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Interesting observation - (Note may contain coarse language)

de ceigered, 2009-marto-18

Mesaĝoj: 31

Lingvo: English

Abras (Montri la profilon) 2009-marto-20 21:01:12

For anyone who's interested, I suggest you check out the book Expletive Deleted: A Good Look at Bad Language by Ruth Wajnryb. It focuses on English obscenities mostly, but not exclusively. And it is in the vein of the many linguistics books that have been published in recent years. That is, it is more of an over overview than an in-depth report and it is aimed squarely at the layperson. I enjoyed it, anyways. rideto.gif

ceigered (Montri la profilon) 2009-marto-21 03:24:06

Sounds like a good read, Abras. Once I get all of my textbooks for the year I'll be looking into getting hat.

jchthys (Montri la profilon) 2009-marto-21 22:28:09

Apparently in China 王八蛋 (wáng bā dàn, “king eight egg”) is a pretty serious insult. It must have gotten corrupted sometime along the way, because “king eight egg” doesn’t sound very bad to me.

erinja (Montri la profilon) 2009-marto-22 00:42:44

jchthys:Apparently in China 王八蛋 (wáng bā dàn, “king eight egg”) is a pretty serious insult.
That's the only Chinese insult I know, actually. I think it means bastard. Or anyway, that's how my Chinese friends always translated it for me, maybe only because it is used in the same situations in Chinese, where we would say "bastard" in English. It is an insult I hear a lot in Chinese movies.

LyzTyphone (Montri la profilon) 2009-marto-22 09:37:14

Well, to clarify this famous expletive,
"王八"(also "忘八" of similar sound)
actually is a slangy way to say turtle,
which is traditionally related with the color (green) of "ĉiesulejo".
And "egg" can be an analogy for testicle too.
So now you see how serious that sound.

andogigi (Montri la profilon) 2009-marto-22 14:03:00

I like Japanese for this reason. To be sure, Japanese has swear words, but you don't hear them used frequently. This language uses formal and informal tenses on verbs. It also has certain, everyday words which are formal and informal. If you want to "tell someone off", it is more common to change to informal speech in, what would otherwise be, a formal setting.

For example, "you are an idiot" would sound a little odd if I said "Anata wa baka desu". You would probably say "Omae wa baka da"

You = Anata = Omae
is/are = Desu = Da

You would never call your boss or father, "omae". This means that the connotation can be delivered with a normal sentence in a normal context, without having to resort to profanity.

Personally, I try to learn swear words in a foreign language but I don't use them myself. This isn't because I'm a goody two-shoes. I just feel swearing in a language that isn't your native language makes you look like an idiot. I've encountered too many foreigners trying to swear in English who totally screwed it up. They didn't know the meaning, got the context wrong, or whatever. What's more, you can't say "Oops, I'm sorry. I didn't intend to say that."

ceigered (Montri la profilon) 2009-marto-23 09:01:55

andogigi:

For example, "you are an idiot" would sound a little odd if I said "Anata wa baka desu". You would probably say "Omae wa baka da"

You = Anata = Omae
is/are = Desu = Da

You would never call your boss or father, "omae". This means that the connotation can be delivered with a normal sentence in a normal context, without having to resort to profanity.
I have to say I like this feature too, hard to learn though (ore + omae, boku + kimi, watashi + anata, I reckon they are some of the more useful pairs out there). For anyone else interested:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_pronouns

I also like it how you could say de gozaimasu, de arimasu, de aru, desu, da, ja, ya etc, at first people go "WHAT THE?!" when they find they can say "is" in 7 ways, but it can be quite handy at times. I'd rather say "Boku-wa baka ja nai" than "Boku-wa baka de wa nai" (the latter sounds clunky).

ceigered (Montri la profilon) 2009-marto-23 09:02:28

sorry, I tried to correct my previous post and stuffed up. The last line says "the latter sounds clunky", this should be "the FORMER sounds clunky" rido.gif

Andybolg (Montri la profilon) 2009-marto-26 11:51:02

white knight:A Frenchman told me, that in France one somtimes says "Mer... credi" avoiding the whole s-word. In Esperanto one also could say "Mer...kredo". rido.gif
And in Norwegian, instead of saying "faen ta", you can say: "faaan...ta"! okulumo.gif

darkweasel (Montri la profilon) 2009-marto-26 18:45:51

andogigi:
Personally, I try to learn swear words in a foreign language but I don't use them myself. This isn't because I'm a goody two-shoes. I just feel swearing in a language that isn't your native language makes you look like an idiot. I've encountered too many foreigners trying to swear in English who totally screwed it up. They didn't know the meaning, got the context wrong, or whatever. What's more, you can't say "Oops, I'm sorry. I didn't intend to say that."
I like listening to Eminem's music although my first language isn't English - I think that at least then you learn how swear words are used in English. okulumo.gif

BTW, I couldn't imagine using a language like Japanese where, well, the tenses and pronouns you use can make a sentence extremely impolite. (OK, it must be even harder for a native English speaker, as German at least has a distinction between informal (singular "du", plural "ihr") and formal "you" ("Sie"))

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