More reasonable future swearing Options

[Tyro]

I was reading this thread and someone pointed out that swearing in the future should follow changed cultural influences. As I have no working knowledge of Japanese or Northwestern Amerind languages and my knowledge of Spanish is mostly academic (for some reason college classes skip over slang - a stupid way of doing things in my opinion), I find myself in need of some experts. This being dumpshock, the most culturally diverse forum I've ever come across, I figure someone here will have good knowledge of these and other languages' gutterspeak.

Limited discussion or debate is fine ("I like drek for English-speaking games set in Germany"), but please try to stay on topic: I want words your mother would punish you for even knowing. Creativity is encouraged; single words are fine, but phrases are better, especially with examples for proper use.

[Khyron]

Most of the modern cursewords have been around for many centuries, I doubt they're going to suddenly vanish in 70 years.

[tsuyoshikentsu]

I'm having trouble accessing the site -- I'm beginning to suspect that Delta censors their in-flight wireless -- but insultmonger.com is the site for you.

[Tyro]

Most of the modern cursewords have been around for many centuries, I doubt they're going to suddenly vanish in 70 years.

I'm not saying they will; I'm saying extant curse words from other cultures will become more common in the UCAS. Polyglot culture and all that.

[BlueMax]

Most of the modern cursewords have been around for many centuries, I doubt they're going to suddenly vanish in 70 years.

I would counter this argument but my argument would be old and tired. Instead, I will just use some of my favorite curse words.

BlueMax
/the gray hairs have won

[Brazilian_Shinob...]

I'm from a portuguese-speaking country. Portuguese and spanish have enough similarities and culture background to have close curse expressions.
Here are some of them:

S: Hijo de puta/P: Filho da puta -> Son of a whore
S: Ir a tomar el culo/P: Vá tomar no cu -> Go fuck yourself.
S & P: Caralho! -> Fuck!

[Kerenshara]

"trahnite vashu matj!" - common Russian insult for instructing somebody to commit incest with their mother... for the Vory at the docks.

(That's the literal translation from Cyrillic to Latin)

[shuya]

one of my personal favorites is "chinga tu madre!" which i would never of course have the balls to SAY, because i am not from a spanish-speaking culture, and would probably mess it up pretty hardcore. i believe it means "f*** your mother," but not in a directed sense, i.e., not ABOUT somebody's mother, it's just the kinda thing you say when you're pissed off, when you've eff'ed something up, etc. don't take my word for that one.

but really, if i thought the other people i played shadowrun with would understand me, my characters would boast a rather extensive polyglot vocabulary. as it stands, my games are usually in english, and as such so is the swearing. maybe the next character i play, though, will make great use of foreign language expletives as my own personal exercise in acting - if you can't understand what she's saying, you'll at least get that she's really pissed off

[Alexand]

Most of the modern cursewords have been around for many centuries, I doubt they're going to suddenly vanish in 70 years.

*sigh* BlueMax already saw where this is going but I can't resist.

Speaking as a former English Major, this is misleadingly true. It's true in that the words themselves often have existed for centuries. It's misleading in that those words did NOT have the same meaning as 'curse' words for all of that time.

As generations come and go people change how they uses words to sound different from their parents (amoung other reasons). Most of what we use today as curse words would have had an entirely different cultural meaning a few centuries ago, let alone 70 years ago.

*awaits the inevitible (sic) *

[Heath Robinson]

Linguists are generally in agreement that language use changes over time. If we wanted a more "authentic" experience of what the future might be, we'd be speaking in character as if we were from Anthony Burgess' A Clockwork Orange.

Except A Clockwork Orange is practically unreadable because of the slang. People who read it mostly do so because it's culturally significant (I read it for this reason) and not for fun. Learning an entirely new language is decidedly not fun. We play RPGs to have fun. Therefore, forcing people to learn a new language in order to play is not something we want people to do. So why do we expect them to learn half a new language?


I thought we'd gone through this a million times. Using modern English is the right choice because it's easier on newbies and the game needs newbies.

