As an ESL: English is a fucking minefield.
I can only imagine. On the other hand, most other languages don’t have such an awesome and powerful array of offensive words. I mean, there’s such a VARIETY of them, all offensive for different reasons. Racial words, toilet and bodily function words, words that are literally related to being cursed by God, offensive words exclusively about stupid people, words related to sexual intercourse, words specifically made to offend genders and sexual orientations, etc, on and on. It’s impressive, even to a native speaker, when you really sit and think about it.
I think it comes from the sheer number of other languages that are related to English, as well as the fact that we’ll just steal words from any other language, faster than just about anyone else.
EDIT: I’m not at all implying that other languages don’t have words for all those things I listed. It’s just that most other languages don’t have the same categorization of “these words are swear words” that English does. As I understand it, most other languages have a much shorter list of words that are specifically taboo for anyone to say, in a polite context.
Rudeness in many other languages is more defined by the manner of speech, the degree of formality, etc. But we English speakers have this lovely category of words that are both nominally “forbidden,” yet also used all the time, by almost everyone.
Lemmy is so weird man, I have no idea why you’re being downvoted while the people replying in agreement aren’t. Is anybody actually reading/comprehending these?
That sounds like people going through their profile and just mass downvoting everything
lol
Yeah other languages normally get their swears from words for things that are considered taboo but english just has such a variety. We have swears/slurs that are related to:
- bodily functions
- bodily fluids
- sex
- relationships
- some animals
- being sent to hell
- various other religious (mostly catholic) things
- thinking you’re better than others
- thinking others are better than you
- and probably some others that I’ve forgotten about/don’t know of
But also not all words from those categories are swears and not all of those swears are always swears. We also have words that sound/look like swears but aren’t.
edit: it would appear that I am incorrectExactly! You immediately came up with several categories that I completely forgot about, when I was listing categories of swear words. And yeah, the different levels of swearing are fascinating. And then, of course, the whole levels-of-familiarity-and-politeness-and-formality thing that other languages have? English still has that shit, it’s just not built into the formal structure of the language, the way it is in, say, Japanese.
Those politeness and familiarity levels are just based on the context of every individual, and their particular social group. Some people swear a lot in their own family setting, some people NEVER swear within their nuclear family group. Some workplace environments are RIGIDLY anti-swearing, while others are totally informal, and everyone has a potty-mouth, all the time. And any of these contexts can have their own specific house rules, in terms of which categories of swearing are more taboo.
Like: “hey, fuckface! Don’t say the fucking R-word around here, or I’ll break my foot off in your ass.” Totally a thing that I can imagine someone saying.
You neglect the versatility of our tabboo language, too!
Take English’s favorite swear: Fuck.
Fuck is:
- Noun - “You sick fuck.”
- Verb - “I’d fuck it.”
- Adjective - “A fucked-up situation.”
- Superlative - “Un-fucking-believable.”
It can be used to express:
- Joy - “Fuck yes!”
- Horror - “Oh fuck…”
- Sensuality - “Fuck me~”
- Resignation - “Fuck me…”
- Anger - “Fuck you!”
- Condolences - “That’s fucked…”
And that’s just scratching the surface!
Fucking hell, this fucking fucker has fucking fucked it.
much useful
so versatile
My English teacher was right. Fuck is lazy. Lol
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Yeah other languages normally get their swears from words for things that are considered taboo but english just has such a variety.
A typical take by a monolinguist. All of the examples you mention are typical in most other languages as well. English is not exceptional in that regard whatsoever.
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I’m Dutch, we do basically all of these with the exception of go to hell. But we also curse with diseases such as typhoid and cholera.
I’m sorry to say but your curses aren’t anything special.
Aw man :( You mean we english-speakers aren’t the only ones with overly sensitive ancestors?
As I understand it, most other languages have a much shorter list of words that are specifically taboo for anyone to say, in a polite context.
Well, you understand wrong.
But we English speakers have this lovely category of words that are both nominally “forbidden,” yet also used all the time, by almost everyone.
Please don’t attempt to make these kinds of linguist generalisations when you have next to no knowledge about anything else but your native language. Again, this is not exceptional to English at all.
Languages aren’t based of English as far as I’ve understood. English is a germanic language, just like German (obviously), Dutch, Danish and many others. So it’s shared origins but not based of English.
Also I at least know Dutch actually full on has swear words like you describe. I’ve never heard of another language having something like the N-word though. That seems to be unique.
