Re: Swearing in other cultures (was Langmaker.com and...)

On 3 Mar 2005, at 11.48 pm, Henrik Theiling wrote:

> Hi!
>
> Andreas Johansson <andjo@...> writes:
>> ...
>> Possibly a linguistic urban myth, but I heard that in parts of China,
>> the
>> ultimate insult is to tell someone "I'm your father", which of course
>> implies
>> "I fucked your mother". I suppose they were much amused by Star Wars.
>> ...
>
> Hmm, I only know 'His/Her mother's!' as a very bad Chinese insult, but
> I don't know many...  This seemingly strange insult is insulting by
> cultural agreement, it seems, and the real insult is just not
> explicitly expressed. :-)
I've heard 'your mum' used as an offensive insult on more than one
occasion, usually from the mouths of (east) Asians, normally Vietnamese
I think. I originally interpreted it as being abbreviated from the
non-offensive insults like 'Your mum's so fat, she got a parking ticket
while waiting to cross the road!', but the degree to which it offends
suggested it probably came from something from their culture. The
Chinese did have a strong influence over the Vietnamese in the past, so
it seems even more likely.

--
Tristan.

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