Re: OT: Slang, curses and vulgarities

On Sat, 29 Jan 2005 01:26:54 -0500, # 1 <salut_vous_autre@...> wrote:

>Gary Shannon wrote:
>
>>After two years of high school German
>>and a year of college German I was left with the
>>impression that the German people were hyper-polite
>>and had no way to cuss each other out or hurl vile
>>insults at each other.  Such things are never
>>mentioned in "polite society" and certainly not taught
>>in a high school language class.)
>
>Are there TV shows that are full of BIIIP sounds to cover all the f**k and
>sh*t equivalents in germany
>
>I know there are TV shows with these covering sounds in United-States and
>in Quebec but is that usual elsewhere?
>
>I've never watched a show from somewhere else with covered vulgarities, is
>it that the others are more respectfull, that the other support more
>swearings without covering them, or is it that I didn't saw enough TV shows
>Probably that the vulgarity is measurable by the need of covering vulgarity
I don't remember I'd ever heard a German broadcast or radio show that was
beeped (except perhaps to make a funny effect of imitating U.S. shows).

I'd say it's because nobody thinks that swearing needs to be avoided. I
imagine that the beeping urges some to swear more than they normally would.
I guess that this kind of excessive swearing isn't found in German shows
either. I'm quite sure, however, that German speakers swear as much as
English speakers.

BTW, in Swiss German we make a similar inflationary use of the word _huere_
'whore' as seems to be done in English with the word _fuck_: It's used so
often as a general intensifier that in the intensifying use, the original
meaning has disappeared. Of course there are people who very much disagree
with this use, but I've never heard it beeped out.

Intensifiers that originate in the vulgar language may become part of the
unmarked, educated standard one day, as has happened e.g. in the German word
_sehr_ 'much': It's original meaning is still preserved in English _sore_,
and there are some German dialect that still preserve that use alongside the
standard German one.

kry@s:
j. 'mach' wust

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