached high in the charts in many countries, including Norway.

The song hasn't been released in the UK (as a single, if that's what they're called nowadays), I read, which doesn't surprise me.

Swearing is a strange thing. Fuck is still, I think, a strong word, but Feck, a staple of Father Ted for example, and the brand name FCUK, are acceptable, despite giving more than a nod to the aforementioned sweary word. And the impact of such words appears to be lost on non-native speakers of English.

I've heard Norwegian DJ's quite happily use words like fuck and motherfucker during the day on national radio; such behaviour in the UK would get you the chop faster than you could say Jools Holland. Scandinavians generally have excellent English ability, but presumably the impact of swear words isn't something that can be learnt like other aspects of a language.

If a band released a song called Fy Faen, I don't suppose NRK P3 would play this during the day.