
Naughty words: What makes swear words so offensive? - Hooke
https://aeon.co/essays/where-does-swearing-get-its-power-and-how-should-we-use-it
======
LouisSayers
It is funny how swearing offense differs quite dramatically in cultures. In NZ
for instance being called a 'good cunt' is like a lower class way of giving a
compliment - basically 'good person'. In other places e.g. the UK, the sight
of the word 'cunt' gets them riled up - the word 'good' is lost in
translation.

~~~
tlarkworthy
not in Scotland[1], England yes.

[1]
[http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Cunt+(Scottis...](http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Cunt+\(Scottish+Definition\))

~~~
koralatov
Highlander here, now living in Aberdeen. The usage you linked to is prevalent
only in the Central Belt; up here, it still carries a derogatory implication
unless it's being used by close friends. Also worth noting that I've never,
ever heard a woman from the Central Belt using it in the way UD describes,
only men.

~~~
davb
I moved from Glasgow to Aberdeen (and stayed there for a decade) and it was
noticeable how differently they treat that word. Even in situations where
swear words were flying, breaking out "cunt" would put pause to the
conversation. It was strange, and amusing.

Women from Glasgow certainly use that word. Just as frequently as men. That's
not to say all women, or all men, but in equal proportion.

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Raticide
The 'fucking pleb' statement wasn't bad because of swearing it was for calling
him a 'pleb'. For those that don't know, it's a derogatory term used by the
upper class for the working class.

Also it turns out that the police officer lied about the whole thing.

~~~
markdown
> For those that don't know, it's a derogatory term used by the upper class
> for the working class.

It means _commoner_. Most people first hear it in high school english class...
for me it was Shakespeare's Julius Caesar.

~~~
pluma
Fun fact: "pleb"/"plebian" has similarities to "Prolet"/"Proletarier" in
German:

"Prolet" is a social slur with similar implications as "pleb" (when used as an
insult): unsophisticated, unskilled, bottom feeder, likely unemployed living
off welfare and drunk.

"Proletarier" OTOH simply means "proletarian", i.e. a worker. It's not used in
colloquial language but historically occurred in politics (for obvious
reasons) and still pops up in some contexts.

While "Prolet" is entirely derogatory, "Proletarier" is either neutral or
positive.

While the English "plebian" seems to date back to Roman times, AFAICT the
German "Proletarier" is relatively recent (i.e. early communist era).

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ranebo
A year or so ago while my Japanese in-laws were visiting, my brother asked
them if they would like to try a new swearing card game he was
kickstarting(1). I was hesitant to let this happen as although my wife's
parents didn't really know the meaning of the words, they knew they were
"swear" words, and that might be seen as inappropriate.

In the end this was just my predefined view of what a "swear" word was,
clouding my judgement, and everyone had a good time. My in-laws later
explained to me that although they knew "swear" words were meant to be
offensive, they couldn't wrap their heads around why/how, and as such happily
yelled "Cunt!" as easily as they would "Potato!".

(1) [http://www.f--kthegame.com/](http://www.f--kthegame.com/)

~~~
RodericDay
I am very new at japanese, so don't take my word for this, but there aren't a
lot of "motherfucker" style insults in japanese. You mostly insult people by
talking to them with the wrong politeness level. The meaning of the word is
still something like "you".

[http://www.sljfaq.org/afaq/insults.html](http://www.sljfaq.org/afaq/insults.html)

~~~
ranebo
Yep thats kind of my point, the idea that a word by itself, regardless of
intent could be offensive, made absolutely no sense to them.

To put it into perspective, I've seen nearly every word on your list in
different childrens cartoons/anime.

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mathgenius
Today's grammar challenge, should you choose to accept it: (1) use the word
"lavatorial" in a sentance. (2) use the expression "How brilliant was it?
Fucking." with enough gusto to convey the meaning. (The article claims it
doesn't make any sense, but i think this could in fact work.)

~~~
qu4z-2
The article also says that you wouldn't say "Wash the dishes and fuck you."

