-----Wiadomo=B6=E6 orginalna-----
Od: Carlos Thompson <chlewey@...>
Do: lucasso <lucasso@...>
Data: 11 listopada 1998 08:13
Temat: Re: vulgarisms
>lucasso wrote:
>
>> have you thought about low speech, vulgarisms and slangs?
>> i'm especially interested in vulgarity, what words may have vulgar
meaning,
>> what can be vulgar?
>
>I've always wonder this too.
>In comparing the natlangs I know, or have hear about, I've noted that wh=
at
is
>vulgar or offensive in some language is not in some others. Even in som=
e
>dialects/accents of Spanish, there are differences between what is vulga=
r
or
>offensive and what is not.
>
>Commonly in Spanish, vulgarity is usually asociated with sex. If I
remember
>correctly in Swedish vulgar words are more asociated with hell and
deamonds.
>One of the acceptions of "to swear" in English is to be rude. "jurar"
wouldn't
>be interpreted in Colombia in that sense.
>
>The other phenomena I've found is how values changes. Vulgar words
changes.
>The history i heard says that the Spanish word "puta" (peyorative for ho=
re)
>comes form a Italian word meaning "miss". Which wasn't vulgar becomes
that. The
>Spanish verb "coger": "to take" or "to grep" has become vulgar in many
>Latinoamerican countries with a peyorative meaning of having sex. "Coge=
r"
is
>still used in Colombia with the standard meaning "to take".
>
>Many vulgar words were meant to be rude and insultive. In Colombia (or =
at
least
>in Bogota) many of those are commonly used with no rude meaning. They a=
re
still
>vulgar (you wouldn't pronounce it at the board meating of your company) =
but
not
>rude. If you realy want to be rude to a man, specialy if you are a woma=
n,
>called him "cretino" which is not considered a vulgarity but is quite
>offensive. In other words: vulgarity is usually asociated with sex, but
>rudeness is usually asociated with lack of inteligence.
>
>Other common source of rude words are animals wich we asociated with
negative
>values (like opportunism, foul play or something like that). Examples i=
n
>Spanish are "rata", at some extend "perro" (dog) but "perra" (bitch) is
fully
>rude (with similar meaning than English if I'm not mistaken). I remembe=
r I
once
>read that calling somebody "wild dog" was very offensive in some Arab
country.
>
something funny is in polish - one of most popular, but quite hard(of cou=
rse
not everywhere) word is 'kurwa' [kurva] - which is connected to
english 'curve', etc. (i don't remember but it's maybe from german, i mus=
t
look for it) and means the woman who stand at the road curve :-D
(someone use 'k..' like commas - and it's one of words that foreigner may
learn from young tourists - i remember black souvenirs seller(??) who was
saying only two learned words: 'makumba'(name of black man from song - ev=
ery
black ones was called in that way), and 'kurwa' and he was repeating it
again, and again, and many of adults was looking at him with scared faces=
...
most of vulgarisms in polsh have also sxual meanig (body parts, etc.) and
also many had changed it's meaning from 'normal'->'vulgar':
other interesting thing is _pieprzyc'_ [pjepzhich~] or _pierdolic'_
[pjerdolich~] (~ palatalisation) verbs (means vulgar having sex) which
prefixed may mean near
everything (of course in vulgar aspect)
_zapieprzac'_ / _zapierdalac'_- to do sth very fast
_wpieprzac'_ / _wpierdalac'_- to eat (rather fast)
_wypieprzac'_ / _wypierdalac'_- to throw away (also about people, but i'v=
e
lost dictionary -_-')
_zpieprzyc' sie,_ / _spierdolic' sie,_- to fall from sth e.g. bicycle,
_spieprzyc'_ / _spierdolic'/ - to do sth wrong
_spieprzac'_ / _spierdalac'/ - to escape/run away fast
_napieprzac'_ - / _napierdalac'_ to hit sth, to fight with sbd
_odpieprz sie,!_ / _odpierdol sie,_ - "f... off"
_podpieprzac'_ / _podpierdalac'_- to steal
and many many more...
this is the power of polish verb prefixes ^_^
many words have only vulgar or 'high(-scienific??)' meaning
especially those body parts, so it difficult to use them in normal
converstion...
--
lucasso@friko6.onet.pl
http://www.lucasso.topnet.pl
(http://friko6.onet.pl/wa/lucasso)