swearing (small rant) | ExpatWoman.com
 

swearing (small rant)

1238
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EW OLDHAND
Latest post on 20 January 2011 - 10:29

What is the big deal? Why do Arabs get so upset about it? Even Arabs whose english isn't so good?

The other day, I was trying to get a refund for something that was sold to me broken and I (accidentally) said "That's bullsh*t." The guy who didn't seem to understand most of what else I was saying started turning purple and going on and on about how I needed to be careful. It's not as if I said I was going to kill his cat!

Truly, what is the big deal? And is it only english swear words? Has anyone tried using a German or Russian swear word? What if I swore in Arabic? Would it be better or worse?

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EW NEWBIE
Latest post on 26 January 2011 - 09:52
People who cannot control their foul language are said to be those that are linguistically challenged, i.e. they simply aren’t smart enough to be in command of a vocabulary range sufficient to express themselves adequately. Holy cr*p I must f*****g totally linguistically challenged! I think having gone through Uni twice, i am in a position to say smartness has nothing to do with swearing.....having a good grip on English vocabulary i still utter profanities quite frequently. this is more to do with frustration management than low intelligence............ am i proud of it....not particularly, however sometimes you will find that people take note that you are at the end of your tether..... In addition working in a male dominated engineering/construction environment i am exposed to unsavoury wordage every day...you just switch off from it, although unneccessary use (ie no visible anger or frustration) gets noted in my book. the use of the C word is most definately not condoned though....in fact i will listen to anyword except that and i dont care who you are, i will let my disgust be known at the use of that word..... i would say though on a recent trip home to UK i was quite shocked at the amount of swearing i heard just walking around my local city from "certain" groups of people.....unfortunately they do fit quite nicely into a stereotypical pigeon hole........it sounded most awful..... maybe i will revise my use of swear words....... also very much agree with spongemonkey <em>edited by Blueskies on 26/01/2011</em>
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EW EXPLORER
Latest post on 20 January 2011 - 20:52
* Shocked by such overuse of *'s*
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EW MASTER
Latest post on 20 January 2011 - 20:50
****** Dubai and the daily ******* **** situations you get here in ****** well make you ******* swear! :-P
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EW MASTER
Latest post on 20 January 2011 - 20:48
hole your tongue, which actually is rather refreshing. Is that a punishment for swearing in public? :) No that is the WHOLE thing ripped out by a falcon wearing a tag! :D
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EW GURU
Latest post on 20 January 2011 - 15:30
Maybe next time you could say (with a big ditzy smile on your face of course) "I don't mean to offend sir, but I think you may possibly be mistaken in what you are trying to tell me, I realise it would not be intentional and you are only telling me what some foolish underling has wrongly told you, but may I kindly request that you check the answer again?!". It doesn't quite roll off the tounge but if you can't say BS at least you can try and baffle them with it :D Exactly!! The more confused they are, the more they are likely to give you what you want, just to get rid of you!! ;)
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EW MASTER
Latest post on 20 January 2011 - 15:12
When being bull****ted (by my ex), my ex's ex used to say, "You must think I button up the back!" I love that.
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EW EXPERT
Latest post on 20 January 2011 - 15:09
Maybe next time you could say (with a big ditzy smile on your face of course) "I don't mean to offend sir, but I think you may possibly be mistaken in what you are trying to tell me, I realise it would not be intentional and you are only telling me what some foolish underling has wrongly told you, but may I kindly request that you check the answer again?!". It doesn't quite roll off the tounge but if you can't say BS at least you can try and baffle them with it :D
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EW EXPLORER
Latest post on 20 January 2011 - 15:09
I learned when I landed here that 'swearing' is viewed differently by different people. I had to advise my employees that saying, "Oh, sh!t" was a completely unacceptable thing to say in front of me, or customers. I am not part of the Political Correctness Brigade by any sense of the imagination and swear like a trooper in front of select audiences, but would *never* say anything remotely dodgy to a shop clerk. That is BS :)
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EW GURU
Latest post on 20 January 2011 - 15:03
But quite seriously, is there somewhere a list of words one cannot use? What if I had said bullpoop? Would that have been acceptable? Or if I had said something offensive, but not quite swearing - ie, "Your nose is large and ugly and something is hanging from it," - would that have landed me in Bur Dubai? Is the law just a vague, "you can't swear"? As the replies below (Thanks, Lakshmi!) demonstrate, what is swearing to one person is not swearing to all. Maybe I need to get a job. Basically, anything that anyone might deem personally offensive (which, let's face it could be ANYTHING in Dubai) is best not said... Don't think 'bullpoop' would be okay either (although I like it, might start using that one, lol!). Maybe next time you could say (with a big ditzy smile on your face of course) "I don't mean to offend sir, but I think you may possibly be mistaken in what you are trying to tell me, I realise it would not be intentional and you are only telling me what some foolish underling has wrongly told you, but may I kindly request that you check the answer again?!". A tad long winded, haha, but might avert a trip to the clink! ;)