I mean, yes, fuck you isn't imperative, but I can totally imagine someone
saying that in certain situations.

~~~
chippy
I can imagine it happening on a TV sit com, perhaps the phrase would be:

"Wash the dishes!...And fuck you!"

so I can imagine it happening when theres more of a stop between the two
imperatives

~~~
arantius
Bob: Wash the dishes! Fred: Fuck you! Bob: Wash the dishes _and_ fuck you!

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dendory
In Quebec a lot of our modern taboo words are religious themed. Unlike many
other cultures however, it's not religion that made them taboo, but rather the
fact that we had a heavier than most religious presence in our political and
education systems up to the 1960s, and when we 'woke up' as it were, a lot of
religious terms became swear words. Today the province is much less religious
than say the US, on average, and most of our swear words remain that way.

~~~
SixSigma
In Finland the highest category swear word is "Perkele" which they call "the P
word".

It translates as "devil"

~~~
jpatokal
Uhh, no. _Vittu_ , literally "cunt", is the Finnish equivalent of "fuck" and
is used with similar disregard to its notional meaning (fucking cheeseburger =
vitun juustohampurilainen).

Kind of like those Quebecois swears, _perkele_ manages to be both rude and
formal: it's used in Finnish translations of the Bible for "Devil".

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kijin
The Korean phrase mentioned in the article doesn't make any sense. I can guess
where it came from, but it looks like the author put the English version
through Google Translate in an attempt to get the original. Not many swear
words will survive that kind of abuse.

~~~
pluma
Similarly, "Mutterficker" while a literal translation to German, is not
exactly common. I'm guessing if it exists at all it's likely a direct
adaptation from English language media (like "verfickt" \-- "fucked"/"fucking"
\-- which seems to be a literal translation merged with "verflixt" which in
turn is a minced oath for "verflucht" \-- "damn").

I'm also not convinced exclamations like "Gottverdammt!" (similar to the Dutch
phrase) and "Verfickte Scheiße!" (closest equivalent to "Fuck!" I can think
of) are offensive in the same way. Outside of deeply religious groups the
former would mostly be frowned at for being needlessly elaborate ("Verdammt!"
would suffice) whereas the latter would be frowned at for simply being obscene
-- quantity vs quality basically.

I also can't find anything in the article properly addressing the use of swear
words for other things than intentional vulgarity or insult. The "escalation"
theory doesn't work for exclamations in reaction to pain/mistakes/mishaps
(e.g. dropping something heavy on your foot). It doesn't seem to address the
existence of minced oaths either (which from the starting point of actual
swearwords actually de-escalate by acknowledging the offensiveness of the
unminced oaths).

~~~
david-given
My German teacher once brought along a couple of photocopied pages from the
infamous anarchist German textbook, _Deutsch für den Ausländer_.

It's a selection of bizarre stories about some even more bizarre characters.
In one of them, the hero, who is a loser wannabe rapper, gets into a shouting
match with a rival rapper. The dialogue goes, "Fick dein Mütter! Fick dein
Hund! Fick dein ... etc, etc." Then he pisses himself, hides under a bus, and
is eventually taken home by the bus driver.

So, anyway, that's how I remember imperative informal verbs in German.

~~~
pluma
Yeah, "Fick deine Mutter" is actually something you would hear in German,
especially from a character like that. It would generally be considered one of
the more unsophisticated insults, though -- it's associated with the German
equivalent of British "chavs".

"Mutterficker" OTOH just doesn't sit right. If you're going to insult
someone's mother, just call them "Hurensohn" (i.e. call their mother a
prostitute).

Fun fact: "Hurenkind" is also a technical term (though these days the far less
offensive "Witwe" translated from the English "widow" is often used) to
describe a paragraph with its final line cut off from the page. The line
itself on the next page is called "Schusterjunge" (or "Waise", from "orphan")
-- "cobbler's boy".

~~~
david-given
As a complete tangent, one of things I'm finding hardest about German is when
a word in English will have more than one meaning --- like, as you say, widows
and orphans do --- and then I'll find that the equivalent word in German,
_even if entirely different_ , will have the same set of meanings. It's
amazingly hard to remember.

