Theiling Online    Sitemap    Conlang Mailing List HQ   

Re: OT: Slang, curses and vulgarities

From:Gary Shannon <fiziwig@...>
Date:Monday, January 31, 2005, 16:10
--- "Adrian Morgan (aka Flesh-eating Dragon)"
<dragon@...> wrote:

> Carsten Becker wrote: > > > different languages. In one of the recent English > lessons, > > our teacher told us that "sh*t" is considered to > be worse > > than "f*ck" in English. > > Oh, no! Your teacher is most assuredly wrong for all > English dialects > I'm aware of.
In American English (in my geographic area at least) "f*ck" is FAR worse than "shit". Orders of magnitude worse. The phrase "bull shit" can be heard in polite company spoken by sweet little old ladies who would never in a million years utter the F word.
> > Chris Bates wrote: > > > Noo.... bloody is worse than damn, but not as bad > as fuck, cunt or shit. > > As for the ranking of the last three... they all > seem mild to me. I've > > heard so much swearing nothing really offends me > anymore, but if I had > > to rank them I'd say: > > > > fuck < shit < cunt > > I'd say "damn < shit < bloody < fuck < cunt".
"bloody" isn't a cuss word at all in American English, and it's hard to judge from this side of the pond how it's viewed in the UK since we watch the Harry Potter movies and listen to Ron Weesley muttering "bloody hell" every few minutes. Appearing so openly and unselfconsciously in a children's movie it can't be consdiered to be very bad. --gary