Nah, WB blocks it because of the language. It’s not a very clever block-bot.
Turned out the polling place was right around the corner on Lincoln, with plenty of arrows and signs to get one there. Got my votes in with 3 minutes to spare!
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I do feel that the English language is sorely lacking for conveying a general sense of frustration without insulting anyone in particular. The words “fuck”, “shit” and “damn” offer far too little variety, and while they are too offensive to be used in some contexts, they are overused to the point of meaninglessness in other situations.
In my native Austrian German, I can draw upon a wide variety of absurd curses with a long history, combining mild blasphemy with historical references to 16th century crusaders or 17th century Turkish invaders. In general, if you want to complain about stuff, Austria is the place to be ;-).
But what it lacks in vocabulary, the English language makes up for in grammatical sophistication:
For example, observe the subtle difference in meaning:
“You don’t fucking know this stuff.”
“You don’t know this fucking stuff.”
*“You don’t know this stuff.” (Clearly ungrammatical; the speaker doesn’t seem to care).
The “emphatic particle” (okay, I made up that term) may only be left out if an “emphatic indefinite pronoun” is present:
“You don’t know shit.”
An extra emphatic particle may be added for further emphasis.
“You don’t fucking know shit.”
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It’s not really lacking, it’s just that mid-20th century English was woefully stripped down and most people never noticed. Compare the nuance of some 2000 editorials with a selection from 1900 and you might see what I am referring to. Modern English tends to be quite “simplified”, but far more limited in what concepts can be accurately represented. I do opine that Edwardian English can be said to represent the zenith of the language thus far. Also, the English grammar and use in India tends to be, I think, far more clear than that of people from the Americas.
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Nope. No one managed to transfer this fine phenomenon to the German language. As I said, the grammatical flexibility of “fucking” is unrivaled.
But maybe some German-dubbed movies contain attempts to translate it. If they did it, there’s no way it would catch on in Austria, though, as most translations of the grammatically simpler uses of the word already seem very artificial.
In general, our conservatives here in Austria have been less concerned about dirty words, so none of the direct translations have the same cathartic effect as they do in English. We need to pile on several small transgressions (bodily functions, blasphemy, the usual suspects) to achieve the same effect, which leads to greater variety, and more humor, in curses. But there’s no single German word that I could use as an infix to convey the same meaning.
Edwardian English reversed shall and will in the first person, used he for unknown genders, etc.
Aristocratic affectations can really fuck up a language.
The 19th century in general had more deeply nested sentence structures, in both English and German. I’m not sure about the vocabulary; it has changed, and the old-fashioned words often seem more “educated”, but I don’t know if any complexity was lost.
The area where I find English vocabulary limited to the Austrian German is the “simple” exclamation, such as, “Damn, why isn’t this working?!?”. I can think of two other four-letter-words to put here, but that’s about it. Himmel-fix nocheinmal, that’s not enough. (“Heaven - [cruci]fix again”).
None of these phrases can be used when you’re trying to use “educated” or “literary” language; you wouldn’t usually read them in an editorial either today or in Edwardian times. Most of the phrases are probably entirely unchanged in the past 100 years. Does colloquial English from Edwardian times have any interesting phrases in this respect?
But, not unlike with any language, one can pick and choose only from what parts are available. The existence of more possible meanings can also offer more choices, resulting in a more egalitarian and precise experience. You can consider, for instance, I avoid usage of gendered pronouns at all.
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