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EW NEWBIE
Latest post on 20 January 2011 - 14:57
But quite seriously, is there somewhere a list of words one cannot use? What if I had said bullpoop? Would that have been acceptable? Or if I had said something offensive, but not quite swearing - ie, "Your nose is large and ugly and something is hanging from it," - would that have landed me in Bur Dubai? Is the law just a vague, "you can't swear"? As the replies below (Thanks, Lakshmi!) demonstrate, what is swearing to one person is not swearing to all. Maybe I need to get a job. Am sure common sense can tell you what you can and can't say. You can't honestly believe that ******** isn't swearing. My rule of thumb is, if you wouldn't want your child coming out with it, its swearing.
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EW OLDHAND
Latest post on 20 January 2011 - 14:52
But quite seriously, is there somewhere a list of words one cannot use? What if I had said bullpoop? Would that have been acceptable? Or if I had said something offensive, but not quite swearing - ie, "Your nose is large and ugly and something is hanging from it," - would that have landed me in Bur Dubai? Is the law just a vague, "you can't swear"? As the replies below (Thanks, Lakshmi!) demonstrate, what is swearing to one person is not swearing to all. Maybe I need to get a job.
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EW GURU
Latest post on 20 January 2011 - 13:22
Would someone like to spend a day in the car with me?? My language is so colorful.........highly developed as Cyclone put it - as well as very creative!!! If my car had ears it would have shut down a long time ago!!! Me too! I develop acute Tourettes syndrome when I get behind the wheel of a car here and usually manage to make up at least one new swear word each time by stringing a whole load of them together. Bit more careful when I am out in public though
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EW EXPLORER
Latest post on 20 January 2011 - 13:19
Would someone like to spend a day in the car with me?? My language is so colorful.........highly developed as Cyclone put it - as well as very creative!!! If my car had ears it would have shut down a long time ago!!!
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EW GURU
Latest post on 20 January 2011 - 13:06
As a child / teenager I never swore, would have got a crack from my parents if they had heard me, but then, because of a couple of jobs I had in the past, I heard a lot of swearing and it somehow got into my vocabulary. I am now trying to curb it as I have a LO and she is just at that age of repeating everything I say, lol. I would never swear directly at a person, especially a stranger in a shop, and [i'>especially[/i'> in Dubai! I tend to swear if I drop something, stub my toe, or at the TV etc. I don't mind a bit of swearing if it's in the right place, but for some people, more and more, every other word is effing this and effing that, crass and unimaginative. And when I hear it coming out of a teenager's mouth, well, I just want to give them a smack round the head... and if I hear the "C" word from anyone, they have lost all respect from me, it's disgusting and totally unnecessary.
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EW EXPLORER
Latest post on 20 January 2011 - 13:05
isn't a swear word a swear word when it's said in defence ? I have stopped swearing completely since coming to Dubai ! There doesn't seem to be the same kind of angst against other people here and most of it seems to be what you would expect in a given situation ... It seems "we" swear because the situation we find ourselves in isn't acceptable to us and we get upset and hurl obscenities because we can ! <em>edited by bowbellscowbells on 20/01/2011</em>
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EW NEWBIE
Latest post on 20 January 2011 - 12:56
Since when was fart a swear word?
1579
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EW EXPERT
Latest post on 20 January 2011 - 12:52
I have a highly developed profanity vocabulary and am not shy in using a curse word if the situation or conversation warrants it. I am surprised that no one mentioned Australians as having a potty mouth as many of our oft used curse words are acceptable in personal situations (as opposed to professional situations where there are many other factors in deciding what is appropriate). eg. Bugg3r, sod, bo!locks, sh!t, cr@p, f@rt, ar$e etc. Usually I determine what language is acceptable to me based on the audience and the topic of conversation. However like guiness I have been known to drop a furfy and use bullsh!t in a frustrating situation publicly. I seems to me that in the situation she described that the reaction was given only to gain points against her and not because they were mortally offended. [i'>As an aside 'It's not as if I said I was going to kill his cat!' has crawled to the top of my favourite EW phrases of 2011 :)[/i'>
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EW GURU
Latest post on 20 January 2011 - 12:46
LOL not at all Freckles ;-) On a side note (am clearly very bored again today!!) I found this on Yahoo and thought it summed things up quite nicely. [i'>Best Answer - Chosen by Voters I think that generalising and stereotyping are signs of low intelligence, swearing excessively is more often either a sign of limited vocabulary, or a desire to show off to others. It annoys me when someone swears for no reason at all, I assume that it's that type of person that is being considered to have the low intelligence? I think that swearing has it's place in communication, but that purpose is dulled by excessive use. For example, many years ago I got a job in a factory, doing a basic manual job, and everyone I worked with swore almost constantly. The first time I swore there was after 4 or 5 weeks, when someone did something that upset me. When I swore, everyone within earshot stopped what they were doing, and the room was silent. The guy who had upset me apologised, I accepted his apology, and everyone returned to what they were doing. Later another guy approached me, and said that it was the first time he'd heard me swear, and he was actually shocked by it. I explained that swearing is much more powerful if you only do it when you mean it, and not in every sentence. I like to think he learnt something that day. As for my intelligence, when I left the company 5 years later I had worked my way up to being a manager in the computer department, and this was a company with over 20,000 employees world wide. Source(s): Personal experience.[/i'>