[Tyro]

one of my personal favorites is "chinga tu madre!" which i would never of course have the balls to SAY, because i am not from a spanish-speaking culture, and would probably mess it up pretty hardcore. i believe it means "f*** your mother," but not in a directed sense, i.e., not ABOUT somebody's mother, it's just the kinda thing you say when you're pissed off, when you've eff'ed something up, etc. don't take my word for that one.

<snip>

The command form (ordering someone to fuck their mother) is chingale tu madre.

Speaking as a former English Major, this is misleadingly true. It's true in that the words themselves often have existed for centuries. It's misleading in that those words did NOT have the same meaning as 'curse' words for all of that time.

As generations come and go people change how they uses words to sound different from their parents (amoung other reasons). Most of what we use today as curse words would have had an entirely different cultural meaning a few centuries ago, let alone 70 years ago.

I can back this up. I took anthropological linguistics for fun ^_^

[BlueMax]

I thought we'd gone through this a million times. Using modern English is the right choice because it's easier on newbies and the game needs newbies.

Sorry for the short quote. If you are offended by the lack of context, please let me know and I will edit the first paragraph back in.

No. The use of modern English may be the correct choice now that there are no other reasonably near future games to play and for marketing reasons, Shadowrun is taking the refugees from the failed games. When there is competition, you want to stand out. The product must be unique. And it was, and the results were glorious.


BlueMax

[Kerrang]

I'm having trouble accessing the site -- I'm beginning to suspect that Delta censors their in-flight wireless -- but insultmonger.com is the site for you.

Looks like that site may be down, or offline, I can't reach it either, and there is nothing here that would keep me from doing so.

A few Spanish (Mexican) swear words off the top of my head:

bandecho - roughly equivalent to asshole
maricon - faggot
puta - whore or bitch
maricon puto - male homosexual whore
mierda - shit

I have heard/read in many places that native american languages in general, and Lakota (Sioux) in particular, have no swear words. This is patently false, I spent some time on Pine Ridge Indian Reservation (Oglala Sioux) in South Dakota when I was in High School, and a friend I made there taught me several Lakotan swear words. Unfortunately, I can only remember one of them, and cannot be sure of the spelling:

winkdae - faggot

[Kerenshara]

And let's not forget the ability for certain words to bleed into culture from surprising sources. For example, have you heard this lately:

Frak = Battlestar Galactica
Frell = Farscape

I myself like a couple made-up words from John Ringo's "Looking Glass" Series.

Grapp = intercourse - "The grapping thing's broken again"
Maulk = excrement - "Oh, maulk. Not again."
Blage = (not really a swear) lash-up/jury-rig/improvise/slap together. "I'll see what I can blage together. Thank gods for duct-tape."
Behanchod = (actually Hindu I believe) one who fornicates with their sister.

I use them regularly in the real world, usually to the perplexed/ammused expression of my friends and co-workers. I also use felgercarb, but that doesn't seem to have leaked like Frak did.

Or how about old words coming back again? "Bloody" sounds harmless enough to people but not so long ago it was very vile to conservative ears and I use it all the time.

Who knows what will crop up next? Maybe somebody who's a Shadowrun fan from on old will wind up making a feature film or cult television series and one of the characters will call somebody's backside a "hoop" or tell somebody to "slott off!" or "Ah, drek!" Then we have leakage.

Want an interesting experiment? (If you have read Stranger In a Strange Land) try using the word grok in public. You'd be amazed at the little underground you accidentally tap into by whose ears perk up hearing that in normal conversation.

Finally, don't overlook the possibility for new verbs to appear, as "verbing" seems to be the latest trend, where adjectives and nouns suddenly morph into verbs or even nouns (or going the other way). How about "Google it"? It's in Websters. "Wow, thar was really fail" comes to mind going the other direction.

I don't see any reason that the euphamistic words in the older books can't be just as real as any other expression of anger, disbelief, exasperation, frustration, rage or surprise. After all, it's the context that establishes the meaning of a word: "Sugar! Well, that's going to be a flipping mess." It doesn't matter what words I just used, because my sentiment was clearly captured and conveyed to the listener (or reader, in this case).

[McCummhail]

Weeeell... Everyone knows OMAE as an impolite way to say YOU.

Here is a more thorough list of Japanese words than I would care to compile.

