[HN Gopher] The 1600s were a watershed for swear words (2022)
___________________________________________________________________
The 1600s were a watershed for swear words (2022)
Author : pepys
Score : 109 points
Date : 2024-10-28 04:18 UTC (5 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.historytoday.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.historytoday.com)
| eigenspace wrote:
| I think that the period we're in right now is also a very similar
| watershed. What used to be quite 'powerful' swear words such as
| 'fuck' and shit' are now just a normal part of informal speech,
| that don't carry any actual taboo. We have now developed a new
| set of very real actually culturally taboo "curse words".
|
| These new curse words are in fact so taboo that the most powerful
| of them cannot even be uttered in a context of explaining that
| someone else said them, and can only be referenced in an oblique
| manner such as 'he said the N-word' or 'they uttered a homophobic
| slur'
| dingnuts wrote:
| John McWhorter wrote a whole book about this a few years ago
| eigenspace wrote:
| Well, I didn't read that book but it probably influenced
| someone who then communicated that idea to me. I should check
| it out.
| cut3 wrote:
| The words that must not be named are and always have been
| informal speech in online multiplayer voice chats.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| Yes, they have always been context-dependent. They can be
| perfectly acceptable in some situations and absolutely
| forbidden in others.
| eigenspace wrote:
| Mainly due to anonymity and lack of consequences. As the
| public becomes less and less tolerant of these words,
| pressure to moderate such behaviour has increased.
|
| That stuff has been scrubbed out of text communication in
| multiplayer games for ages now, and I think it'll be forcibly
| removed from voice communication with increasing frequency
| soon.
| some_random wrote:
| It is right now, in a few games you can report people for
| using slurs in voice chat at which point it's saved for
| review. In some cases the reporter gets some kind of reward
| for actioned reports.
|
| However, this is only in the largest games. Gaming is now
| one of if not the most valuable media industries out there
| and only growing, however there are still a lot of niche
| games where either for cultural or demand reasons there's
| zero interest in censorship. Go check Wargame Red Dragon
| global chat for instance.
| eigenspace wrote:
| Sure. But there's always been dark alleys where people
| freely said things that respectable memebers of society
| would lose their jobs for saying.
|
| That doesn't mean that those words aren't curse words. In
| fact, it's a sign that they are curse words. It wouldn't
| be so edgy to say them if they weren't so heavily frowned
| upon by "polite society"
| some_random wrote:
| Oh to be clear I'm not arguing that they're not curse
| words at all, in fact the increased censorship in high
| profile spaces like popular video games is evidence they
| are curse words.
| klooney wrote:
| It's also a class divide- the slurs are more serious for
| fancier people.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| Those aren't curse words, they are slurs. Curse words are just
| verbal punctuation marks used for emphasis. 'Fuck' and 'shit'
| never carried the element of hate that slur words do.
| eigenspace wrote:
| I think the fact that you feel that way shows how much our
| culture has lost its taboos around its traditional curse
| words.
|
| I think maybe an easier example to consider would to be to
| put 'fuck' and 'shit' aside (since its even harder to
| understand how these were ever really taboo), and instead
| consider the older more religiously inspired curses like
| 'damn it', 'blood the mary', etc.
|
| These curses (in certain circles) were hugely taboo because
| in the worldview of the times, they were deeply harmful to
| use on a metaphysical / spiritual level. You were doing real
| harm in the world by exclaiming "damn it to hell!" or telling
| someone "go to hell!".
|
| This is perhaps hard for us in our current culture where even
| even amongst people who claim to be religious, almost
| everyone would just view those as empty words, but I do think
| there's a real case to be made that our ancestors would have
| understood such curses in a very similar way to the way we
| understand and treat slurs today.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| I do agree actually. And I guess that I'd say there are
| "swear" words (crude verbal punctuation) and "curse" words
| in the sense that you describe.
|
| I do know people who think "g-- damn it" is a far worse
| thing to say than 'fucking piece of shit' for example.
| jermaustin1 wrote:
| > I do know people who think "g-- damn it" is a far worse
| thing to say than 'fucking piece of shit' for example.
|
| That would be my mother. Hasn't been to church in
| decades, curses like a sailor, but will never take the
| lord's name in vain.
