International Swearing

[alanp]

A lady at work reckons that there are no swearwords in Maori. The closest it gets, she reckons, is "Aue!" if you drop something on your foot. (There are insults, a big one of which is "Go boil your head", since eating someone is seen as a supreme insult.)

I've read a few insults in French from Julian May's books featuring Rogatien Remillard, the most common of which is "Batege!"

What about you lot? We've got a pretty international scene here!

[blearyeyes]

I worked with an English bass player for several years who had been tutored while on tour in Germany. Of course the first things you learn are cuss words.. While working in California in the 80s we had a pretty front lady singer.. He taught her all of the cuss words he knew. When some drunk would come on to her while she was working she would cuss them out in German and they would smile ignorant of what she was saying. One night while  telling some guy off came a bunch of laughter from the back of the room.. Then a man showed up and said "Sie sprechen Deutsch?"

[GrindCustoms]

Batege..... is the fancy France way.. here in Quebec, we slang EVERYTHING! so it turns out being: Batèche! and pronounce like.. Bah-Tesh. But it's not really offensive... a child could say it and people would just laugh.. kind of a vintage swear...

Otherwise, we are pretty much founded on using the tools of the Christ as swearing...

Here's the list in order of situation of gravity, most angry to most mellow.

Tabarnak! : Tabernacle
Sacrament!: Sacrement
Siboire!: stays the same
Criss!: Christ
Calis! : Caliste
Esti! : Osti

Where it becomes interesting is when you start combining all of them in a most angry situation...

Maudit calis de tabarnak d'esti de marde de saint calis!!!

This could go on forever!

These are the one used mostly, but each region of Quebec have their own swearing aswell and various other words inspired by historical and political events. Most of the Quebec resident leaving outside of the Montreal and Quebec city area are for the most part categorized as vulgar speaker... ...wich i'm part of.

Rej

[chromesphere]

We've got a pretty good one in Australia, if you really want to offend somebody when they come over to your house, serve them a VB (beer)

[alanp]

Don't worry, serving Australian beer is considered an insult in NZ as well

[chromesphere]

haha!  I would say vice versa but im not sure you guys have a brewery yet? ;-)

Edit: For Americans/Canadians reading, this is US/Canadian banter equivalent.

[GrindCustoms]

haha!  I would say vice versa but im not sure you guys have a brewery yet? ;-)

Edit: For Americans/Canadians reading, this is US/Canadian banter equivalent.

PBR and Budweiser are equaly drink across NorthAmerica and each country have their well develloped pallet of micro brewers for wich there's commune respect toward each other... 

[alanp]

The two or three good things to come out of Australia is DIY Guitar Pedals and it's proprietor, and Coopers Homebrew Kits. Other than that, it's venomous snakes, venomous spiders, and poisonous scorpions. And Coober Pedy. And some sheep.

[chromesphere]

Thanks Alan...! 

lol i think i've posted this here before but always give me a laugh

[juansolo]

Don't worry, serving Australian beer is considered an insult in NZ as well

I think it's fairly worldwide

[juansolo]

English (and particularly Yorkshire) swearing can be very confusing as even the strongest of words (yes those) can be used as terms of endearment. Depending on inflection. Doesn't really work in text form though.

Also we assign several meanings to the same words. Bollocks is a prime example which can mean something not very good (that's bollocks that is), someone's saying something untrue (you're/he/she's talking bollocks), exasperation (bollocks to this/that!), something that's the best ever (that's the dogs bollocks!), an exclamation of pain/surprise/shock (BOLLOCKS!), and it's also slang for testicles (kicked in the bollocks).

[chromesphere]

Don't worry, serving Australian beer is considered an insult in NZ as well

I think it's fairly worldwide

Hey hey hey hey hey!  That's enough of that thank you very much! I'll assume you are talking about mainstream in which, well, carry on.  Craft beers, different story.  I could show you some craft beers that would blow your ahhh..bollocks off

[juansolo]

 

Fosters and Castlemaine XXXX are pretty much our entire exposure to Aussie beers...

[chromesphere]

Oh dear...

Funny thing is they reckon the european Fosters is nicer then the the Australia variety...it gets worse!   Thank god for the massive Australian craft beer seen.

Anyway sorry Alan for OT'ing the thread.

[micromegas]

Anyway sorry Alan for OT'ing the thread.

It could maybe be the spring, but beer is emerging as aa concurent topic lately 

Regarding swearing.. we have books about it here in Spain
The rest of the Spanish-speaking community gets usually amazed by our swearing capabilities.

The most common one may be "joder!" which is like "fuck!" (I use it as much as the big lebowsky uses the english equivalent). And sometimes we get creative: the word "cojones" (our equivalent to bollocks) has many uses:

"no me toques los cojones" - literally: don't touch my balls / meaning: don't upset me

"tener cojones" - usually to be brave "Peter tiene un par de cojones" = "Peter has a pair of balls" = "Peter is a stand up guy"
but applied to a situation it changes the meaning: "la situación politica actual tiene cojones" = "current political situation is a shit"

"no hay cojones" = you don't have what it takes to do something

"me descojono" = LMAO

"es cojonudo" - "mi nuevo Klon es cojonudo" = "my new Klon is awesome"

"no me sale de los cojones" - "I don't want to do it and don't care about it"

there's a lot more, and the meaning changes depending on the verb tense

Here you got an article about "how to swear like a Spaniard":
http://youngadventuress.com/2012/12/swear-spanish.html