When Mr. Roddy Doyle visited our school on the 30th January, Joe from 19p asked him "Why do you use bad language in some of your books?" Read Mr. Doyle's answer below...
"Well Joe, I'm tempted to use bad language in my answer! I kind of pick and choose it. There's no bad language in my books for children and there shouldn't be. It'd be wrong. They wouldn't be published anyway if there was. There's bad language in probably most of my books for adults because the characters I write about use it. Sometimes, a lot of it, other times, not so much.
In 'The Van', the characters use a lot of bad language. There's a character called 'Jimmy Rabbit Snr.' and his wife is in a constant fight against bad language. There's a swear box on the kitchen table and anybody who uses bad language has to put money in the swear box. The swear box gets full quite quickly. She's aware of this and she doesn't want it in the house but it's in the house.
That's similar to a lot of houses. So the characters in the books use bad language because that's the way they are. That's what happens.
I think a lot of people who come to Ireland are often really, really shocked when they hear all the bad language that some of us don't actually consider that bad at all. It's possible to use bad language and for it to be almost affectionate. In other places, that doesn't happen at all. If you said the same words in another place, it'd almost be vile and cause a terrible reaction. Whereas you might say it in Ireland to each other and you'll get laughter.
Does that make sense? So I use the bad language when it fits. I have a play on in Dublin and there's very, very little bad language in it because it wouldn't have fit. It wouldn't have been right. It's just once or twice because it does fit there. So I use it where it does fit."
"Well Joe, I'm tempted to use bad language in my answer! I kind of pick and choose it. There's no bad language in my books for children and there shouldn't be. It'd be wrong. They wouldn't be published anyway if there was. There's bad language in probably most of my books for adults because the characters I write about use it. Sometimes, a lot of it, other times, not so much.
In 'The Van', the characters use a lot of bad language. There's a character called 'Jimmy Rabbit Snr.' and his wife is in a constant fight against bad language. There's a swear box on the kitchen table and anybody who uses bad language has to put money in the swear box. The swear box gets full quite quickly. She's aware of this and she doesn't want it in the house but it's in the house.
That's similar to a lot of houses. So the characters in the books use bad language because that's the way they are. That's what happens.
I think a lot of people who come to Ireland are often really, really shocked when they hear all the bad language that some of us don't actually consider that bad at all. It's possible to use bad language and for it to be almost affectionate. In other places, that doesn't happen at all. If you said the same words in another place, it'd almost be vile and cause a terrible reaction. Whereas you might say it in Ireland to each other and you'll get laughter.
Does that make sense? So I use the bad language when it fits. I have a play on in Dublin and there's very, very little bad language in it because it wouldn't have fit. It wouldn't have been right. It's just once or twice because it does fit there. So I use it where it does fit."
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