|
| Although, maybe with enough time, she will, it took her
| until she was 60 before she started saying 'fuck.'
| aliasxneo wrote:
| The development of phrases like "g-- damn it" is
| interesting to me. I think its recent increase in use
| (especially in the media) and seemingly social acceptance
| is normal as cultures become increasingly secular.
| However, slurs against religious groups, especially
| certain monotheistic ones, seem even more taboo now than
| in the past. Perhaps a result of giving more power to
| identity in the current culture.
|
| To your point, I know groups who would find the slur less
| offensive than "g-- damn it."
| mjevans wrote:
| A curiosity about GDI - what if the thing already sucks
| because 'god' has in fact damned it? That is, if someone
| believes it to be a statement of fact (spin on the
| phrase) rather than somehow compelling a mystical spirit
| to curse something.
| kgwgk wrote:
| It's interesting that the origin of "swearing" is also
| the blasphemy / vain oath sense.
| Zambyte wrote:
| Is 'blood the mary' a typo? Did you mean to say 'bloody
| mary'?
| eigenspace wrote:
| I meant to write "blood of the Mary"
| t-3 wrote:
| A curse word is a word used to curse somebody. Cursing, as in
| wishing ill upon someone, or delivering ill fate through
| magic. Hate is pretty much required for it to be an effective
| curse, I would think.
| kgwgk wrote:
| Not necessarily somebody - it could be something. I'd say
| cursing things is more frequent.
| joshdavham wrote:
| > I think that the period we're in right now is also a very
| similar watershed.
|
| I think you're right.
|
| In the article, they mentioned that words denigrating the holy
| or sacred were the most offensive while in more recent times
| the most offensive words became words referring bodily
| functions, sex, etc. But now as you suggest, the most taboo
| words in the English language are slurs denigrating entire
| groups like various ethnic groups, religious groups, women and
| the elderly.
| 4star3star wrote:
| The elderly? I'm drawing a blank.
| hyeonwho4 wrote:
| I'm guessing that one is "Boomer", but I don't think it is
| so taboo that it cannot be uttered yet.
| zxexz wrote:
| Depends on the context and social circle, like lots of
| post-slang terms for a class. It can be endearing (or
| endearing and patronizing), a general insult, a common
| adjective...
| cduzz wrote:
| There's obscenity and there's violence.
|
| Some words imply the person you're insulting is unsavory.
| Some words imply "I have power over you such that I can
| do anything I want and you can't stop me."
|
| The degree to which this violence is allowed in a culture
| also conveys the power of the word in play.
| walthamstow wrote:
| Likewise. Boomers aren't typically elderly, yet.
|
| Even when Alan Pardew (and I take great pleasure in being
| the first to mention his name in this forum) called
| opposing soccer manager Manuel Pellegrini "a fucking old
| cunt" it wasn't perceived as a slur on his elderlyness. It
| was the cunt bit that got him in trouble - and, even then,
| not that much.
| chgs wrote:
| Boomers are 60-80 years old. That's elderly.
| ffsm8 wrote:
| Tbf, streamers, kids etc constantly call people in their
| thirties boomer.
|
| I feel like it's becoming a word describing people that
| have passed their prime (~35+ yo).
|
| Yes, I'm fully aware that the word initially described
| people that were born during the baby boomer years
| (~1950) and that the people that are currently 35yo are
| millennials.
| ptsneves wrote:
| I am 35 and I was called a boomer by some youngling
| colleagues. I laughed like a true boomer full of sneer
| that those younglings are all a bunch of lazy losers that
| will not amount to anything as great as me all their
| life. I am pretty sure the generation before me thought
| the same and so on. It is great!
| walthamstow wrote:
| > typically
|
| 80 years ago was 1944 - not exactly a boom year. Most are
| 60-65-70 and would not consider themselves elderly. It's
| a very loaded word.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| 50s are "late middle age", and 60-65 is the crossover
| point to "elderly" in my book. You're likely in the last
| couple of decades of your life by then.
| chgs wrote:
| In most western countries your 60s is when you start
| drawing an old age pension. The post ww2 boom started
| when people got home so births from about 1946. Those
| people have been drawing US social security for over a
| decade.
