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BS: Where have all the swear-words gone?
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Subject: BS: Where have all the swear-words gone? From: Nigel Paterson Date: 18 Nov 06 - 05:00 AM When I was a lad, back in the 50s, words like f*** & c*** & s*** & bl**dy & b***er(no, NOT butter) were reserved for special occasions. We said them in our secret hideouts, often in hushed tones lest we be overheard. Shouted out loud, the words had real power & showed just how angry & displeased we were. Shouted out loud, the words also announced to the world: "Watch out, I'm becomming a man"! Today, all these words have passed into everyday conversational language. I hear them in the street, I hear them on the TV & in the movies. The currency of the swear-word has been totally devalued. There are no special words left for those moments of pain & anger. Nigel Paterson (distressed & wordless) |
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Subject: RE: BS: Where have all the swear-words gone? From: fat B****rd Date: 18 Nov 06 - 05:06 AM F...ed if I know. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Where have all the swear-words gone? From: The Fooles Troupe Date: 18 Nov 06 - 07:03 AM ... long time passing.... |
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Subject: RE: BS: Where have all the swear-words gone? From: nutty Date: 18 Nov 06 - 07:12 AM Just stick to cursing in the Queens English ..... I'm sure there are a lot of words there that would do the job just as well. Particularly as expletives are often misused these days. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Where have all the swear-words gone? From: The Fooles Troupe Date: 18 Nov 06 - 07:23 AM Now that's a bl**dy shame! |
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Subject: RE: BS: Where have all the swear-words gone? From: JennyO Date: 18 Nov 06 - 08:13 AM Never fear, help is near, in the form of Ye Olde Official Shakespearean Insult Kit Now you can say things like Kiss my codpiece, thou pribbling, motley-minded flap-dragon! |
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Subject: RE: BS: Where have all the swear-words gone? From: GUEST,lox Date: 18 Nov 06 - 08:49 AM With the consequence that those of us whose vocabularies are endowed with bigger words, and who know how to use them, have the ability to touch parts that others simply can't reach. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Where have all the swear-words gone? From: mack/misophist Date: 18 Nov 06 - 09:36 AM Full atreement with Mr Paterson here. Swear words used to offer a form of verbal punctuation to speech that gave special occasions a special weight. Today there are no equivalents. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Where have all the swear-words gone? From: DMcG Date: 18 Nov 06 - 09:51 AM If shakespeare doesn't suit, how about Sheridan's "The Rivals":
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Subject: RE: BS: Where have all the swear-words gone? From: Rapparee Date: 18 Nov 06 - 09:57 AM Sure there are. Lots of them. "That drooling drop of mucus said to me...." "This camel-sucking screwdriver stripped the drive slot outa the screw head!" Try a good thesaurus. They're even "tastier" because the words aren't usually used in that way -- AND that makes them even nastier. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Where have all the swear-words gone? From: number 6 Date: 18 Nov 06 - 10:00 AM JennyO .... thanks for that link! "Now gentlemen, with your best Richard Burton imitation" swim with the leeches thou artless dismal dreaming nit. biLL |
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Subject: RE: BS: Where have all the swear-words gone? From: Mooh Date: 18 Nov 06 - 12:24 PM Golly gosh gee willickers, hot darn it all, what's all the cussin' about? What I like is when the f word is inserted between syllables, eg "fan-fucking-tastic". Peace, Mooh. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Where have all the swear-words gone? From: bobad Date: 18 Nov 06 - 12:39 PM "Eat my knickers thou rump-fed, flap mouthed canker blossom." Ha ha! that was fun. Great link JennyO. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Where have all the swear-words gone? From: Peace Date: 18 Nov 06 - 12:55 PM Don't know where this is from (I first heard it from Joe Frazier (of the Mitchell Trio many decades ago)) and it is the absolute neatest way to call someone a bastard: "You, sir, were begat on a duchess by a head waiter." |
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Subject: RE: BS: Where have all the swear-words gone? From: Nigel Paterson Date: 18 Nov 06 - 01:13 PM More, more, more, please! Wonderful posts, haven't laughed so much in ages, Nigel P. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Where have all the swear-words gone? From: BuckMulligan Date: 18 Nov 06 - 02:25 PM Mooh - that construction actually has a name, "tmesis" and isn't limited to "fucking" nor to English. And it's great fun to make up new ones. It's a very common phenomenon in all languages for words and phrases to lose potency; "naughty" and "mischief" which in our day carry connotations of childhood innocence, were once very strong terms of evil. For Nigel and the other "wordless" ones, I suggest lurking around some 10 year olds (unobserved of course, how else does one lurk?). I'm sure the vocabulary is there - remember, we didn't think our parents knew Carlin's "seven dirty words" either (to this day I'm more than half convinced that both of mine went to their graves innocent of at least "motherfucker") |
