FSTDT Forums
Community => Society and History => Topic started by: Even Then on September 20, 2015, 04:06:19 pm
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I find it interesting how the connotations of words are so different in different cultures. For example, I've been led to believe that "cunt" is one of the worst things you can call someone in the USA (and pretty misogynistic besides, which I do understand), while here in Finland, the equivalent word is just a general-purpose swear that isn't even used about people (as far as I know).
So, this is a thread for all those contextual differences between words, and what's foul language all over the world.
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Translating an insult/swear is complicated because even when there's an equivalent for the literal meaning 90% of the content is in connotation.
I don't recall right now if there's a Spanish equivalent to using cunt to refer to a person. I don't think so, but there could be one I'm not thinking of/is used in other dialects/etc.
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Well, "cunt" is really only considered the mother of all swear words in America and Canada. In the rest of the Anglosphere, it's nowhere near as charged.
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In English, most of the time the difference between a swear and a less "offensive" word is the former is usually Germanic and the latter is French in origin (something like "shit" and "faeces" or "fuck" and "fornicate"). It's a holdover from the time when William and Conqueror along with a bunch of other French-speaking aristocrats invaded and successfully took England.
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Art is an Aussie, so he should be the most knowledgeable person when it comes to swearing.
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Not only that, he's Art. This is the sort of knowledge he excels at.
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Aw, shucks you guys.
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I know that in Australia, "cunt" is barely even a swear word. In Dutch, their words for "fuck" and "shit" aren't offensive, but "kanker," their word for cancer, is very offensive when used as an insult. Very interesting.
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The usage of words varies not only geographically but also evolves with time. While "fuck" seems to have been used as a swear word for centuries the Finnish word "vittu" (the word the OP discussed; its modern usage is similar to "fuck" as an all-purpose swear word) was just a neutral reference to the female genitalia a century ago. If you take a look at the Finnish folk poetry collected in the 19th century (the SKVR collection, available also online as a free database) this non-vulgar usage is very obvious.
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Don't ask where you can find a fanny pack in Britain. Of course, everyone knows that one.
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in the south of france, the word "con" (that can be either "stupid" or female genitalia, though archaic) is basic punctuation, just like "putain" (whore). both are used liberally, with a singing accent. go north, and all of a sudden, both are horribly offensive. not to extreme levels, but enough to generate culture shock. it's not just the accent that can change, but the vernacular, as well.
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A few odd ones I've learned from anime:
"Chikusho" (sometimes abbreviated to just "kuso") is a really mild swear in Japanese, somewhere along the lines of "Darn!" Little kids use it. In English translations of anime, it's almost always replaced with "damn it" or something similar.
Meanwhile, there's a way of saying the Japanese word for "you" that is considered extremely vulgar. This is why, when the subtitles say "You bastard!" or "Damn you!" the Japanese you hear is...not really very consistent. Half the time, people are actually saying a specific insult, while the other half, they're just saying "you" in a very insulting tone.
And, of course, leaving out the honorific after someone's name is extremely rude. How rude depends on which level of honorific you should have used; generally, only very close sibs or lovers are going to be able to get away with no honorifics at all, so failure to use one implies a level of informality/intimacy that isn't really there. There's no good way to show this in English translation, because we don't really have an equivalent in most Anglophone cultures. If it's relevant, then honorifics will just be tacked on to the translation as-is: "I think Hikari-kun's right, you guys."
Example of honorific deliberately used incorrectly: In an episode of InuYasha, another miko who was passed up for Kikyo's job refers to her as "Kikyo-dono." However, they're close enough in status that "Kikyo-san" would be much more appropriate. The use of an honorific several levels higher than makes sense is used sarcastically in this context, to imply that Kikyo is undeserving of the honor she's been given by their superiors, and possibly also that she's stuck-up.
For reference:
"-hime" I've only seen this one to mean "princess."
"-dono" Archaic; used by peasants toward royalty or shoguns. Really, really huge implied difference in status here.
"-sama" Similar to "my lord" or "my lady;" generally higher-status than we think of "sir" or "ma'am" in everyday English.
"-sensei" Doctor or teacher.
"-san" About the level of "sir" or "ma'am;" used for slightly higher-status adults or strangers.
"-senpai" Used by a younger student to address an older one.
"-kohai" Used by an older student to address a younger one.
"-chan" or "-kun" Used toward people equal or below you in status, unless they're just students in a lower grade. Usually "-chan" is feminine, and "-kun" is masculine, but there may be exceptions that I don't know about.
Trying to map two totally unrelated languages onto each other is weird.
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And yet weebos of the early 00s did it all the time.
Ironbite-I remember my time in Livejournal.
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Actually I think the closest equivalent in Anglo languages would probably titles like Mr,Ms,Mrs etc at least that's the closest I could come up with in my mind.
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OK, so why do the kids in Super Sentai refer to the heroes as "onee-chan?" That honorific would seem inappropriate.
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That's an older sibling-type honorific. In specific, older sister. Older brother would be Onii-chan (I think. I could be backwards though. Sorry if I am.)
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In the UK "cunt" is still a pretty serious swear word, it's probably still near the very top and is used when no other insult seems quite enough, and it's more likely to get bleeped on TV than fuck, but it seems to be less so than in the US and it doesn't seem to carry the same misogynistic connotations that it does in the US.
That being said, in my experience it's a word people seem to tend to avoid using towards women, even though when used towards a man it doesn't carry any implications of questioning the man's masculinity like it does in the US (unlike if you were to call a man a "bitch"), it's basically just a much more extreme way of calling someone an "arsehole" or any other vulgar insult really. Maybe it's the ever increasing influence of American culture through entertainment and the internet? Or maybe it's just that a lot of men for whatever reason inherently don't like using more extreme and vulgar terms to women's faces unless they lose their shit?
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Also, I'd just like to say that you've not lived until you've had to explain "gobshite" to a German who's never heard the word before.