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Today's Children Are Officially Potty Mouths

Posted by samzenpus on from the kids-say-the-#@^*est-things dept.

tetrahedrassface writes "When the Sociolinguistics Symposium met earlier this month swearing scholar Timothy Jay revealed that an increase in child swearing is directly related to an increase in adult swearing. It seems that vulgarity is increasing as pop culture continues to popularize vulgarities. The blame lies with media, public figures, politicians, but mostly ourselves. From the article: 'Children as young as two are now dropping f-bombs, with researchers reporting that more kids are using profanity — and at earlier ages — than has been recorded in at least three decades.'"

2 of 449 comments (clear)

  1. Actually... by ryzvonusef · · Score: 4, Informative

    I have heard that Japanese doesn't have any words that could be considered to be profane per se. At least, that's what quite a few manga scanlation translators have asserted on their posts, when they have deign to explain :D

    Instead, the Japanese seem to utilize impoliteness and rudeness. So instead of a special word like "Freddy Uncle Charlie Kent", they have a rude form of the word "YOU!", which will serve the same purpose

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    1. Re:Actually... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      Many languages are actually like that.

      Sotho is an example. While some words are considered "swearing" in parts with heavy English influence (i.e. in South Africa, all the words corresponding to English profanity), this was not traditionally the case and is still not the case in other parts (i.e. Lesotho). I'm still trying to learn the language, so I can't give much detail.

      The Japanese language, since you mentioned it, has to take into account the complex social hierarchy (which is based on Confucian ideas). Once again my Japanese is not too good, so everyone feel free to add to/correct this.

      A word such as "temee" (probably the "you" that you referred to) is considered rude not because the word itself is inherently evil, but because it does not properly reflect the relation between the status of the speaker and the addressed.

      If I'm your senior (in age, in the workplace, or in basically any other way) your calling me "temee", "omae", "kimi", "anata" or any one of a number of words used for English "you" would be a very bad idea. Each of these does, however, have situations to which they apply.

      Let's say that you and I are men, that we are very good friends, and that there is no relationship of seniority. "Omae" would fit perfectly.

      Let's say that I'm some random guy of no real importance. "Anata" would do.

      Things get even more complicated when you begin to include sarcasm. "Kisama" is a very formal form of "you". In fact, it's so formal that it is only ever used sarcastically. But you can not be sarcastic with any other word. Never. ;)

      You can see where this is going.

      As for the things normally used for swearing (religion, bodily functions, etc.), there is much truth to what you said. Example: "Kuso" may translate to "faeces" in some more formal contexts. It can also be used as an expletive ("Shit!").

      Japanese does have words for sex, but they're not really used all that much. (Despite the fact that the Japanese don't share the Victorian mindset of "sex is dirty and no-one is doing it".) Merely having euphemisms doesn't make a word streng verboten.

      Sorry for the core dump.