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Subject: RE: BS: Where have all the swear-words gone? From: Bill D Date: 18 Nov 06 - 02:49 PM My daddy used to say...."goddandruffandsomeofititches" |
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Subject: RE: BS: Where have all the swear-words gone? From: Little Hawk Date: 18 Nov 06 - 04:56 PM Horse Puckey!!! |
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Subject: RE: BS: Where have all the swear-words gone? From: Mooh Date: 18 Nov 06 - 04:56 PM Buck...Yeah, I'd already looked that (tmesis) up. We abso-fucking-lutely did it all the time as kids, usually in superlatives, but never with cuss words when the parents were about. Being raised by language scholars made it both fun and frus-fucking-trating when they started to mess around with words. Fwiw, I still pull out Partridge's slang dictionary for amusement. Peace, Mooh. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Where have all the swear-words gone? From: JennieG Date: 18 Nov 06 - 05:23 PM My mother's favourite, used when she was very stressed: Bumbuggerbitch (said as one word of course) or when slightly less stressed: Sugarmagundy don't know where that one came from. Cheers JennieG |
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Subject: RE: BS: Where have all the swear-words gone? From: BuckMulligan Date: 18 Nov 06 - 06:36 PM Mooh - "Imagine my chagrin!" Partridge is always fun. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Where have all the swear-words gone? From: The Fooles Troupe Date: 18 Nov 06 - 08:07 PM ... long time ago ... |
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Subject: RE: BS: Where have all the swear-words gone? From: Rapparee Date: 18 Nov 06 - 08:54 PM It's just a gol-danged shame the old time muleskinners ain't readin' this thread. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Where have all the swear-words gone? From: Elmer Fudd Date: 18 Nov 06 - 09:27 PM Well I'll be a blue-nosed gopher! |
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Subject: RE: BS: Where have all the swear-words gone? From: The Fooles Troupe Date: 19 Nov 06 - 01:49 AM ... now in common usage, every one! When will they ever learn? When will they e-----ver learn? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Where have all the swear-words gone? From: GUEST,Blind DRunk in Blind River Date: 19 Nov 06 - 02:20 AM I'll tell ya where all the FLIPPIN' swear words have gone, eh? Right to FLIP-Me-Silly-and-Call-Me-"Joe Flipface"-land, that's where! Every flipin' hairy-assed retread and bolthole and flip-faced corkPULLER in this whole flippin' bluebelly dipwad town can flippin' swear like a flipped dipheaded motherflipper with his mungoberries caught in a flippin' nutcracker! If you don't flippin' beleeve me, then go flip yourself sideways from Sunday down a flippin' goldurn mine shaft and get ready to kiss the flippin' glove! I flippin' kid you NOT, man. - Shane |
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Subject: RE: BS: Where have all the swear-words gone? From: GUEST Date: 19 Nov 06 - 05:37 AM My Father used to try to avoid swearing with "Fleas-flies-fishes-and-fairies" (but only when children were around, when he thought himself alone the language became more 'Anglo-Saxon') - The one that stuck with me was "Blood-and-Sand" as an expression of surprise. W |
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Subject: RE: BS: Where have all the swear-words gone? From: autolycus Date: 19 Nov 06 - 05:42 AM Where I work, swear words are a normal part of conversation. Only that's not me, so I don't. I've noticed when i hove into view, people normally swearing just aren't. And when I told some the one joke in my repertoire that relies in F****in' this and f****in' that throughout, their jaws hit the floor and one, when i'd finished, didn't laugh, just said,"That's the first time I've heard you swear in four years,Ivor". Maybe that's one of the many sources of physical violence, the fact that people have run swear words into the ground so they have no effect anymore. (Bit like overusing antibiotics) Ivor |
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Subject: RE: BS: Where have all the swear-words gone? From: fat B****rd Date: 19 Nov 06 - 06:10 AM Sugarlumps !! |
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Subject: RE: BS: Where have all the swear-words gone? From: GUEST,Fred Bailey Date: 19 Nov 06 - 09:41 AM The Scene: Viet-Nam, 1st Cavalry, nailing up some quick and dirty forgotten piece of small hootch construction out of the ubiquitous artillery crates -- our major source of fresh lumber. The Chaplain: (swinging a vigorous hammer, slips and hits his thumb, hard, collapses in agony and squeals): Sergeant, would you say a few words? Sergeant: G*D-D**N S*N-OF-A-B**CHING BAS***D M***ERF**KER Chaplain: Ah, thank you Sergeant thank you -- it really does seem to help, doesn't it? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Where have all the swear-words gone? From: Herga Kitty Date: 19 Nov 06 - 11:05 AM Crying in a bucket.... Kitty |
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Subject: RE: BS: Where have all the swear-words gone? From: fat B****rd Date: 19 Nov 06 - 02:11 PM Stupid substitution, "Fug" in Mailer's "The Naked And The Dead" |
