WELL, BUCK ME! Or, why "Buck" is perfectly acceptable as pony profanity · 4:05am May 10th, 2015
Reading a story I didn't particularly care for earlier today, I came across this comment:
Other than that my only real complaint is that you used bucking as a substitute for fucking, and the situation didn't really seem to call for either anyway.
I've seen this comment more than once, even from highly respected authors. I can't flippin' stand it.
Zounds, people! Minced oaths are freakin' show canon! I don't know what the heck people are thinking when they say "If the character needs to curse, let 'em say FUCK! Bucking is what Applejack does to her trees! ...(beat)... No pun intended."
Frell this! Let's hit the transcripts, shall we?
APPLEBUCK SEASON
Rainbow Dash: Applejack, what the hay is going on? I mean, I thought I was working with Ponyville's best athlete!
SPIKE AT YOUR SERVICE
Applejack: Shoot, Spike, that's what friends do for each other. You don't need to repay the favor.
LOOK BEFORE YOU SLEEP
Applejack: I said I'm sorry! I should'a listened to you when you noticed where this here branch would end up. Yer annoyin' attention to detail would'a saved us from this whole mess. But right now, ya need to stop bein' so dang fussy pickin' up all the little things and help me move the one big thing in here that actually matters! Please!
LOOK BEFORE YOU SLEEP
Applejack: [gasp] What in tarnation... Now wait just a goll-darn minute. Ya make me wash the mud off my hooves, but it's okay for y'all to have mud all over yer faces?
LEAP OF FAITH
Granny Smith: But nothin'! It is the riskiest, scariest, darn-fool thing I ever did do! That's not to say I didn't wish I was still young and spry and confident, but let's leave the flyin' through the air to the Pegasi.
To review:
- Using politely profane words, both in public and in private among friends, is show canon.
- Using pony-fied words is show canon.
- Buck may have other non-curseword-related meanings, but do so crud, darn, shoot, and plenty of other cuss-substitutes.
- Buck you.
Are people so neck-deep in profanity in their daily lives that not hearing "fuck" breaks their story immersion? I was going to launch into a soapbox rant about basic etiquette and politeness and "being raised better", but I'll skip it. Maybe I'm just getting too old for this shazbot.
Lol, I hear you completely on this. I've seen this complaint a lot in a few of my fics, as I like to keep actual profanity out of my work (unless said work is more absurd than my usual stuff) because I know it is jarring for me when ever I am reading a story and all of a sudden we see Rainbow Dash calling someone a mother-flustery coal-sucking ape-hat.
And yeah, we've seen a few 'profanities' in the show, like the ones you've mentioned. I think I recall reading a few in the comics too. There have been one or two where I've thought "Wait, how did they get THAT past Hasbro?"
Buck on, my good sir, buck on!
Quite
Edit: Huh, there's an embed button.
Personally I take my cue from Firefly because I feel like "rut"/"rutting" both fits tone (in being animal related, if not specifically pony) and human implications.
I really only hate "buck" being used if it's clearly intended to imply sexual relations, especially if there's a joke (and I use that word loosely) about confused meanings of the word. I don't mind "Buck you," that much, but "Hey baby, let's buck." will at least make me roll my eyes, and might make me comment.
ETA: Besides, "buck" lacks creativity when you have free rein to make up culturally appropriate curses!
Some people are just that used to profanity. I've got a housemate who loudly cusses at his computer when he clicks on the wrong window when trying to switch programs.
I've always liked minced oaths better, myself.
I think that "buck" doesn't really have a sexual meaning, but I think that it's every bit as dirty to the Ponies as f**k is to us. I think that "buck" actually refers to serious physical violence, and that the Ponies are normally horrified at the thought.
-hugs- Just here for the Farscape...
3058339 Hey! I too cuss loudly at my computer, and I strongly suspect that nigh unto everyone else vociferously maligns their computing device when it gets obstreperous; at least in their secret heart.
Despite that, I hold a great fondness for the eternal quest for neologisms that is mincing oaths, de-obscening gerunds, and implying vulgarities.
3058495
It's not so much that he cusses at his computer, but that he does so over such trivial reasons.
Grown-up situations use grown-up words. Just because we're watching a children's show doesn't mean we need be limited by that fact.
And ponification should be kept to a minimum. Never ponify something that doesn't need to be ponified.
Personally I like to think it does have a somewhat sexual meaning, but it's not a replacement for fuck, just enough that Dash and AJ trade terrible jokes when no one else is around.
