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Interesting observation - (Note may contain coarse language)

de ceigered, 18 mars 2009

Messages : 31

Langue: English

ceigered (Voir le profil) 18 mars 2009 12:54:38

I made an interesting observation about the swear words of Esperanto and noticed something interesting:

- the "f" word of esperanto is from German I presume, but where is the "s" word from?

The reason I ask is because fek' roughly corresponds to a nice Irish word of similar pronunciation, ruder implied meaning yet less taboo... Not many people here have seemed to comment on this (I'm guessing not many people here are part Irish?) so I thought I'd make the observation on behalf of all the teenagers in the world with nothing to do...

BTW... Speaking of Irish... St. Patrick in EO is Sanktulo Patriko, jes?

Rohan (Voir le profil) 18 mars 2009 13:20:04

Considering the words 'faeces'/'feces' and 'defecation', I guess 'feki' comes from Latin.

jan aleksan (Voir le profil) 18 mars 2009 13:21:19

Well, in fact, it's possible that the latin word and the irish word has the same origin.

henma (Voir le profil) 18 mars 2009 14:24:36

By the way, I never understood why in English the s word is so terrible. For me it never was a word that offensive.

I know, it smells bad, but it's something everybody does, at least a couple times a week (most daily). It's necessary, a part of everyday life.

In Spanish one can say "caca", "mierda", "excremento" with no problem... Mierda can be used to swear, but it's not that terrible as in English (one doesn't censure a forum or classify something as not-for-children because feces are mentioned).

Some thoughts about this? What in other languages? I'm pretty sure that in French "merd" (is it correctly spelled?) is also common.

Amike,

Daniel.

henma (Voir le profil) 18 mars 2009 14:30:29

Rohan:Considering the words 'faeces'/'feces' and 'defecation', I guess 'feki' comes from Latin.
I always thought that. In Spanish we have "heces", which come from latin "faeces", which, using the classical pronunciation, would be pronounced like (esperanto transcription, not english) "fajkes" or "fekes".

Amike,

Daniel.

erinja (Voir le profil) 18 mars 2009 23:19:44

Just a heads-up, although "fek'" is used as an expletive in Esperanto, "feki" is the 100% normal way to say "to defecate" in Esperanto. This has been mentioned before, but in case anyone is reading this thread who hasn't seen the previous discussions on this topic, the root fek/ is in no way obscene in Esperanto. You would certainly say "Mia hundo fekis dum ni promenis" (My dog pooped when we went for a walk), or "Mi prenis la fekon de mia hundo de la troturao" (I picked up my dog's poop from the sidewalk), and those expressions would not be obscene or improper at all.

So in this sense, fek' is not as bad in Esperanto as the S-word is in English. I know that these things vary across cultures though. Bodily-function words and sex-related words are usually the worst in English. In some other languages, words related to religion are much worse. You could say in English that somebody's deity is a pig and people would think you were a little strange, but in other languages it would be incredibly obscene.

SuperMarc92 (Voir le profil) 19 mars 2009 02:38:46

henma:Some thoughts about this? What in other languages? I'm pretty sure that in French "merd" (is it correctly spelled?) is also common.
It's "merde" and it's not that much offenseive, I would say it's not offensive at all. I could say that with anybody (teachers, parents) and it would be ok. In Quebec, the word "f*ck" is also acceptable, but not in my English courses lango.gif.

vejktoro (Voir le profil) 19 mars 2009 03:42:06

Shite fellas, 'fek' is how the F word is oft uttered in the spoken English of Ireland.

The word 'fek' in Irish Gaelic means "see".

ceigered (Voir le profil) 19 mars 2009 04:03:24

vejktoro:Shite fellas, 'fek' is how the F word is oft uttered in the spoken English of Ireland.
Yer, I was going to add that "feck" in Ireland comes straight from f::* in English, but it's like saying frick in that kids probably could say it without getting a smack. I also think the Irish-English word has some more meanings, like to steal/go etc (e.g. I fecked off to uni, I fecked a coupla coins from my mum's wallet). (Mi ekfekis al la universitato, Mi fekis kelkajn monerojn el la monuja de mi patrino lango.gif ok so it doesn't work the same way but still)

In relation to what we perceive as wrong etc, I have no problem saying f::* or shite etc, but for some reason, despite having swearing quite commonplace in Australia, there are some people you just have to be careful with (I guess you always have people like that who find just about any colloquialism as taboo).

@ henma:
Interestingly, in the Adam Sandler movie Spanglish, the young spanish/mexican (I forgot what one she was) girl goes "Mierda!" and her mother gives her a strong reprimanding look - is this what normally would happen?

darkweasel (Voir le profil) 19 mars 2009 20:08:41

The lernu English-Eo dictionary has "merdo" for the s-word too, but not if you try Eo-Eo senkulpa.gif

BTW, in German we have the s-word "Scheiße" - whether or not it's that offensive depends on the situation. For the f-word we have "ficken" (where the Esperanto word comes from), but as an expletive the English f-word is more commonly used. (And, I think, not considered as offensive as by an English speaker)

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