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Subject: RE: BS: Where have all the swear-words gone? From: Bert Date: 19 Nov 06 - 05:39 PM Buggered off - maybe? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Where have all the swear-words gone? From: Peace Date: 19 Nov 06 - 05:42 PM I have it on good authority that the swear-words have gone to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. They went there after the recent elections. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Where have all the swear-words gone? From: GUEST,Shimrod Date: 20 Nov 06 - 10:02 AM My late Father never swore in front of family or friends - but he did used to swear when he thought that he wasn't being overheard. When I was a teenager I used to lie in bed on a Sunday morning while my Mother went to church and my Dad went to work in his shed. After a while he would start crashing about and swearing to himself: "where's that f**cking screwdriver/hammer/clamp etc.? I can never f**cking find anything in this f**cking place ... and on and on in much the same vein. I suppose he thought that no-one could hear him in the shed - although I suspect that half the street could hear him! |
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Subject: RE: BS: Where have all the swear-words gone? From: leeneia Date: 20 Nov 06 - 11:57 AM I remember reading an article by some 19th-C thinker (I can't recall who it was) who observed some apple pickers at work. He commented on their speech, which was coarse and obscene. In that writer's day, men who talked like that were illiterate. Neithr could go on the Net and talk their own talk. Journalists and novelists wouldn't replicate it. So today, we think that people of the past had much cleaner mouths. Trouble is, that kind of speech degenerates from a form of expression to a form of laziness. It is so much easier to say "Where the hell is that hammer?" than to say, "Fetch me the ballpeen hammer that I had yesterday and probably left at the other job site." |
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Subject: RE: BS: Where have all the swear-words gone? From: Paul Burke Date: 20 Nov 06 - 12:33 PM Swearing was normal at all levels of society in the 18th century and up to the reign of Sailor Bill or Victoria, though those who didn't swear were considered more respectable. It was the imposition of Victorian moral codes, backed up by the threat of social sanctions (if a "gentleman") or economic ones if an employee, that both reduced its currency and made it more shocking when it was used. The people most affected were those with social pretensions, and most particularly the lower middle and upper working classes. By my parents' youth, the 1920s to 1940s, language was so powerful that there was a whole genre of lyrics that never quite used "bad" words, like "I can't do my bottom belly button up", and "I ran a bug around a tub, I'll have his blood, he knows I will". My father's family, in a brief period of prosperity, had a wind-up gramophone on which they played "With his head stuck underneath his arm". There's a line that runs something like "Is Arsenal going to win the cup". The children used to deliberately make the needle jump, so it came out as "'is arse..'is arse..". |
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Subject: RE: BS: Where have all the swear-words gone? From: Nigel Paterson Date: 20 Nov 06 - 12:42 PM I'm not neglecting this thread, I'm away visiting my daughter & the grandchildren (off-line, computer-free zone!) in Charlotte NC. Will be back at the beginning of December. Thanks to everyone for the erudite, funny & personal contributions. I'm hoping to read a whole stack more when I return home, Best to All, Nigel Paterson. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Where have all the swear-words gone? From: The Walrus Date: 20 Nov 06 - 12:59 PM Sorry folks, Saturday's "Fleas-flies-fishes-and-fairies" post was mine, I hadn't realised I had no cookie until now. I find, when I'm frustrated/impatient, I tend use slightly odd curses. More than once I've been heard at bus stops muttering phrases like "Get a move on, damn your eyes limbs and blue breeches!", although I have been known in company to bowdlerise the curse to "Limbs and breeks" or even to simply "ELB". Often any term can be used as a substitute, another expression of frustration that I use in more 'polite' company is GAFMO! (It's fine as long as no-one wants an explaination*), the explosive relief effect is the same and none offended. Am I right in my perception that Americans in general have little idea of graduations in swearing? It always struck me that those Americans I had experience of (not an overly large sample, but varied), seemed to go from very mild "non-oatths" to "God-damned" then straight to variants on "F*ck", there seems to be very little between. W * Simply an acronym of "Get A F*ck%ng Move On" |
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Subject: RE: BS: Where have all the swear-words gone? From: GUEST,Dani Date: 20 Nov 06 - 05:37 PM As a chef whose language occasionally (or more) gets her in trouble (my kitchen is in a divinity school!), believe me, there are still a few left in the old lexicon. It is hard, though, to teach my daughters what NOT to say when all else are saying them, even on tv. I HATE for them/anyone to use the word 'sucks' to mean something is bad. Two of my favorite sayings, "Well, THAT bites the Almighty Weiner of the Everlasting Universe!" (old friend used for EVERYthing) and, "DON'T say SHIT in front of the K-I-D-S!" (my mother) Dani |
