Re: ahem anyway.. naughty words!

On Thu, Sep 13, 2001 at 02:55:22AM -0400, Amber Adams wrote:
[snip]
> What counts as profanity in your conlangs?  What words are naughty?  What's the
> absolutely worst thing you could call someone? ;)
My conlang's vocabulary is still very small, but there's a word that has
very negative connotations:

vyy'i   IPA [By:.i] (Kirsch)
        Irregular neuter noun
        (1) "Whirlpool", "turmoil". Refers to a naturally-occurring
          destructive phenomenon in Ferochromon, used by the Ebisedi as a
          means of waste disposal. Due to this, vyy'i often carries a
          negative connotation.
        (2) Metaphor for "garbage", "useless". Used as a vulgar, derogatory
          term of contempt.
        (3) Adjectival noun describing headaches or feelings of ill-health.


Insults that derive from (2) are considered highly offensive:
        le's vyy'
means "go to hell", or, "go into destruction"; "be consumed (with the
rest of the waste of the universe)".
        jhidi' vyy'i
"He/she/you are/is garbage". This is a vulgar, personal insult that
equates a person with garbage, waste, everything unwanted, useless, and
headed for destruction. The English translation may not convey an equally
strong negativity; in the native semantics, it is equivalent to calling a
person by every insulting word/thing that ever existed.

_vyy'i_ used on its own as an expletive is used to express superlative
anger or hatred. Examples might be when a leader hears of the evil deeds
of an enemy, he might swear, "vyy'i!" -- "Curses!", or "accursed!"
(referring to the doer of the deed, or the deed itself).

Interestingly, the same word is also routinely used as the *technical*
term for meaning (1) above. Its insult value completely depends on the
context in which it's used and the intention of the speaker.

(And for those of you who were in relay ring 2, this is the word the woman
used to describe her headache caused by the noisy playing children -- it
has a rather strong connotation there which shows her great displeasure at
the disturbance.)


T

--
All men are mortal. Socrates is mortal. Therefore all men are Socrates.