On the other hand, most other languages don’t have such an awesome and powerful array of offensive words
Lmao I think most people believe this about their native tongue.
minefield? your field? my field? field of mines? mine? field? mine field? minefield? field mine? fieldmine?
The middle English word for “stingy”?
We all know why they’re saying it though.
I don’t think I’ve ever had the reason to say this word, or even thought of it on the spot.
How else am I going to sing all my favourite rap songs
Yuh-huh.
Yes, it’s got no relation to that other word. No, that doesn’t matter.
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People probably didn’t even know this was a word until they saw this meme.
If you’ve never seen anybody use the word, just wait. It’ll happen eventually.
Someone in your local-level politics (a city councilman, someone on a university board, etc) or your place of employment will whip that word out, and facepalming will ensue.
It’ll be a white guy in his fifties. He’ll say that shit in a public setting. People will be like “WTF, man.” And then he’ll be like “ACKSHUALLY, Niggardly (noun: niggard) is an adjective meaning ‘stingy’ or ‘miserly’. Niggard (14th C) is derived from the Middle English word meaning ‘stingy,’ nigon, which is probably derived from two other words also meaning ‘stingy,’ namely, Old Norse hnǫggr and Old English hnēaw.”
And he will be genuinely surprised when people don’t treat him as a hero.
Never before has a username been such an incorrect description
Meh. As I’ve said before, it’s aspirational.
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Meh, it comes up more often than you think. There’s a whole Wikipedia page about it’s “controversial” use even. I doubt it’s as unknown to the general populous as you think.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controversies_about_the_word_niggardly
I knew the word but didn’t know what it meant until I looked it up after seeing this. I think I assumed it had something to do with the word we’re all skirting around (makes me sound like I have to try to not say it - ugh) but it’s from the middle ages and means “stingy”, if anyone wants to know.
Older books have it pretty frequently. And gay for happy. And faggot for
OPbundle of sticks. And so on. Pretty funny reading some of that stuff these days.
Parsimonious is just a better word to use at that point in a rant.
Yup. It’s a cooler word, anyway.
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Green Day’s music video for their new song “One eyed bastard” features Steamboat Willie pretty prominently. Not exactly a cartoon or a game, but definitely monetized.
"his"tory reinforces the patriarchy because words sound the same! 🙄
I remember a politician in 97 or 98 literally tanking his career doing that…don’t care if it means miserly…not touching it.
Eh gate keeping non-offensive words seems a bit daft.
Reminds me of when Obama was president and some totally not racist tea party conservatives suddenly just loved mentioning that the president “reneged” on this or that.
You find reneged to be racist? Americans are wild wtf.
I’ve been an American my whole life, and this is the first I’ve heard of that word being considered racist. But I’ve heard a whole lot of revisionist history around words lately.
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Welcome to the funhouse of undulating mirrors, where words become meaningless, they can mean whatever you want (or don’t want) them to mean.
This is also where we imbue magical powers to some words, as we try to ban them… which only makes them more powerful and volatile, and they might even suddenly manifest themselves implied in places and other words where they’ve never been implied before!
I don’t think it’s racist. I think it’s more that the person saying that Obama reneged thinks that makes Obama a “renegger” when it actually makes him a renegade.
It is when you specifically say it in reference to a black person while overemphasizing the part of the word that phonetically sounds like the first syllable of the n word. The word itself is not racist, the usage of the word to call out a person’s race as a negative attribute certainly is.
God. My brain uses that word. And my tongue and soul hate it.
“Seek offence and you shall find it” - The unofficial motto of Tumblr
It’s not really a word that is used anymore, though I have encountered it in some older books.
Yeah, does “any reason” include making a meme? Because that jumped up to one of the top reasons I’ve seen that word used just today. Minutes ago, even.
There’s an alternate pronunciation and spelling of the word snickering. Same sentiment applies.
Weirdly, I’ve seen a lot more people just straight-up get away with that one.
Get away with it? Is there something wrong with that word? Doesn’t it just mean like giggling or something?
Well, yeah, it does just mean giggling. And, in all honesty, I’ve never actually seen anyone get roasted for using that word.
Niggardly is a whole different thing, though. Ain’t no reason to use that shit.
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“Hey, I said it with a hard D though!”
Hard D is the opposite of hard R, I guess?
A hard D is what your mom got last night.
I learned a new word!
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It’s based on a Wojack.
I took the image from one of the old Mickey Mouse cartoons and added the squished head. I guess we can call it “Disabled Mickey” or something?
EDIT: I also obviously added the weird teeth, from the Winnie The Pooh meme.
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