Swearing in Other Englishs

[deird1]

I recently realised something about writing different dialects.

You see, I’m an Aussie. My English is (sort of) a mixture of British English and American English - with a lot of Australian slang thrown in. It makes me a pretty reasonable Britpicker for American writers, and also a pretty good Ameripicker for British writers. But there’s one area I

Comments

[jl_in_the_lane]

My favourite British swear word while I was over there was "PANTS!"
As in, "PANTS to you!"
Or, "Well, that's a bit pants."
Hehehe.
Sooo weird. I loved it.

......................................................

The ones that spring to mind are 'sod', 'bloody' and 'bugger'. 'Sod' doesn't get used here at all, but the other two aren't even seen as a problem, which gets our advertisers into trouble.
(...remember the 'Bugger' ad? Hehehe.)

I don't think we really use 'balls' or 'bollocks', either.

As for Americans, a few years back a US president touring here stuck two fingers up at some protesters and there was an enormous ruckus over it. I gather it was explained to him that Aussies see that one as a bit more serious.

And then there's the obvious comments like, "Sit on your fanny and root for your team!"
Um.
Yeah.

[slaymesoftly]

Um...fanny does not mean the same thing here as it does in the UK. That one probably gets more people in trouble when visiting than does almost anything else.

JL is Australian!

[jl_in_the_lane]

Um...fanny does not mean the same thing here as it does in the UK.

Hang on... which country is the 'here' that you're writing from?

*looks at own comment* Darn. Perhaps I should have specified that I'm an Aussie?

"Sit on your fanny and root for your team!"

And I was writing that from an Aussie perspective making fun of US usage that sounds *doubly* appallingly dreadful here.

(I have no idea what 'fanny' means in the UK.
I don't believe they use the verb 'to root' similarly to USEnglish or AusEnglish. Their usage of 'to barrack' differs interestingly from Aussie usage, but it's not relevant to a discussion on swearing.)

Re: JL is Australian!

[slaymesoftly]

Sorry! I thought you were from the UK. Here, (US) fanny means your rearend, aka ass, butt, etc. However,the meaning in the UK, I've been told by some Scottish girls who came here to live for a while, is similar (the same?) as cunt. Apparently American boys have been known to get in trouble in the UK by suggesting someone "get her fanny out of that chair" or by tellin a girl she has "a nice fanny". It's even a somewhat old-fashioned but still fairly common girl's name here. :)

[immer_am_lesen]

Ah yes, 'bastard' is very dependant upon context!
I do use it as mock-affection mostly- but if angry, and said with the right tone, "that bloody bastard!" works fine as a not-too-sweary swearing, for the likes of me. :-)

[nwhepcat]

It seems, from reading I've done, that "cunt" gets more of an affectionate usage in the UK than it does in the US. Here it's like dropping the big bomb.

[quinara]

It's slightly more complex than that (as is true of a lot of British swearing) - it can be used affectionately, and I would probably find it less surprising to hear it used that way than as an insult, but that's really because it is a seriously strong insult and if it's used that way it generally implies a quite extreme level of anger/hatred (at least in my experience/understanding). I wouldn't expect it at a football match, for example, even if people are swearing at the players with a very high amount of vehemence (using words like 'fuck' and 'twat' and whatever).

Similarly with things like 'bastard', people will use it as a fairly strong insult even if they refer to their friend who's just been dumped as a 'poor bastard' five minutes later. There's definitely more than one axis to our hierarchy!

[stormwreath]

Surveys in Britain generally say that it's the swearword that makes more people cringe and look away than any other - though racial epithets have probably overtaken its position in recent years. Still, it's only 'affectionate' in the sense that any other extreme swearword can be affectionate between two friends. (Black Americans calling each other 'nigger' springs to mind here

[curiouswombat]

It is certainly not a word you would EVER use if your mother, boss etc was likely to hear - it is regarded as VERY crude.

Fanny is the most acceptable name for the vulva whereas cunt is probably the least acceptable, and the phrase "You cunt" makes me cringe even writing it.

[slaymesoftly]

This is probably going to spark an interesting and informative discussion. Would you mind cross posting it to riters_r_us? or allow me to? One thing I recall from a former conversation about this subject some years ago is that some expressions are not just different from country to country, but also from region to region. Those regional differences are fading due to TV and movies, but they are still there in some places.

[deird1]

Feel free to cross-post!

[stormwreath]

I suspect that if a British person used 'bastard' as an affectionate insult, it would be understood perfectly well but they might get teased for "pretending to be Australian".

'Tosser' sounds the least harsh of the insults you listed. I don't think 'retard' is used here much, but it might be among the younger and more Americanised generation. There's also 'berk', which is one of those words people use innocently until someone tells them its origin as rhyming slang, then sometimes they get embarrassed.
Berk = Berkeley Hunt