| implements wrote:
| Middle age is 45 to 65, and Old age can perhaps be
| thought of as the following three ten year periods: Go,
| Go-slow, No-go - that would make elderly as 75+
|
| (Rationale being retirement planning advisors encourage
| people to make the most of those first ten years (65 to
| 75) to do bucket-list things while (usually) they still
| can)
| mindslight wrote:
| I've entertained this idea for some time, but I can't really
| see how they can develop into full blown general curse words. I
| have to consider that perhaps I'm now just part of the crowd
| that holds them as sacred, and that newer generations will
| start intelligently using them as swears and slowly grow their
| acceptance, but that still doesn't feel very compelling. I read
| this article trying to pull out any parallels to see what I
| might be missing, but still didn't get anything.
|
| I think that kind of progression has actually run its course
| _within_ the narrower contexts it has been able to - take back
| the word empowerment, etc. But breaking out into the general
| societal context seems impossible as long as those words still
| acutely hurt significant contingents of people, as most people
| don 't want to casually engage in hurtful behavior.
|
| Then again if America loses the election on Tuesday, perhaps
| society will just regress to the point where most people are
| just fine stoking group hatred (it's cheaper than bread or
| professional circuses, after all!), and "general" acceptance
| will happen that way. I still don't personally see myself
| taking part though, despite being otherwise quite enthusiastic
| about swearing.
| eigenspace wrote:
| > I've entertained this idea for some time, but I can't
| really see how they can develop into full blown general curse
| words.
|
| I think what you mean by "full blown general curse words" is
| what I'd actually call "faded dying curse words" if what you
| mean is that it's something you could say in casual
| conversation without people thinking less of you.
|
| By the point that a curse word is used for emphatic
| punctuation, it's because the people using it don't actually
| believe the word holds real power to do harm, it just carries
| residual power because of a cultural memory of a time where
| it was taboo to say the word.
|
| So I think these slurs would only become part of a regular
| persons vocabulary of merely 'rude' words if regular people
| stopped thinking they were doing real harm by uttering them.
| mindslight wrote:
| But there are still plenty of casual contexts where one can
| use traditional curse words, and they will still have an
| impact. Making people think less of you is not the main
| dynamic of curse words (and they don't have a monopoly on
| that either!). Rather cursing is about openly transgressing
| social mores to display some combination of exceptional
| emotion plus (not being beholden to) social status. It's
| basically saying "I'm going to reject this thing you care
| about."
|
| So unless those words stop being routinely used for
| ignorant personal attacks, I don't see how swearing with
| racial slurs could become trendy for anybody but racists
| rejecting the idea that racism continues to be a problem. A
| decade ago I had more of an idealist post-racist outlook
| and could have believed that in a few more decades we'd be
| at the point where these words would have lost their deeply
| personal punch, with their only lingering effect being to
| cause pearl clutching (and who doesn't want to needle pearl
| clutchers?). But at this point that looks to be a pipe
| dream. Which is why I say it's a similar dynamic of words
| being off limits, but it's not actually the same. Some
| social mores have fundamental merit, believe it or not.
| bigstrat2003 wrote:
| > What used to be quite 'powerful' swear words such as 'fuck'
| and shit' are now just a normal part of informal speech, that
| don't carry any actual taboo.
|
| Maybe in some social circles, but in most circles I run in,
| saying "fuck" is still considered quite offensive.
| eigenspace wrote:
| Is it considered to be offensive though, or is it just a
| breach of protocol? I don't doubt that there are social
| circles where it's truly a noxiously offensive word, but in
| much much more circles, it's just improper or inappropriate
| to say, which is very different.
| freedomben wrote:
| In the Mormon culture, it is _definitely_ offensive, not
| just a protocol breach. If you consider what FCC rules were
| in place for the 60s and 70s, that will give you a pretty
| good guage for what 's appropriate for Mormons.
| GuB-42 wrote:
| I am not aware of social circles nowadays where words like
| "fuck" and "shit" are worse than racial slurs. Even when
| racial slurs are accepted they are still usually considered
| stronger words than "fuck".
