My story is a sad one.
As I was sleeping, I dreamt about helping a nice, good looking, (and possibly French!) girl to clean up her house. (This part of the story is unexplainable; it might reflect my craving for a cleaner house, or for a nice, good looking, (and possibly French!) girl).Anyway, as I vacuumed her carpets, I backed up and hit the back of my head against something heavy. Can’t tell what it was (might be a starter for yet another idea), but as an immediate response, a swear word came out of my mouth.It was a mean, nasty, ugly swear word, refering to both genital and maternal issues. I do not know how did this nice, good looking (and possibly French!) girl react to my bad manners - I instantly woke up from this dream, dazzled by the bump and my bad habits, forever banned from the house of this nice, good looking anonymous girl.
Now, has this word been slightly harder to pronounce, I doubt if I was able to instinctively let it out, either while dreaming or in real life. But this particular word combination, spoken in my native language of course, is pronounced "kssssss... emek", and by no means is a hard one to pronounce. BWT: The longer the "ksssss..." part, the bigger the insult (regretfully, "ksss..." refers to the genital part rather then the maternal - and mine was shockingly long).
I believe that harder to pronounce swear words would help us to establish a calmer community, where civilized people can live together in harmony, even at the unlikely events of bumping their heads against something heavy.-- shibolim, Jun 25 2004 learn another language - this one is unpronounceable http://www.khemorex...Hol/mix/curses.html [po, Oct 04 2004] Swearing in Latin http://www.insultmo.../swearing/latin.htm [ldischler, Oct 04 2004] (?) "So You Want To Be a Doppelgänger!" http://www.ctnow.co...04,0,4269352.columnJuly 4 2004 column in the Hartford Courant which mentions this idea. (Everyone, say hi to Colin.) [waugsqueke, Oct 04 2004] sounds fine to me.-- macncheesy, Jun 25 2004 I've been training myself to use more old fashioned curses. People seem to take it more to heart when you call them a 'damnable swine' or a 'filthy whoreson.'-- harderthanjesus, Jun 25 2004 Today: this idea
Tomorrow: "Oh *?#$ it all. I can't even !$&?ing pronounce this donkey $*~@ing curse word!"
(side note) I have found that using "poop" (or a variant thereof) in place of curse words is not only less offensive, but oftentimes humorous, which helps to calm me from whatever made me want to curse in the first place. For example, the above phrase would have come out as:
“Oh poop. I can’t even stinking pronounce this sorry excuse for a piece of horse poop curse word!” (end side note)-- luecke, Jun 25 2004 The only problem with learning a difficult language for the sake of tender ears (possibly French!) around you is there is no guarantee that you will replace the easy-to-use language with the hard to pronounce variety. In fact, I can almost guarantee that with great enough provocation you're going to fuck up your chances by using the dirtier word. I think there is a whole section of the human brain that just sits around practicing filthy language and whenever you are truly disoriented it just comes flowing out like a river.
I've taken to swearing in foreign languages to ease my guilt over the issue. Thanks for the new word.-- k_sra, Jun 25 2004 What is your native tongue perchance?-- harderthanjesus, Jun 25 2004 I noticed this when I was 10 years old: The "big 4" -- f*ck, sh*t, d*mn, and *ss, all have short vowel sounds and these are the easiest of all to come out of your mouth.
The euphemisms (ph**ey, sh**t, d*rn, *rse) have long or complicated vowel sounds and sound a lot less curselike, but most importantly, aren't nearly as spontaneously sayable without training.-- phundug, Jun 25 2004 *rse isn't a euphemism [phundug], it's how the english say *ss.-- harderthanjesus, Jun 25 2004 D*mn, I should have known that. I'm sorry.-- phundug, Jun 25 2004 This has the potential to turn anger into humour. Oh, jskwzzzacsc.-- not-arf, Jun 25 2004 Somebody else's motherfucker, no doubt, cockbreath.-- lintkeeper2, Jun 25 2004 Huh. Punctuation is everything, isn't it?-- lintkeeper2, Jun 25 2004 This seems akin to levying a tax against a thing people already do.-- bristolz, Jun 25 2004 Some of our profane words are bastardizations (can I say that here?(no, I can barely type it.)) of other words that were harder to say when you stubbed your toe on a rock on your way to the outhouse at 2 am. This idea is great for learning foriegn languages. Create words that use the more challenging phonetics of a given language. All the kids on the playground would be very adept at the umlaut vowels in German and the Russia letters not in our alphabet, and just imagine the fun with languages of Asia. Once they learn to wrap their wee innocent mouths around those words, the rest of these languages will be easy. International peace and understanding through the use of profanity.-- Spare parts, Jun 25 2004 <unblock closed mind> Lookin at some screed names pretty much spells it out. </ucm>-- dpsyplc, Jun 25 2004 I've found that the word "Cripes" has a satisfying mouthfeel, a sufficiently violent sound, and a relatively inncuous interpretation.
Or we can just say "Semprini" like Monty Python.-- 5th Earth, Jun 26 2004 I prefer to make up curse words as I go along. In this way, either the person is too amused to be efficiently angry, or they're so confused that you get enough time to punch them square in the chest.
You honestly can't respond angrily to being called a "pookish brandgarding malophout".-- Pocketassreturn, Jun 26 2004 As phundug and Spare parts very nearly said, language tends to evolve towards shorter, easier ways of communicating (except in politics, of course, where the obfuscation tends to increase over time) so, even if you added a few more syllables to all of your favourite swear words they would eventually get shortened again over time. Bit of a WIBNI this one.-- DrBob, Jun 26 2004 It is an interesting idea, and I pray that you have more dreams about cleaner homes and (possibly french) girls, for the benefit of society and its bad habits!
