Foul-mouth Friday: Cultural cursing

[pinkeuphoria1]

Here is another "Foul-mouth Friday" article! Unfortunately, it doesn't have as many fandom examples as I would have liked, since my internet was on and off, but I hope it's still ok for everyone. Read to find out how you can curse in British English, Chinese, Spanish or Dutch!

English examples are from books The Southern Vampire Msyteries,

Comments

[enemytosleep]

Firefly would've been a good source of fandom quotes for Mandarin swears. Fun article!

[pinkeuphoria1]

Ah, I don't have it on my PC anymore. And my connection wouldn't really allow me to download much this week. It would've been useful indeed :\ I'll see how it goes and maybe edit the post. Thanks for the suggestion!

[enemytosleep]

http://www.toplessrobot.com/2010/11/fireflys_15_best_uses_of_chinese_profanity.php

[pinkeuphoria1]

This is great, thanks!!! Checking now :)

[poulpette]

French over there, pointing out a few errors (no offense meant, but given how useful I've found fandom_grammar in the past I couldn't let that stand ;) ):

You typo-ed 'merde' (extra r in your text), as well as 'je m'en fous' (missing s). 'Fou' is a noun meaning insane, also used as the occasional swear word, with the s added depending on context it's either the plural of 'fou' or the conjugated form of the verb 'foutre', here you want the second one obviously. You're also missing another s in 'casses toi' (no dash either). An oft used phrase lately is 'casses toi pauv' con' (fuck off you poor bugger), made infamous by president Sarkozy shortly after his investiture >_We do not use "fils/fille de salope" but "fils/fille de pute". Both salope and pute have the same meaning and can be substituted most times, just not in that saying. Pute is also much stronger than 'salope'. The correct spelling of the male form of 'salope' is 'salaud'. 'Salope/salaud' comes from the verb 'saloper' which implies a general sense of dirtiness, filthiness

[pinkeuphoria1]

Oh, this is bad and embarrassing. Unfortunately (especially for me), I don't really remember much of the French I studied in middle school (and they really didn't teach us how to curse). My friends aren't really good at French, either, so I couldn't check how good the examples of curse words were... So sorry! :(

Thanks for the corrections though! They're very much appreciated. And they teach me a lesson too, lol. I'll edit the post.

Edit: Though now that you mentioned them, I realize some weren't right... Especially the 's' missing in 'Casses toi'.

[semisweetsoul]

Thank you very much for the long article. Much appreciated.

French person here as well! We're very protective of our language, hence our membership to this comm. ;)

Two things: 1. I would translate Je m'en fous by I don't care. The offensiveness of the verb has subdued due to frequent use from all people of all generations, IMO.

2. As a general rule, the verb loses the s from the present tense in the imperative form. Here it should be Casse-toi.

Also, did you know that there's a wiki entry about Sarko's infamous sentence?

[sosaith]

We really could talk about swear words and racist language for years. It's interesting that you list kaffir with the American terms; I've only ever heard it in reference to South Africa/Africa. One of my favorites in Spanish is "Métetelo por el culo" ("Put it up your ass").

[pinkeuphoria1]

I wish I could've written about other languages too, but I was worried I'd get it wrong (and I did even in this case). It's really an interesting topic, especially when we spot similar phrases.

Spanish is quite colorful when it comes to curse words, I've noticed. I could've written a whole article only about it!

[daegaer]

For UK derogatory terms about Irish people, the only ones I've seen used (in novels, TV series and films) are "Paddy" and "Mick". "Mickey Finn" in particular strikes me as being an American usage, and an old-fashioned one I've only ever heard in reference to drugging someone's drink ("Mack" also sounds American to me, especially as it's spelled here with a "k"). Being called a "Mickey" would perhaps make Irish people laugh at the person saying it, as it's a very, very mild slang term for "penis" - the kind of things kids get away with saying, or that you can say on prime time radio

[enemytosleep]

I'm from Boston and around here "mick" is a derogatory term for people of Irish decent, so whether it originated here or elsewhere, it's definitely used here in America.