Profanities in everyday speech

[hertz]

In my working environment - and in any male-dominated environment - the 'F' word is used in every other sentence as a vowel, adjective or noun as a matter of everyday speech. Do other languages have similar words that are used in the same situations?

[IndieSinger]

After living in France and Germany and visiting Holland, Belgium and Luxembourg frequently, I can confirm that - among the 12 - 30 age group at least - the most fashionable and frequent swear words are the english ones.

[woofgang]

I don't think that it is reasonable to say "in any male dominated environment" as I have experience of male majority environments where this is not true. But.... I am female and the males in question might all be so terrified of me that they shut up when I appear (joke... I wish!) so come on all you AB guys who have more diverse vocabularies, and speak up for yourselves

[Jenny Tools]

They can't because they are all w@nkers :-')

[buttons]

i know this doesn't actually answer your question but i just wanted to say that i agree that in a male dominated environment the language is shocking. I work in an office where i am the only female with about 10 males and sometimes the language can be very overpowering. There are certain people who swear so often that they dont even know they are doing it!! I even find myself swearing more often than i used to as it seems to be the only way to converse with them. Sorry for going off at a tangent, and not answering your question but think all men have to think about what they are saying before swearing!

[mucko]

buttons - you talk sh!t! the language in this office is fcuking fine! x

[buttons]

huh - and that's coming from one of the better ones!!!!

[chrisshay]

Its not a male thing, I swear far more than the men in my office, its to do with your up bringing and i was dragged!!!!

[becks]

There's some rhyme or passage about the use of the F-word and how it can be used as a verb, adjective, noun and even in words su-f*cking-perb for example. It was obviously full of the f-word but quite an interesting read on the use of the word and its infiltration of the english language. Doesn't really answer your question, and i'm with chrisshay, i swear more than the guys in my office...

[coggles]

when I started my apprenticeship over 20 years ago, I was the first girl to do the job for miles around. When I qualified as a journeyman, I worked for a boss that excelled himself in his use of expletives. If you went home after a 14 hour day and had not checked your work before it went to press, and he found a mistake that meant it had to be changed and rushed through, you would come into work the next day and find the words (4 inches high - 100 cm for young ones) 'Before you f*cking go home, check your f*ucking work, because if it is f*cking wrong, I have got to f*cking put it right' We very rarely made mistakes and i learned some great jokes too!

[coggles]

Sorry, I got so much into the way the thread was going, that I didn't actually answer your question.

[coggles]

Sorry, but another sorry! I meant the very rude words were written all over the light table of the person who had made the mistake. I am sooooo glad that doesn't happen when I make so many mistakes on answerbank!

[darth vader]

the french use the word "merde" a lot, which translated is "$h1t". You can actually be "dans la merde" (in the $h1t).

continuing the thread yes we swear like troopers in our male-only office. i have moved depts. a few times and have been in teams with females in - for some mixed-gender teams there was no swearing, others the females made me blush :-)

[IndieSinger]

The French (who are slightly more protective about their language than almost any other European country) have hundreds of phrases containing "merde", almost as many as the English have phrases containing "shit". They also have a rough translation of our "fuck off" ("Va te faire foutre") but there is very little flexibility in it (no where near as much as in english) and our "fuck" phrases are often resorted to. They do have somethings of their own though, like "Aux chiottes les Anglais !" - the best translation is something along the lines of "Shitty English!" although it can't be translated directly (and keep the same meaning/register etc.)

I have yet to study a language, which has a more expressive way of swearing than english!

[jim 41775]

The word tmesis is apt