That list is actually pretty damn good now that I re-read it.

Some of them could get me fired at work even!

EDIT: Oh yeah, my quote!　
何 や � � ん � ？� � 飛 � � � �
Nah-knee yah-ten-da? Boot-toe-bah-sue-zee!
What the hell you doin? I'll [fucking] kick your ass!

[mattman]

I have heard/read in many places that native american languages in general, and Lakota (Sioux) in particular, have no swear words. This is patently false, I spent some time on Pine Ridge Indian Reservation (Oglala Sioux) in South Dakota when I was in High School, and a friend I made there taught me several Lakotan swear words. Unfortunately, I can only remember one of them, and cannot be sure of the spelling:

winkdae - faggot

If I recall currectly, wink'ta sp. has two uses. First it roughly translates into househusband. Wink'ta are males who choose to live as female and fulfill ALL the female roles with the exception of childbirth. The other use is the deragatory "girly man"/homosexual.

[Heath Robinson]

No. The use of modern English may be the correct choice now that there are no other reasonably near future games to play and for marketing reasons, Shadowrun is taking the refugees from the failed games. When there is competition, you want to stand out. The product must be unique. And it was, and the results were glorious.

You speak as if the only worth of SR1 was in the slang. Would you care to revise your statement in light of the implications?

I believe that slangs are maintained because they serve to alienate people outside the ingroup (that is, provide a distinction between ingroup and outgroup that is readily visible), and they have an invisible effect on the perception of those who know them that makes them perceive positively both those who know the slang and the slang itself. I posit that the vector by which a slang attains this positive perception is the halo effect, and the perception is borrowed from positive events occuring whilst the slang was used. Ultimately, however, the slang serves to provide a barrier to entry - a heavy wooden door you must strain against before you may enter the room - that serves the gratification of the ingroup by feeling of superiority. This barrier to entry is an albatross that could be done without.

[BlueMax]

Not as if it were the only worth but as a uniqueness. SR1 had many unique qualities in its crunch and fluff as well. The intent was to claim that it was a uniqueness, and a marketable one at that.

As to your alienation theory, I think the opposite. Shadowrun "cant" when heard allows someone to approach the subject of Shadowrun with the speaker.

"I shoot the F(@#$@R!" could be from anywhere, one even hears this at D&D tables.

"I frag the drekhead" Is Shadowrun.

BlueMax

[Tyro]

I wish we had better vocabulary lists for Or'zet and Sperethiel (IMG:style_emoticons/default/frown.gif)

[McCummhail]

I wish we had better vocabulary lists for Or'zet and Sperethiel (IMG:style_emoticons/default/frown.gif)

Or'zet

Sperethiel

Not a very extensive list of expletives, but it's a start.
I have a feeling that a certain ancient individual may know more.

[Tyro]

Or'zet

Sperethiel

Not a very extensive list of expletives, but it's a start.
I have a feeling that a certain ancient individual may know more.

I've seen those. A very limited list, esp. for name ideas :-/

[McCummhail]

If we had an OCD linguist we might get a full language on par with Tolkien's ventures.
Fortunately there are many variations of elven and orkish tongues in SF/Fantasy,
making the borrowing and adapting viable for your game if you should desire.

A Lexicon worth or terms in either would be awesome!

[Tyro]

<snip>
A Lexicon worth or terms in either would be awesome!

Seconded.

[Kerenshara]

Anybody remember in 1st Ed, there was a thing about non-elves taking Sperethiel as a language? The line was the elf you're trying to impress by speaking "elvish" and their reply is "You want to do WHAT to my dog?"

[Chrysalis]

If we had an OCD linguist we might get a full language on par with Tolkien's ventures.
Fortunately there are many variations of elven and orkish tongues in SF/Fantasy,
making the borrowing and adapting viable for your game if you should desire.

A Lexicon worth or terms in either would be awesome!

There are numerous books written on Tolkiens languages. Some are out of print, but there are a lot of them. There are also language websites online dealing with Tolkien. There is even Klingon as a language.

If you want to learn orkish, pick Hittite. If you want to learn elvish, pick a proto-Germanic language.