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.
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 incorrect
Exactly! 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.
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.
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:
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 incorrect
Exactly! 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.