| thenewwazoo wrote:
| There are absolutely racist evangelical christian circles
| where saying "fuck" will you get you a stern reproach but
| using the "hard R" when talking about black people is not
| worthy of note.
| hifromwork wrote:
| Fully agree. As a non-native English speaker, I always thought
| English doesn't have "real" curse words, and the only actual
| (taboo) curse words I know are so-called "n-word" and similar.
|
| It's hard for me to explain the difference, but (as an educated
| and relatively eloquent person) I would really hesitate (as in,
| physically struggle with my throat) to curse in my language
| aloud in a public place. Saying them among my friends or family
| would be seen as between mildly offensive and absolutely
| unacceptable. When hearing someone curse in public, I
| instinctively assume they're uneducated or intoxicated.
|
| Meanwhile, i can freely swear in English among the same people
| (and online, and in most situations abroad). My mother, who I
| have never heard curse in my language, says "shit" like it was
| "oh darn". I see English swear words everywhere online. They
| really don't feel like a taboo to me.
| 4star3star wrote:
| I would say it's totally normal for a 2nd language's swear
| words to have much less impact on one's psyche than one's
| maternal language.
| eigenspace wrote:
| That's definitely true, but I think you're also likely also
| just not understanding that in some cultures, there really
| are taboo words that are not considered okay to say under
| really any context.
|
| Again, think of how radioactive "the N-word" is in all but
| the most radical of english speaking circles nowadays.
| Other languages have things like this with different
| histories and reasons.
| pessimizer wrote:
| It's an extremely common pitfall for second language
| learners to swear too casually. You've been yelled at for
| swearing (or screwing up honorifics) in your own language,
| but that still hasn't happened to you enough in your second
| language. It will.
|
| I've tutear'd people in what would be casual settings for
| Americans and really felt the chill instantly.
| 082349872349872 wrote:
| > _I see English swear words everywhere online_
|
| With regard to online (and music, and movies): have you paid
| attention to the social register in which you're seeing them
| used?
| gsk22 wrote:
| The interesting thing is that some of the "new" taboo words are
| only taboo for certain groups of people.
|
| The N-word has been reclaimed by people of color, but remains
| taboo for others to say.
|
| The F-slur is in the process of being reclaimed by gay people,
| but remains taboo for everyone else.
|
| I can't think of any parallels in past English curse words --
| "fuck" was taboo no matter who you were.
| selimthegrim wrote:
| Only certain people of color.
| gsk22 wrote:
| Sure. I was necessarily speaking in generalities. There are
| always exceptions.
| haccount wrote:
| We're on the internet, anonymously discussing swear words,
| you can just type out nigger.
|
| There's still large segments of the internet not subject to
| hysterical brigades of thought police demanding every typed
| word be cross referenced with the ever-growing Manual of
| Self-Censorship and Conformity with Whoever Is Offended In
| The Loudest Manner.
| mmooss wrote:
| Just because you can get away with it, doesn't mean you
| should. And it seems you agree: why create a new account?
| cduzz wrote:
| Those words are "taboo" because they convey a direct "you are
| property or worse and I can hurt you and you can't stop me"
| violent threat. At the moment, at least in some parts of the
| world, that _violence_ is what is taboo. Maybe some people
| don't understand the implicit meaning, but lots of people do,
| especially the ones who're threatened.
|
| That article didn't discuss class / culture, so whatever a
| nobel who's threatening an underling might say, "peon" or
| whatever, wasn't mentioned. Elsewhere someone made the
| distinction between 'insult' and 'slur' which I think is a
| good way to distinguish vulgarity/insult from threat.
| pessimizer wrote:
| > The N-word has been reclaimed by people of color, but
| remains taboo for others to say.
|
| The "N-word" was never reclaimed by black people, we always
| said it, and it always means something different than when
| said by a non-black person (and there was never a "hard-r" or
| a "soft-r," that's just a mockery of black dialects.) It's
| like the word "bitch." If a woman calls another woman a
| "bitch," she's obviously not demeaning her for being a women.
|
| Also, the "N-word" was not a swear word for non-black people.
| It was a word to demean black people, who were demeaned by
| consensus by the majority of the population of the Anglo-
| American world. It was also used for any dark-skinned person
| that they didn't think of as fully human, as it was the
| prevailing slur during the US-Philippine War.