Also, I'm totally going to have to find my own copy of _Deutsch für den
Ausländer_.

~~~
pluma
I'd have thought that it's far more troublesome when the German equivalent
merely has a subset of the same meanings but completely different meanings too
(e.g. the English term for A has additional meanings B and C but not D while
the German equivalent for A has additional meanings B and D but not C).

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rl3
tl;dr These words are offensive primarily because of the implicit cultural
taboos associated with them.

I'd argue this is unfortunate, since many people are quick to take offense
without first examining the specific intent or context behind a word's use in
a particular situation.

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wapapaloobop
I don't think this gets to the heart of how words can become taboo in the
first place. It's because they evoke associations and imagery in the
listener's mind which are gross (e.g. bad smells, STDs, jealousy).

Moreover, the listener is _complicit_ in this grossness because it's the
listener's mind which generates the imagery. Gratuitous swearing isn't merely
ugly: it actively lowers the tone of a conversation. Sometimes the tone
_needs_ to be lowered. But now it's harder for sensitive listeners to think,
so we risk losing the benefit of their wisdom.

~~~
pluma
Okay, but this only works for certain swearwords in certain cultures.

It also assumes vigorous sexual intercourse (i.e. "fuck") is gross, which is
either extremely prude or childish.

I'd argue that some swearwords actually merely signify intensity and can be
entirely neutral to the "tone of the conversation" (in terms of the subject
matter and concepts the conversation can address). If you tell someone they
did a "fucking great job" the only way that would affect the conversation
negatively (sarcasm etc aside) would be if the phrasing offends the other
person's sensibilities.

I'm guessing the falls in the same category as the "mock insults" theory (i.e.
close friends casually insulting each other to signal their intimacy rather
than actually causing offense).

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workusername
Coincidentally, I listened to this yesterday:
[http://philosophybites.com/2015/03/rebecca-roache-on-
swearin...](http://philosophybites.com/2015/03/rebecca-roache-on-
swearing.html)

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s3arch
>Swearing, then, is as offensive as it is not because of some magic ingredient
possessed by swear words but lacked by other words, but because when we swear,
our audience knows that we do so in the knowledge that they will find it
offensive.

Interestingly, While I was a kid, I used to think that since God created
Darkness and Light, he must have created both Good and Bad.... But later as I
grew up, I have realized that, its the purpose and end-results of something
things we do, defines it either good or bad.

~~~
hcrisp
It _is_ a matter of the heart, which is why the final statement in the article
that swearing is not immoral rings hollow. The author tries to deconstruct
what swearing is, but fails to mention "cursing" which calls evil down on
someone (hate speech indeed), or "oaths" whereby one binds the validity of
their word to something or someone of more worth than themself (e.g., swearing
in a court of law, or phrases like the Roman's "by Jove"). Today, other than
cursing, what we call swearing now is more related to vulgarity and blasphemy.
All of which are harmful (and immoral) speech given the right motives.

A much more edifying article about the morality of swearing is this one:
[http://www.pement.org/docs/swearing.htm](http://www.pement.org/docs/swearing.htm)

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jacquesm
George Carlin said this best I think:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lqvLTJfYnik](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lqvLTJfYnik)

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ghshephard
From the article: _Etiquette dictates that we hold our fork in our left hand
and our knife in our right_ \- This is interesting, because I was taught to
hold my fork in my left hand, knife in my right _initially_ , but after
cutting food, switch the fork to my right hand. A bit of googling shows this
is not universal.

~~~
eru
US and European rules are different there, because Americans emigrated before
European elites had settled on a standard.

Yours seems to be the American standard.

Oh, and in parts of Asia they eat with fork and spoon.

Martin Luther famously complained about the then-new forks, since God had
given every man hands after all, hadn't he?

~~~
PakG1
Yes, although such a silly rule isn't staying still.
[http://www.slate.com/articles/life/culturebox/2013/06/fork_a...](http://www.slate.com/articles/life/culturebox/2013/06/fork_and_knife_use_americans_need_to_stop_cutting_and_switching.single.html)

I remember a story how the Nazis in WW2 would identify American spies in
Germany by observing how they held and used their cutlery in restaurants.
Sadly, I was unable to find the story just now.

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ronakbkakkad1
Swearing basically is a personal approach and different words mean completely
different to different people.

