He said what?? - Loan Curse Words
Good morning Linguaphiles,
Do the languages you speak have curse words borrowed from other languages that have lost their meaning or level of profanity after switching languages? Do you feel more comfortable cursing in languages that are not your L1?
Having grown up speaking English, I still am a bit shocked every time I hear preschool children or respectable professional adults freely using the words "shit" or "fuck", which essentially have the connotation here in Israel of "oops". My former boss used to call his mistakes פאקים (fuckim) and used the same terminology in a professional staff setting.
Likewise, a great deal of Israeli slang is borrowed from Russian and Arabic. Words like "blat" and "kibinimat" (sorry, I don't really read Russian) are also acceptable, though less professional I think. Arabic curses such as "manyak" and "kus emek" are definitely used here but their sense of profanity has survived the language crossover, tho I guess they're a bit milder in Hebrew than in Arabic maybe.
I presume that people have less of a problem cursing in languages they haven't grown up with since they're less connected to those words and perhaps don't even know what they mean.
Curious to see your responses.
Do the languages you speak have curse words borrowed from other languages that have lost their meaning or level of profanity after switching languages? Do you feel more comfortable cursing in languages that are not your L1?
Having grown up speaking English, I still am a bit shocked every time I hear preschool children or respectable professional adults freely using the words "shit" or "fuck", which essentially have the connotation here in Israel of "oops". My former boss used to call his mistakes פאקים (fuckim) and used the same terminology in a professional staff setting.
Likewise, a great deal of Israeli slang is borrowed from Russian and Arabic. Words like "blat" and "kibinimat" (sorry, I don't really read Russian) are also acceptable, though less professional I think. Arabic curses such as "manyak" and "kus emek" are definitely used here but their sense of profanity has survived the language crossover, tho I guess they're a bit milder in Hebrew than in Arabic maybe.
I presume that people have less of a problem cursing in languages they haven't grown up with since they're less connected to those words and perhaps don't even know what they mean.
Curious to see your responses.