|
| The "N-word" has become a swear word for non-black people
| because the consensus about black people has changed for the
| moment, and using it indicates a particular political
| position on race. It has been a perennial issue for non-black
| people to complain about because white people want a place in
| the oppression olympics, and it's really hard to find
| something that they've ever been officially restricted from
| doing.
| downrightmike wrote:
| Fucking right
| teractiveodular wrote:
| Those are slurs, not curse words. Nobody yells the N-word when
| they accidentally hit their thumb with a hammer.
| wholinator2 wrote:
| Uhm, there definitely are people who do that. There used to
| be a lot more of them but i think you just haven't been
| around the types of people who do that long enough to observe
| that behavior. There is still a rather large portion of some
| "backwaters" that use all the old words very much
| conversationally
| _bin_ wrote:
| Is this uniformly true? Perhaps in parts of the internet, or
| perhaps amongst some social groups but not others. I live in a
| smaller center-right city in the south and they're not used
| casually, though with more liberality than our grandparents
| might've done. Or by drunks, but drunks have always been prone
| to cussing.
|
| By contrast, some of what you say is too offensive seems pretty
| common to me. It's not polite, but you're much more likely to
| hear someone use retard or faggot than drop an f-bomb. Maybe
| it's just my social circle. I do notice people from other parts
| of the country are more like you say.
| dyauspitr wrote:
| Those are slurs and something just as powerful has always
| existed depending on the contexts of the time.
| mmooss wrote:
| > What used to be quite 'powerful' swear words such as 'fuck'
| and shit' are now just a normal part of informal speech, that
| don't carry any actual taboo.
|
| Those words would be socially disqualifying in many places I
| go, such as business meetings, most interactions with adults,
| most public interactions (for example, with a clerk at a
| store).
| eigenspace wrote:
| In most cases for most people, those would be socially
| disqualifying because it'd be breach of etiquette. You would
| be acting in a distasteful way that people find
| inappropriate.
|
| Now compare that to how life altering it would be for you if
| you were dropping the 'N-word' in such situations. The
| difference is that people really do believe the 'N-word' has
| real power to do harm. It's not just a rude word, it's an
| 'evil' word (which is what curses used to be).
| VyseofArcadia wrote:
| Zounds! Some of those 1600s usages still sound modern. "That
| flim-flam has me in a pickle" is something that could have come
| out of my mouth yesterday.
| blamarvt wrote:
| Why is it that the author decided to write 'f-word' twice instead
| of just 'fuck'?
| neallindsay wrote:
| Variety
| deprecative wrote:
| Sometimes you gotta throw out the effing "fuck" word.
| bc569a80a344f9c wrote:
| Is this also true for French with a similar timeline, potentially
| explaining why Quebecois - settled in the 1600s - primarily uses
| religious swear words?
| kragen wrote:
| I think the French today mostly say _putain_ , which has mostly
| lost its literal sense, but my French is not very good.
| 082349872349872 wrote:
| The francophones of my acquaintance mostly do. (although one
| or two of them use _punaise_ to mince, _nom de Dieu !_ )
| ekianjo wrote:
| There is a much wider range of swear words than just putain
| in French. And much more than in English in general which
| sounds like a poor language for insults to French ears.
| kragen wrote:
| Enlighten us! English is of course rather impoverished
| here. What does the wider range of cursing in French look
| like, in current use? Do people still say _c 'est con, ca_
| and _sacrebleu!_? My own exposure to French cussing in real
| life has all been _putain putain putain_.
| 082349872349872 wrote:
| and if we were to ask Sarko for some big words?
| https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casse-
| toi,_pauv%27_con_!#Reten...
| kragen wrote:
| Is _con_ even a cussword? Most of the translations are
| non-taboo insults referring to stupidity rather than to
| genitalia, with the exception of the Italian and the
| Argentine _raja, pobre pelotudo_ , which refers to
| different genitalia and is not taboo. (The Greek "shabby
| wanker" is maybe an exception?)
|
| But there may be some selection bias involved in the
| translation sampling process; by definition, taboo words
| won't be printed in a major newspaper headline. If he had
| used a racial slur against Maghrebis, for example, the
| NYT surely would not run a headline containing the
| N-word.
