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Bonus 13: The grammar of swearing
🕑 Added 2018-03-02 23:10:18 +0000 UTCTo celebrate a year of bonus episodes, we make good on our promise from the very first bonus episode that we'll come back and do MORE SWEARING! To everyone who's helped make the show sustainable, we're glad you're here.
Last time: sweary sounds and swears in other languages. This time: the peculiar grammar of swear words, featuring quite possibly the most bizarre and glorious example sentence in the history of linguistic example sentences (but if you have an example that tops it, we would very much like to know about it). Listen to them both back-to-back for a sweary double feature!
Note: episodes about swearing contain real swears. We do not recommend playing them around children because then you might have to explain why you're laughing so hard, and we can assure you that would be a very awkward conversation.
Links:
- Lingthusiasm bonus episode 1 - real swears and pseudo-swears
- Why can you infix 'bloody' but not 'crap'?
- What part of speech are emphatic infixes?
- "Proper use of the F word" (It turns out this is a Monty Python sketch)
- A linguist explains the syntax of 'fuck' (Gretchen for The Toast, archived)
- The origins and constraints of shitgibbon
- The rise of shitgibbons
- Douche what? (Superlinguo)
- Crikey Dick
- Crikey Moses
- Kory Stamper's Word by Word (Gretchen's livetweeting)
- Strong Language blog
You can listen to this episode on this page, via the Patreon RSS or download the mp3. A transcript is available for this episode as a Google Doc. Lingthusiasm is also on Facebook, Tumblr, and Twitter. Email us at contact [at] lingthusiasm [dot] com or chat to us on the Patreon page.
Gretchen is on Twitter as @GretchenAMcC and blogs at All Things Linguistic. Lauren is on Twitter as @superlinguo and blogs at Superlinguo.
Lingthusiasm is created by Gretchen McCulloch and Lauren Gawne. Our audio producer is Claire, our editorial producer is Emily, our production assistant is Celine, and our music is ‘Ancient City’ by The Triangles.
Comments
Lingthusiasm
Hah, I have definitely been known to say "what the!" I mean, what counts as a swear is really a matter of custom more than logic (I do know some people who object to "Oh god!", hence why "gosh" "golly" etc exist but it's definitely milder than "Christ!" and there's no real reason for it other than collective habit -- this is why I don't dare swear much in French even though I'm otherwise pretty fluent, because there are so many subtle social nuances there!)
Lingthusiasm
This is so cute! Do you think she knows the word "fuck" though, or is she just saying a different pronunciation, as far as she knows? (There was a delightful video going around a while back of a small child saying "fire fuck" for "fire truck"!)
But the next generation has no such qualms; my 2 1/2 year old niece recently learned to say “fudgesicle.” (Not sure if this is a strictly US phenomenon, but it’s a frozen chocolate dessert on a stick if people don’t know). For some unknown reason she is not able to pronounce the “dj“ sound in the middle of the word, so she substituted “k.” My brother has a video of her very politely and distinctly requesting a “fucksicle.”