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Subject: RE: BS: Where have all the swear-words gone? From: JennyO Date: 20 Nov 06 - 09:55 PM I came from a very religious family (I've come a long way since then ;-)) and any swear word was considered shocking. My grandfather used to say "Great Everlasting Hambone!" and I've no idea what it was a substitute for, as I don't recall ever hearing him really swear. My mother never used anything worse than "bloody" but she often used it with such force and venom that it had the effect of something worse anyway. If she said that word, we knew she was REALLY angry. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Where have all the swear-words gone? From: Bert Date: 21 Nov 06 - 01:05 AM Metamorhosing polywogs!!! |
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Subject: RE: BS: Where have all the swear-words gone? From: fat B****rd Date: 21 Nov 06 - 04:28 AM "Great snappin' assholes" Cheech and Chong. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Where have all the swear-words gone? From: Big Mick Date: 21 Nov 06 - 08:09 AM "worthless, broke dick mammalucca" Catspaw, aka Pat Patterson (one of the the greatest cussin' wordsmiths of all time) |
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Subject: RE: BS: Where have all the swear-words gone? From: GUEST,memyself Date: 21 Nov 06 - 08:48 AM Walrus - "It always struck me that those Americans I had experience of (not an overly large sample, but varied), seemed to go from very mild "non-oatths" to "God-damned" then straight to variants on "F*ck", there seems to be very little between." Can you expand on this? (Polite listeners can avert their ears). I'm Canadian, but I suspect the phenomenon you're talking about applies here - but I'm not quite sure what these more subtle "gradations in swearing" are ... other than where I grew up, there was a certain unspoken cultural/class marker: there were homes in which you could say "shit" but not "f-ck", and there were homes in which you could not say either. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Where have all the swear-words gone? From: Seamus Kennedy Date: 22 Nov 06 - 02:20 AM Where have all the swear-words gone? Mihael Richards used 'em all up. Seamus |
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Subject: RE: BS: Where have all the swear-words gone? From: The Walrus Date: 22 Nov 06 - 06:49 AM GUEST,memyself, "..."It always struck me that those Americans I had experience of (not an overly large sample, but varied), seemed to go from very mild "non-oaths" to "God-damned" then straight to variants on "F*ck", there seems to be very little between." Can you expand on this? (Polite listeners can avert their ears). I'm Canadian, but I suspect the phenomenon you're talking about applies here - but I'm not quite sure what these more subtle "gradations in swearing"..." I was trying to express that there are/were certain terms or expletives which, in use, are considered stronger than others. For example:- Go Away: (starting mildest) Bugger off -> Sod Off -> Piss Off -> Fuck off Likewise with expletives:- Blasted (innoffensive)-> Damned -> Bleeding -> Bloody -> Sodding -> Fucking As you mention there are certain circumstances where some terms are acceptible and others not. Without these gradations, I feel that swearing loses its impact both from the swearer's point of view, and becomes monotonous from the point of view of the listener. W |
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Subject: RE: BS: Where have all the swear-words gone? From: GUEST,memyself Date: 22 Nov 06 - 09:51 AM Okay, I getcha now, and you're quite right - N. Am. swearing doesn't have much in the way of gradation; there's no "-- off", for example, except for "f-ck off", although in recent years "eff off" has come into vogue as a slightly milder rejection. Come to think of it, that's usually only used in the course of narrative, as in, "I told him to eff off" when, the implication is, what was actually said was the more expicit, "f-ck off" or the more polite, "Your services are no longer required", or something to that effect. On that train of thought, in recent years, with the more pronounced vulgarisation of pop culture, the term "friggin'" and variations such as "frickin'" and "freakin'" have been working their way into public discourse as slightly less offensive than the word they obviously replace. Some of the milder terms of the type you mention used to be common in N. Am. in my parents' generation, at least in some areas; e.g., blasted, dashed, deuced, blazes (as in "go to"), etc. My mother's harshest expression of dismissal was the pithy, "Drop dead!" - which, when you think about it, is a pretty horrible thing to say to your own child! |
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Subject: RE: BS: Where have all the swear-words gone? From: Splott Man Date: 22 Nov 06 - 10:26 AM Anyone got the words to the song that starts: Ma's out. Pa's out, let's talk ruse, Pee, po, belly, bum, drawers. ? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Where have all the swear-words gone? From: GUEST,Mrr at work Date: 22 Nov 06 - 10:43 AM I've been avoiding God/Jesus, damn, heaven and hell in my swearing. Leaves me with NOTHING but shit and fuck. We need a new language! |