| kgwgk wrote:
| The original meaning of "con" is cunt. It's also used for
| very unpleasant or stupid people (like cunt, but much
| more).
| 082349872349872 wrote:
| Around here, people will say of actions or other people
| that they are stupid, but not _con_ , so I get the
| impression it goes well beyond stupidity, into sheer
| bloody-mindedness.
|
| (whether the latter rates cusswordedness I prefer to
| leave to L1 speakers)
|
| Lagniappe: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lWCNFzdE31A
| (fr-u-sd-caqc)
| kgwgk wrote:
| I don't where is "around there" but
| https://www.larousse.fr/dictionnaires/francais/con/17848
| says:
|
| Tres familier. Stupide, imbecile, idiot.
| 082349872349872 wrote:
| Guess it depends upon the region;
| https://fr.wiktionary.org/wiki/con#Nom_commun_1 has an
| example (sense 3) with the valence I tend to hear:
| - C'est un imbecile..., lacha le garcon. - Non,
| c'est un con. - C'est pareil. M. Pelletier
| s'arreta de jouer. - Non, c'est pas pareil. Si tu
| expliques trois fois un truc a quelqu'un et qu'il
| ne le comprend pas, c'est un imbecile. Mais si, a
| la fin, il est certain de l'avoir compris mieux que
| toi, alors, tu as affaire a un con. -- (Pierre Lemaitre,
| Le Grand Monde, Calmann-Levy, 2022, pages 20-21)
|
| (it does seem very mild compared to the evolution and use
| in russian:
| https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/pizdets#Etymology )
| cryptonector wrote:
| https://fr.wiktionary.org/wiki/d%C3%A9conner
|
| > _Ferme ton deconophone, dit Alexandre. Je veux dormir,
| moi._
|
| "deconophone" (laughter emoji deleted by HN)
| cryptonector wrote:
| Nah, "con" must have been a very bad word a few hundred
| years ago. The French people I grew up with used it like
| it was nothing. Much like "merde". Doesn't mean that you
| should be saying it willy nilly. I'm sure if you call a
| stranger a "con" they won't take it well -- you need some
| familiarity to do that.
|
| "Espece de con" ("some kind of cunt") is for when you
| mean it a bit more.
| cryptonector wrote:
| "Con" is very much a curse word, it's just that in French
| everyone is allowed to use "con" (and
| "conard"/"conne"/"conarde"/"conasse") and just about all
| cuss words. I remember my childhood French teachers using
| those words like it was nothing; kids too. French is a
| really crass language that everyone seems to think is
| beautiful. Well, it is beautiful, but it's also crass.
|
| "Petit con" is "little shit". A French teacher might say
| that to a troublemaker student, say.
| cryptonector wrote:
| "Boludo" and "pelotudo" are just Argentine variants of
| "huevon" -- a big fat zero. They do not refer to
| genitalia. I know many people think that, but that's not
| their origin. And what, why should "ballsy" be a swear
| word? Of course it's not, not even in Argentina.
|
| Similarly "weon" is Chilean for "huevon".
|
| "Carajo", however, is an old word for "cock". "Conchudo"
| is basically "cunty". Etc.
| kragen wrote:
| Hmm, I thought _boludo_ and _pelotudo_ came from the idea
| that too-big testicles made a man stupid, perhaps related
| to _coglione_. There 's also an urban legend that they
| come from improvised weapons used in the war of
| independence, adapted from livestock herding equipment.
|
| But I'm trying to unpack the distinction here between
| insults and taboo words. Taboo words may not be insults;
| to use an outdated example, if I say that I'm going to
| the shitter, nobody is being insulted -- probably not
| even the plumbing facility in question. Similarly if I am
| tired of waiting in line and exclaim "God damn it!" And
| insults may not be taboo words; if I say, "Your mother
| wears army boots," many people will take it as an insult,
| even though in English it contains no taboo words.
| cryptonector wrote:
| I used to think so to, but, no, they come from a ball
| (bola, pelota) being round, like a zero, just as huevon
| is big egg just like a big zero.