Alternatively why not make swear words immune from any slander or insult. So "Fuck" no longer means sexual penetration or anything of the sort, and so can be used purely for emphasis or expressing our genuine, everyday, grievances.-- goodfella, Jun 26 2004 Where I'm from, "fuck" is pretty much used as punctuation. Almost like underlining a word verbally. Gets a bit dull after a while.-- lostdog, Jun 26 2004 Exactly, bliss. You've got ensure you've got some words which you rarely use (which you're holding in reserve, almost), which you can unleash when you're really hacked off. If they're overused, they don't retain their impact.-- lostdog, Jun 26 2004 The problem is that all swearwords follow the same sort of form (for psychological reasons, but also because a lot of them come from old english), in as much as they are one syllable, and plosive. In other words they are designed to be as close to a natural instinctual noise as possible, a grunt or whatever, forced out. Having a swear word that deviates from that form simply wouldn't satisfy the swearer.-- iivix, Jun 27 2004 Do your best impression of *Regan MacNeil*'s burgeoning sexuality and you're all set.-- thumbwax, Jun 28 2004 [phundug] appears to be Dickens or Edgar Allen Poe-type person. When was the last time I saw the word d*mn spelt d*mn?-- squeak, Jun 28 2004 How the h*ll else do you spell it?-- spacemoggy, Jun 28 2004 even overusing swear words as i occasionally do you can tell when there is feeling as the emphasis is different, after all you can tell just by listening to how someone pronounces and emphasises any word roughly how they are feeling.-- engineer1, Jun 28 2004 "Utinam barbari spatium proprium tuum invadant."Translation: May barbarians invade your personal space.Swearing in Latin sounds mighty fine. See link.-- ldischler, Jun 28 2004 "You're gonna die up there."
Immense yarblockos to thee and thine.-- saker, Jun 28 2004 Wasn't it the French who invented swearing anyways? "excuse my french" and all that. So why are you worried about your dream girl being offended? She probably likes it. Next time she shows up in your dream, just let her have it and see what she does.-- k_sra, Jun 28 2004 Namonai hito! Kimi wa donna baka ka? Japanese swearing for you, there.-- harderthanjesus, Jun 28 2004 Insignificant bandit! What kind of circle, you fool mosquito?-- thumbwax, Jun 28 2004 Sez Colin McEnroe in today's Hartford Courant: "If Cheney had to face the challenge of yelling 'fusillissifiss yourself,' the moment might have passed." (See linky.)
(For international readers, this refers to an event last week on the floor of the United States Senate, where Vice President Dick Cheney told Senator Leahy to 'go fuck yourself'.)-- waugsqueke, Jul 04 2004 Heh! It's nice to see that, when the going gets tough, the people in power take to the moral high ground.-- DrBob, Jul 04 2004 Swear words are the same age as that of language - they are an integral part of it. All the televised nonsense about returning to some golden era of people not swearing is complete piffle.-- dbmag9, Sep 30 2005 Bollocks.-- etherman, Sep 30 2005 //complete piffle//
Actually, no, [dbmag9]. It's quite incomplete piffle. There's no law of language that cursing, exclamation and body functions have to use the same vocabulary. For example, if you read enough Latin, you can see people being angry, being surprised and being earthy - but with *different words*, in each case. The nexus of these things is, to some extent at least, an artifact specific to our culture, and hasn't always been there. Therefore, it can reasonably be challenged.-- pertinax, May 22 2007 I find that cursing in Croatian provides the same effect in that only Croats, Bosnians and Serbs can understand what you are saying. As long as none of them are around you are perfectly safe. Unfortunately, if there is a Bosnian, Serb or Croat around when you do utter a string of otherwise incomprehensible filth you are likely to get smacked over the head with a shovel.
Even better would be to swear in a language that was even more obscure (Welsh?), or better still a dead one.-- nuclear hobo, May 22 2007 If I understand Snoop right, he's doing this with 'shizzle'. That's a big if though, the bugger don't half talk crap.-- stilgar, May 22 2007 Yeah. Welsh is good. You don't even have to learn it properly, even the road signs read like swearing.
<through clenched teeth> Pant Cudd! <tct>-- squeak, May 22 2007 I believe [shibolim] is Arabic, judging by the profanity used. I find a lot of Arabic words hard to pronounce and the swear words particularly effective.-- marklar, May 22 2007 I think I may have misunderstood Snoop. If he means "sure" instead, ignore my last comment.-- stilgar, May 27 2007 [phundug] & [harderthanjesus] The English use arse to mean the pooper, and ass to refer to a donkeylike creature. American English lacks this flexibility using ass for both.-- marklar, May 27 2007 The problem with swearing after say stubbing one's toe, is that you *don't* stop to think of the clever word to use, you generally use one of the words from your native language, probably that you learned in the schoolyard as a 5-yr old.
It took me a *long* time to train myself to instinctively cuss in German on such events. Now when something bad happens which makes me swear (eg hitting self on thumb with hammer), I still cuss, but anyone in earshot (or at least those who don't know me) just think it's some rude German in their midst so I'm no longer embarassed to be overheard :-)
Gottverdammte verfluchte Scheiße, küssen mich auf dem Arsch!-- gtoal, Aug 02 2007 Jehoshaphat!-- theleopard, Aug 02 2007 //Just say 'Beep'.//
OH! Watch your language!-- k_sra, Aug 02 2007 I think it's a great idea---and if anyone disagrees, they can go lymphangioleiomyomatosis themselves.-- Ander, Aug 04 2007 random, halfbakery