If you clicked on this article, you’ve probably already surmised that the above phrasesare– at least some place on earth –consideredswearwordsin different languages. They would, in fact, probablybecensored if written in the original Farsi, Hindi, or Japanese. Disclaimer: This article contains lots of badwords.
If you don’t want to read badwords, don’t click on an article aboutswearing. I haven’t included racist or homophobic language. You shouldswearat someone because theyarebehaving badly, not because of how theywereborn.
What makes awordprofane, and how does cursing vary from place to place? James Harbeck explains. Warning: contains very strong language. Swearwords, also known as cusswords, cursewords, and obscenities,areconsideredrude and bad in English speaking countries, such as the US and the UK.
Many ESL teachers and studentsconsiderswearwordsas taboo in the world of learning and teaching English. Many works onswearingnote that it appears tobean extremely widespread linguistic phenomenon. The comment that only Japanese, Amerindian and Polynesian languages lackswearwordsisa commonplace of literature in this area (Montagu 1967:55; Bryson 1990:214).
If you're tying your conlang to an existing culture, look at whatwordstheyswearby. But in a natural language, there will alwaysbesomething that'sconsideredoffensive.Whatisconsidereda badword might notbewhat weconsider"swear"wordsor potty mouth. I’ve always lovedswearingand it’s a part of my daily language.
I obviously don’tswearin front of everyone and in every situation. But if I’m with my friends I might use aswearwordin every other sentence. However, I don’tconsidermyself vulgar or uncultured.
Whatisconsideredswearing? Although thereissome debate over whichwordsin the English languageare'swearwords', most people can agree that theyarewordswhicharetaboo and whicharelikely or intended to offend people. Swearingfirst appeared in writing in the 15th century. How children learn toswear.
Children may startswearingas early as age two. By the time they start school, they may have a vocabulary of 30–40 offensivewords. Why somewordsareconsideredswearwords.
Somewordsdepend on their usage/context tobeconsideredswearingas theyarepolysemic: Feck canbeused as a less serious substitute expletive for f**k but also can mean throw. Both meanings come from Irish slang.
