What do Japanese think of English swear words?

boing
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The first chapter is a a four word sentence, referring to the observation that the truly shocking words in a language tend to fall into one of four categories,

"Looking just at English, you’ll find that nearly all the most profane words in Great Britain, New Zealand, and the United States fall into one of these four categories: praying, fornicating, excreting, and slurring. "

Cantonese has five words widely agreed upon as the most vulgar in the language—these are the words censored on broadcast television in Hong Kong.10 They are diu (“fuck”), gau (“cock”), lan (“dick”), tsat (“boner”), and hai (“cunt”). If you’re keeping score at home, that’s five for Fucking.

Or consider Russian. Ripped from the censor’s press sheet is the official list of the most profane Russian words, currently banned from movies, plays, and other forms of art.11 The strongest profanity in the language, known as mat’ , has two tiers. The top tier houses the four most profane Russian words: two words for genitalia, a word equivalent to fuck , and a word that translates as whore . Including the second tier of somewhat outdated and weaker profanities, mat’ totals eleven words: seven for genitalia, plus two for sexual acts and two for categories of people who engage in stigmatized sexual acts (prostitutes and homosexuals). In sum, two slurs and the rest are related to sex.

Finnish, which is unrelated to Russian and Cantonese (or to English for that matter) paints a similar picture, at least based on accounts provided by linguists. The top Finnish profanities are words roughly equivalent to hell, God, cunt, piss, shit, ass, fuck , and a number of words roughly translated as cunt or cock .12

French prays. This is Quebecois, which isn’t real French but whatev.

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(By Gates of Ale - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, File:Tabarnak graffiti.jpg - Wikimedia Commons)

I think the author is on record that contemporary American English slurs. It used to fornicate and excrete, but tastes change.

Some cultures have taboos surrounding death, so there may be a fifth category.

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I was disappointed to see they used the word “motherfucker.” I once thought this meant being attracted to mature women. Imagine if we lived in such a world! The actual etymology has to do with treating human slaves like animals, humiliating them with forced ‘breeding’. It’s so cruel and depraved – personally, I don’t think white people should use the word. YMMV

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Suddenly, I have so many questions about that sushi restaurant down the street from me, Maguro House. :thinking::thinking::thinking:

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the slang for female anatomy you wanted was manko. When making fun of weebs/english teachers/hopes & dreams visa guys, we say “he thinks he’ll be drowning mango” see also /r/JapanCircleJerk.

Maguro on the other hand would be “dead fuck” a woman who just lays there during the act.

Aho isnt really Kansei-ben, you hear it pretty much anywhere.

But none of your list or @oldtaku are “words you cant say on television”.

Nope. Much more disappointing for me than than curse words directed at someone.

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There’s words relating to intelligence; eg, idiot, moron, stupid, which are usually parts of insults, but can be just general cursewords (“that fucking stupid-arse $object!”).

There’s words dealing with appearance, eg ugly. (most of the other ones I can think of are racist).

Swearing is interesting. And fun.

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My absolute favorite Jesus reference (in English) is “Christ on a Stick.” I just realized that there’s another level to it, too.

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I’m watching the series Deadwood right now. I wonder how the Japanese would translate the cursing.

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It was the iambic pentameter that drew me to Deadwood. But it was the cursing that kept me,

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Yup.

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I saw a lot of shirts like this when I visited Tokyo. Just random English phrases interspersed with swearing.
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This guy is the current gold standard for ‘swearing’ in shounen anime.

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Thanks, I haven’t been watching that.

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