Re: Piss Off - Klingon

On Thu, Sep 28, 2000 at 05:18:25PM -0400, Yoon Ha Lee wrote:
[snip]
> YHL, intrigued, who hasn't gotten anywhere near swear words in Chevraqis
> because her parents probably wouldn't approve (even if they'd never know)
I've not gotten near swear words either, though I did have one word with
not-so-good connotations that I can picture a native speaker using to
swear at people. I think I posted about it before, so I won't repost it
unless somebody's interested.

But as far as making up swear words, my theory is that *any* word in a
language that has negative connotations will eventually end up being used
as swear words, as long as it's used often enough. Human nature likes
accumulating negative connotations in spite of whatever positive/neutral
meaning the word may have. Since my current conlang is supposed to be an
ancestor lang, I'll just flesh out the vocabulary enough and let the
descendent langs warp the meaning of some words to mean something bad they
never meant before :-P


T