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Post by oh oooh on Dec 20, 2023 11:43:26 GMT
and your use/interpretation
I don't hear 'arsehole' used so much these days. It has a slightly comical tone.
'wanker' - spat out at the right moment - is a long-standing personal favourite
and, as is often said, 'fuck' is very versatile. I was explaining to a student the difference between 'fuck me', 'fuck you', 'fuck this' and 'fuck it'. Tiny differences between the expressions, but the difference in meaning is huge.
is 'bastard' (meaning 'a complete shit of a man') dead in British English in 2023?
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loveless
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Post by loveless on Dec 20, 2023 12:13:29 GMT
Is "balls" still relevant?
I just watched the restaurant/Tourette's scene from Curb, and...it all seemed so purposely anachronistic (a comedic virtue, by any metric).
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Post by oh oooh on Dec 20, 2023 12:14:54 GMT
Is 'balls' used in the US with the same meaning as 'bollocks' in the UK? (i.e. 'nonsense')
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loveless
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Post by loveless on Dec 20, 2023 12:22:11 GMT
No, neither is really used here at all. Colloquially here (as, I'm sure it is there as well), mostly synonymous with audacity, bravery, front, daring, etc.
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Post by DarknessFish on Dec 20, 2023 12:24:24 GMT
I generally don't swear that much, I probably swear much more on here than in the actual physical world, just because it's a great way of imparting emphasis that you'd generally do verbally in other ways.
Bastard is probably less used as a direct insult to a person, more commonly used to signify difficulty, I wonder how that came about? "Today's sudoku was a bit of a bastard". It's a good term though, because bastard and bollocks are great for ... er ... getting your lips around, and spitting out with great comic vehemence.
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loveless
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Post by loveless on Dec 20, 2023 12:30:17 GMT
One of the greatest musicians in my life is a drummer named John (he and I are in multiple musical situations together, and...you know, he's as "first call" as it gets in my world) who also happens to be 22 years younger than me (and most of the people he/I/we play with). The first gig we were on together was about 7 or 8 years ago...I guess when he was 24. Anyhow, it was a fantastic concert, and I met his parents (not much older than I) afterwards. In my abundant enthusiasm, I opined that their son was a "motherfucker" - as a musical compliment of the highest order, I stand by it, but...it also became instantly clear to me that there isn't a mum in the universe who wants to hear her youngest son called that.
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rayge
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Post by rayge on Dec 20, 2023 12:34:06 GMT
and your use/interpretation I don't hear 'arsehole' used so much these days. It has a slightly comical tone. 'wanker' - spat out at the right moment - is a long-standing personal favourite and, as is often said, 'fuck' is very versatile. I was explaining to a student the difference between 'fuck me', 'fuck you', 'fuck this' and 'fuck it'. Tiny differences between the expressions, but the difference in meaning is huge. is 'bastard' (meaning 'a complete shit of a man') dead in British English in 2023? Arsehole and bastard are alive and well in my world, although I tend not to use bastard since beng pulled up on it by someone who was literally a bastard. Arsehole, though, is a mild way to describe someone you're temporarily annoyed with (usually with an intensifier, such as fucking or bloody, and the plural is a slightly stronger alternative to damn or bugger as an expletive when small things go wrong.
It seems difficult to comprehend now, when cunt and motherfucker regularly appear in print and broadcast media, that when I was growing up, current everyday words such as bugger, bum, bollocks, tits, shit, nob, dick, cock, and balls, as well as blasphemies such as bloody, bleeding, (god)damn, hell(fire) were considered as swear words, banned from the airwaves. As was for Christ's sake, although that was probably because it developed as a swerve from fuck rather than taking gawdah's name in vain.
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loveless
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Post by loveless on Dec 20, 2023 12:42:32 GMT
We had Bosnian refugee neighbors in our building at one point many years back - a family of three. The boy was a teen and spoke English like one of my kids, but the parents were ESL, and...a remark that still gets referenced frequently in our household after all these years is when my wife overheard the Dad arguing with the boy (who was 16 at the time) and heatedly exclaiming "YOU. ARE ASSHOLE!"
I suppose it was the moment that my children (then quite young) discovered the magic of emphatic, angry, ESL swearing.
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Post by fearlessfreap on Dec 20, 2023 13:01:16 GMT
I swear due to reflex, and refer to people I don't like as assholes and dickheads, but I don't think about it, it just spews out, unfortunately, like last Sunday at Church when the priest dropped my communion wafer.
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Post by oh oooh on Dec 20, 2023 13:14:58 GMT
ha ha ha
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Post by souphound on Dec 20, 2023 14:01:00 GMT
As an anglo-franco bilingolingologist (yes, I made that up), I've always found it interesting how different swearing is in the two languages. In English, most swears have something to do with body parts or bawdy bodily functions while in French, over here anyway, church-related terms are de rigueur.
For instance, if I'm really pissed off at you I might call you "mon hostie d'calice de tabanarque!" (combining the chalice, the tabernacle and the Host all in one go). In English I would probably call you a f*cking asshole or something like that.
I myself hardly ever swear out loud in either language. I tend to fester inwardly instead, for better or for worse.
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Post by Stacy Heydon on Dec 20, 2023 14:43:00 GMT
According to my mum there are no swear words in welsh..which I find hard to believe.
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Sneelock
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Post by Sneelock on Dec 20, 2023 18:43:20 GMT
Is 'balls' used in the US with the same meaning as 'bollocks' in the UK? (i.e. 'nonsense') more like a nicer way of saying "bullshit" it's not used nearly often enough to suit me. as you might have noticed, I tend to overdo the sentence enhancers even though I know fully well that they are far more effective when used with the element of surprise.
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Sneelock
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Post by Sneelock on Dec 20, 2023 19:13:02 GMT
cocksucker!
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Post by adamcoan on Dec 20, 2023 19:14:09 GMT
Knockers.
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