| older wrote:
| Learned a new swear word from this article: "trumpery".
| morning-coffee wrote:
| TIL that `false` is (was) a swear word. (I just hope the
| compliance checker for my source code doesn't start flagging it,
| as I'd hate to have to replace them all with `!true`... as that
| just makes the code read like flam-flam.
| ahartmetz wrote:
| Had me puzzled for a moment as well. I guess its intended use
| is to describe a person? In German, a "false" person is a
| routinely dishonest person. (A little more nuanced than that,
| but I don't feel like writing an essay about it)
| ggm wrote:
| Don't mistake reddit popularisation of "cunt" for reality. It's
| certainly used heavily by some subcultures, ex and current armed
| forces, young men. Mostly it's braggadocio and routine use in
| everyday conversations is not normal no matter what redditors
| say. It's a version of "drop bear" trapping for unwary visitors.
| It's extremely unacceptable to most people and is avoided.
|
| Coon cheese changed its name to "Cheer" despite having no context
| where it's origin story related to its slang use. It's Edward
| Coon of Philadelphia's proprietary branding.
|
| Slang words for aboriginal females have fallen out of use and
| were all highly derogatory along with most other objectifying
| language about the aborigines. Terms like murri and mob are self-
| referential use.
|
| I was shocked by use of Yid 20 years ago. I think some people in
| Australia had little or no context of its use in Europe. Likewise
| Paki which is still used, to a British person from the era of the
| BNP and paki-bashing this word is anathema. Jap went from a term
| of derision to a term with probably positive meanings, jap cars
| are cheap, well made and reliable.
|
| Chink was and remains abusive since the gold rush era and racist
| white Australia immigration policy. A nong has nothing to do with
| the N word, ningnong just means a stupid person. Mong is
| offensive everywhere.
| teractiveodular wrote:
| For context, we're both talking about Australia here, right?
|
| What's (IMHO) uniquely Australian is the slang adoption of
| "cunt" _for men_ , sometimes in a positive sense (good cunt,
| mad cunt), sometimes negative (dog cunt, shit cunt). But, just
| like the US, you absolutely cannot use it to refer to a woman
| unless you intend to offend.
| ggm wrote:
| Yes. Australia. But, that usage remains highly contested as
| acceptable. It's been my experience that it's an emerging
| trend which is leveraging social media. It's like code
| switching, few people would do it in front of their wives,
| girlfriends, bosses or strangers. Whereas "fuck" is almost
| entirely normalised amongst the under 60s. My 80yo contacts
| still apologise when they say it.
|
| "Being John Malkovitch" implied it was edgy arts scene in the
| US who used it. For me, it's been ex forces
| telecommunications technicians and .. younger bogans. This is
| why I think it's braggadocio: Used because it remains
| transgressive.
| Loughla wrote:
| In the US, the youth are using the word cunt like we used to
| say bitch. Could be bad could be good, just depends on the
| context.
| pessimizer wrote:
| I don't really think they are. I almost only see it used on
| women (and gay men) in the US; it's just become more
| acceptable to publicly call women "cunts" lately. I think
| it's come from straight middle-class adoption of drag queen
| culture, which young people grew up with.
| akdor1154 wrote:
| > Mong is offensive everywhere
|
| Mong is the height of slurs - simultaneously racist and a
| reference to 'mongoloid', a cringeful historical term for Downs
| Syndrome. Hundreds of years of racial elitism distilled into a
| single syllable.
| starkrights wrote:
| Not mentioned is the large, laaarge youth subculture, sometimes
| called the 'alt crowd', that it's become popular as a positive
| term- but honestly it's permeated into the mainstream for
| sometime already as well. Calling things cunty or saying
| someone looks "so cunt" or "so cunty" is a term of praise and
| endearment in basically any situation I can think of among 3-4
| separate social circles I'm in. The cutoff is pretty quick- I'd
| say the proportion of people who would be taken heavily aback
| has a sharp uptick starting around 26-28 year olds.
|
| It's not just Reddit, it's tiktok and Instagram, the main, or
| at least two extremely, inconceivably large propagaters of
| youth slang and culture.
| kookamamie wrote:
| As a Finn, I find the English swear words both tame and lacking
| in variety.
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