I was taught by one friend and native Hindi speaker to jokingly call people 'pagel' or 'pagelpan' to call them crazy, and the same by a Taiwanese speaking friend to call someone 'san-ba' for the same purpose (it's pure Taiwanese, so those who are trying to make sense of it in Mandarin... it is what it says.... it just makes sense to them....), and by a Korean friend to say 'michin'...
For every single phrase, which I was told was completely innocuous, I've said it 'around' not 'to' a different native speaker, and had them react in absolute horror and shock at my profanity.... The people who taught me, were not disingenuous, quite the opposite, and they were quite surprised when I told them of my plight.
Now.. I'm not going to tell the story of the Japanese business man who was told to thank the Russian businessmen around the conference table at the end of his presentation by saying 'igo nahooey'. :)
//Christian M. Cepel
Guy Gascoigne - Piggford wrote:
Well coming from England I'd have to say that I've never thought that it was anywhere near as bad as the 'f' word. Yes I do know what the word refers to and so it would make sense for it to be just as offensive, but I never found it to be the case in either Birmingham or London when I lived there.
Now, as a Brit living in America I've become very away of how we gauge the depth of swearing based on the expectation of the listener. Back home I could say something and not have to guess about how it might be interpreted, over here I've become much more aware of what will and won't be understood as I intended. Most Americans that I've been exposed to, seem to think that saying the B word simply marks me as one of those weird Brits, and I guess that is the case whenever one uses slang that isn't commonly used by the majority of listeners.
For example, what happens when an Australian asks for a roll of Durex in an English shop, or a Brit asks for a fag in San Fransisco. Oh what fun, it's bad enough when they use completely different names for things, but when the same name has such completely different meanings, well you get the idea.
As an aside, since the meaning of the work is merely crude rather than blasphemous, i believe that it would count as swearing rather than profanity :)
Sorry for the endless stream of blurb, but I really find this sort of thing very interesting :)
Guy
Andrew Lenz, Jr. wrote:
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I then later in life missed a chord in my folk guitar class in college and let it slip under my breath... My Australian teacher made it clear to me that the word has all the same meanings and connotations as the "f" word, both in her home of Australia, and also in other places sharing the same common vocabularies.
Wow. Good to know. I thought, what I know now, to be the "B" (Australian "B" word) was equivalent to "fooey". I stand corrected! Yipe!
Andrew
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Christian Marcus Cepel | And the wrens have returned & [EMAIL PROTECTED] icq:12384980 | are nesting; In the hollow of 371 Crown Point, Columbia, MO | that oak where his heart once 65203-2202 573.999.2370 | had been; And he lifts up his Computer Support Specialist, Sr. | arms in a blessing; For being University of Missouri-Columbia | born again. --Rich Mullins
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