3058588 Except I can think of character based reasons why the main six wouldn't curse. Twilight was raised by Celestia so she has probably been trained not to curse, since that would reflect badly on Celestia. Or Twi did it herself since the very idea of reflecting badly on Celestia would give her fits. Rarity is of course all about decorum so she'd also avoid cursing best she could, even in some rather extreme situations. Fluttershy might just die of embarrassment if she ever said some curse words out loud even if it was in a locked room. Pinkie knows, and may even thinks the words, but cursing is just way too negative for her. Dash could easily have stopped cussing for Fluttershy's sake but she's obviously the most likely to actually do so. AJ generally tries to be polite and she uses so many contryisms something direct would just be odd.
As to ponifying things, "have to" is relative. Even the show can be inconsistent on that.
Some of ya'll are too uptight about this. Using "buck" as innuendo is a perfectly sensible thing to do, as it's already in line with other words like "bang" and "screw" that we already use; It being a letter away from "fuck" is a bonus.
Ponifying words never needed to be done, but it can add a unique charm to the setting. The very concept didn't appear in a vacuum, it came from the show itself, and some people like the little reminders that they're reading a My Little Pony story. Maybe it doesn't always work out, but I can't fault anypony for trying to greater emphasize this facet of MLP.
3058714
Here's the specific problem with buck as innuendo and with ponifying words in general. (At least in my view.)
The point of writing is to communicate as clearly as possible, and in stories you're using only word choice to communicate both what happened and the emotions involved. If you're using a strong word like "fuck," you should be using it for a reason; to communicate either passionate anger, or coarse sex, or to characterize a pony with a foul mouth.
In terms of passionate anger, your human audience is going to associate "buck" with kicking something, so the word works moderately well.
In terms of the other two, sanitizing what you're saying is actively working against what you're trying to convey. It's causing a "teehee, they used a naughty word" reaction when you're going for "Oh my." Even more so because we have no idea what the cultural context for it would be in Equestria-- nopony reacts the multiple times a pony uses "hay" in place of "hell," so presumably either ponies cuss pretty frequently or "hay" is a muted swear word in Equestria (more similar to "heck" than "hell.") Is "buck" more similar to "screw" (you could say it in front of your mom) or "fuck?"
Now, I tend to agree, with rare exceptions human swear words are out of place in Equestria (I can accept the occasional "bullshit" or "jackass (no offense.)") And in terms of other ponified words, they also should be used when a human term would be out of place in Equestria (names of ponies and places, things that refer to hands and humans.) So the challenge is finding words that both seem "pony" and will be understandable, both in context and tone, to your audience. As I said below, I feel like "rut" is a good alternative because it sounds coarse and dirty to our ears, it's certainly not something a nice pony would say, but it's not as modern-human as "fuck."
3059005
That's all true, but I don't see how it's at odds with using "buck" as innuendo, just that it needs to appropriately fit the situation. I don't think "buck" would have the same connotations as "fuck" imo, "rut" would be better for that, but "buck" could still have the same denotations. There's plenty of precedence in the English language for using violent or just active words in general as a stand in for sex. Language is as much a toy as it is a tool, and people love to play with that added ambiguity. How well they fit seems to be a manner of personal taste, something an author could perhaps contextualize better.
3059005
3060379
Human cursewords shouldn't be off the table, definitely. Given what we know of the characters and what we see in the show (3058611 nailed it), they're not afraid to curse politely with shoot, hay, goll-durn, and so forth, but I'm with Book here: there are times that a substitute word wouldn't fit and really might break immersion. "Bang me, Dash! Bang me now!" only works in the Winningverse, I'm guessing. Times like that, dropping the F-bomb fits the story better, and I have no problem with that. Using it in casual conversation, though, makes them seem less like the ponies we know and love and more like pastel gangstas or My Little League of Legends. Though again Em has it right, "Rut" sounds more like a word ponies would use when they want to be vulgar.
To be fair, I've used "damn" in my stories because... well, that one just kinda makes sense no matter what lines you want to cross. Now, as for "buck", I'll admit that I've never really supported it as a euphemism for "fuck". More along the lines of a pony expressing frustration, i.e. "Oh, just buck me like an apple tree!" for earth ponies. One could take that a step further to unicorns and pegasi, customizing it a bit to fit for horns and wings, if one would like.
For the rest, I usually stick to what we see in the show: "Ponyfeathers", "hay", "darn", "dang", "horse apples", etc. I'm not too keen on my ponies yelling "FUCK" quite as loud as I do in the locker room when one of my teammates pisses me off