USAGE: Dirty words (was: USAGE: Re: Dutch v or f)

--- Christophe wrote:

> The problem is that the French word is not a verb. It's a noun (it
> basically means: "sperm"). It's only verb-like use is in the expression
> "va te faire foutre" (basically: "go to hell", but literally "go get
> fucked") but in my opinion it's a short form, based on the similarity of
> the noun "foutre" with verbs ending in "-tre". The probably long form was
> something like: "va te faire remplir de foutre". There's no such verb as
> "foutre" meaning "fuck".
>
> There *is* a verb "s'en foutre", maybe related, but I doubt it because its
> meaning is much different: it means: "not to give a damn". There is also a
> verb "foutre", but it's a vulgar equivalent of "mettre": "to put", "to give"
> or "faire": "to do", "to make". In both case, I tend to see it as a
> deformation of "faire", maybe with the noun "foutre" as pattern :)) .
That shouldn't be a problem.
For things like "fuck", "shit", and anything you can find in one's underpants,
every language I know has an extensive list of words meaning exactly the same
thing. For Dutch, I remember I once made up a list of at least sixty words
meaning "to fuck", which was far from complete, anyway.
In the same languages you can see, that the more common of those words are
extremely rich in additional meanings and derived forms. Usually, they are not
the kind of words you want to use in a scientific dispute with your professor,
but they are used VERY frequently. I am fully prepared to defend the
assumption, that they form the cornerstone of a language (a back corner, I must
admit...)
When I came to Polish to study, one of the first things I did was buying a
bunch of pornography, in order to learn the words that you cannot find in the
dictionaries. This turned out te be really helpful. It gave me a much better
understanding of the kind of talk you hear on the street, which is full of such
words. A necessary prerequisite for a translator, I think...

Jan




=====
"You know, I used to think it was awful that life was so unfair. Then I thought,
wouldn't it be much worse if life were fair, and all the terrible things that
happen to us come because we actually deserve them? So, now I take great
comfort in the general hostility and unfairness of the universe." --- J.
Michael Straczynski

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