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EW GURU
Latest post on 20 January 2011 - 12:28
People who cannot control their foul language are said to be those that are linguistically challenged, i.e. they simply aren’t smart enough to be in command of a vocabulary range sufficient to express themselves adequately. Holy cr*p I must f*****g totally linguistically challenged!
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EW MASTER
Latest post on 20 January 2011 - 11:58
As you know simplesabc, I also lived in Switzerland for years , ( the german speaking part) and I know what you are saying, my son learnt to say shizer At kindergarten and it's quite acceptable ! I used to go mad at my son, he thought it highly hilarious ! My point was there's a time and place, I certainly know when to hold my tongue, and it's not when my husband gets on wrong side of me! :D Yes, I try not to swear in public and am presently learning to restrict my hand-gestures ;) Am resurrecting the Shakespearean gesture "I bite my thumb at you" as I reckon it would only be offensive to Elizabethan scholars here :) Please tell me if I am mistaken and it is highly offensive to locals and I'll stop :)
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EW NEWBIE
Latest post on 20 January 2011 - 11:37
As you know simplesabc, I also lived in Switzerland for years , ( the german speaking part) and I know what you are saying, my son learnt to say shizer At kindergarten and it's quite acceptable ! I used to go mad at my son, he thought it highly hilarious ! My point was there's a time and place, I certainly know when to hold my tongue, and it's not when my husband gets on wrong side of me!
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EW MASTER
Latest post on 20 January 2011 - 11:23
Because that is taken as a personal attack or an attack on the country and unIslamic. This is how it is learn to hole your tongue, which actually is rather refreshing. Can;t bear all that Amercian/Brit swearing as everyday language, its crass. I'm a Brit and I find your comment offensive, I certainly do not, and never have used swearing as part of my everyday language, I am certainly in control of everything I say! At all times ! That does not mean I have never sworn, I choose where and when, as I am intelligent enough to do so! I'm a Brit and my language got distinctly worse when I got married and went to live in Switzerland (not sure which had the most effect on my swearing). The French swear quite a lot, too, so do the Italians in my experience, but maybe neither of them make television shows where the swearing is a big part of it (Gordon Ramsay (is it?) rubbish for example).
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EW NEWBIE
Latest post on 20 January 2011 - 11:21
Swearing or not swearing has nothing to do with intelligence of lack of it. Just as being polite and never swearing doesn't make you a Mensa candidate.
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EW EXPLORER
Latest post on 20 January 2011 - 11:19
Because that is taken as a personal attack or an attack on the country and unIslamic. This is how it is learn to hole your tongue, which actually is rather refreshing. Can;t bear all that Amercian/Brit swearing as everyday language, its crass. I'm a Brit and I find your comment offensive, I certainly do not, and never have used swearing as part of my everyday language, I am certainly in control of everything I say! At all times ! That does not mean I have never sworn, I choose where and when, as I am intelligent enough to do so! Why did you feel the need to choose these 2 nationalities JJ? just out of interest ? Oh for goodness sake, miss balamory was soo right.
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EW NEWBIE
Latest post on 20 January 2011 - 11:17
Because that is taken as a personal attack or an attack on the country and unIslamic. This is how it is learn to hole your tongue, which actually is rather refreshing. Can;t bear all that Amercian/Brit swearing as everyday language, its crass. I'm a Brit and I find your comment offensive, I certainly do not, and never have used swearing as part of my everyday language, I am certainly in control of everything I say! At all times ! That does not mean I have never sworn, I choose where and when, as I am intelligent enough to do so! Why did you feel the need to choose these 2 nationalities JJ? just out of interest ?
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EW GURU
Latest post on 20 January 2011 - 11:16
hole your tongue, which actually is rather refreshing. Is that a punishment for swearing in public? :) LMAO !!! no - it's bad spelling lol Was joking! ;-) so was i !!! Phew .... LoL :-) :-)
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EW EXPLORER
Latest post on 20 January 2011 - 11:15
hole your tongue, which actually is rather refreshing. Is that a punishment for swearing in public? :) LMAO !!! no - it's bad spelling lol Was joking! ;-) so was i !!! Yeah but LL was funny! (ha ha)
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EW MASTER
Latest post on 20 January 2011 - 11:14
hole your tongue, which actually is rather refreshing. Is that a punishment for swearing in public? :) LMAO !!! no - it's bad spelling lol Was joking! ;-) so was i !!!
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EW MASTER
Latest post on 20 January 2011 - 11:13
hole your tongue, which actually is rather refreshing. Is that a punishment for swearing in public? :) LMAO !!! no - it's bad spelling lol Or a typo? * sits on hands trying not to swear at Sarky Sue 62* why ? you don't usually hold back :)
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EW GURU
Latest post on 20 January 2011 - 11:13
hole your tongue, which actually is rather refreshing. Is that a punishment for swearing in public? :) LMAO !!! no - it's bad spelling lol Was joking! ;-)
 
 

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