As an ESL: English is a fucking minefield.
minefield? your field? my field? field of mines? mine? field? mine field? minefield? field mine? fieldmine?
I can only imagine. On the other hand, most other languages don't have such an awesome and powerful array of offensive words. I mean, there's such a VARIETY of them, all offensive for different reasons. Racial words, toilet and bodily function words, words that are literally related to being cursed by God, offensive words exclusively about stupid people, words related to sexual intercourse, words specifically made to offend genders and sexual orientations, etc, on and on. It's impressive, even to a native speaker, when you really sit and think about it.
I think it comes from the sheer number of other languages that are related to English, as well as the fact that we'll just steal words from any other language, faster than just about anyone else.
EDIT: I'm not at all implying that other languages don't have words for all those things I listed. It's just that most other languages don't have the same categorization of "these words are swear words" that English does. As I understand it, most other languages have a much shorter list of words that are specifically taboo for anyone to say, in a polite context.
Rudeness in many other languages is more defined by the manner of speech, the degree of formality, etc. But we English speakers have this lovely category of words that are both nominally "forbidden," yet also used all the time, by almost everyone.
Languages aren't based of English as far as I've understood. English is a germanic language, just like German (obviously), Dutch, Danish and many others. So it's shared origins but not based of English.
Also I at least know Dutch actually full on has swear words like you describe. I've never heard of another language having something like the N-word though. That seems to be unique.
As I understand it, most other languages have a much shorter list of words that are specifically taboo for anyone to say, in a polite context.
Well, you understand wrong.
But we English speakers have this lovely category of words that are both nominally “forbidden,” yet also used all the time, by almost everyone.
Please don't attempt to make these kinds of linguist generalisations when you have next to no knowledge about anything else but your native language. Again, this is not exceptional to English at all.
On the other hand, most other languages don't have such an awesome and powerful array of offensive words
Lmao I think most people believe this about their native tongue.
Yeah other languages normally get their swears from words for things that are considered taboo but english just has such a variety. We have swears/slurs that are related to:
- bodily functions
- bodily fluids
- sex
- relationships
- some animals
- being sent to hell
- various other religious (mostly catholic) things
- thinking you're better than others
- thinking others are better than you
- and probably some others that I've forgotten about/don't know of
But also not all words from those categories are swears and not all of those swears are always swears. We also have words that sound/look like swears but aren't.
edit: it would appear that I am incorrect
The middle English word for "stingy"?
People probably didn't even know this was a word until they saw this meme.
Meh, it comes up more often than you think. There's a whole Wikipedia page about it's "controversial" use even. I doubt it's as unknown to the general populous as you think.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controversies_about_the_word_niggardly
I knew the word but didn't know what it meant until I looked it up after seeing this. I think I assumed it had something to do with the word we're all skirting around (makes me sound like I have to try to not say it - ugh) but it's from the middle ages and means "stingy", if anyone wants to know.
Older books have it pretty frequently. And gay for happy. And removed for
OPbundle of sticks. And so on. Pretty funny reading some of that stuff these days.If you've never seen anybody use the word, just wait. It'll happen eventually.
Someone in your local-level politics (a city councilman, someone on a university board, etc) or your place of employment will whip that word out, and facepalming will ensue.
It'll be a white guy in his fifties. He'll say that shit in a public setting. People will be like "WTF, man." And then he'll be like "ACKSHUALLY, Niggardly (noun: niggard) is an adjective meaning 'stingy' or 'miserly'. Niggard (14th C) is derived from the Middle English word meaning 'stingy,' nigon, which is probably derived from two other words also meaning 'stingy,' namely, Old Norse hnǫggr and Old English hnēaw."
And he will be genuinely surprised when people don't treat him as a hero.
Parsimonious is just a better word to use at that point in a rant.
Yup. It's a cooler word, anyway.
I remember a politician in 97 or 98 literally tanking his career doing that...don't care if it means miserly...not touching it.
"Seek offence and you shall find it" - The unofficial motto of Tumblr
It's not really a word that is used anymore, though I have encountered it in some older books.
Yeah, does "any reason" include making a meme? Because that jumped up to one of the top reasons I've seen that word used just today. Minutes ago, even.
There's an alternate pronunciation and spelling of the word snickering. Same sentiment applies.
"Snickering", as far as I can tell is just the American version of "sremoveding". I can't track down the etymology of the split and so I can't see any huge mentions of "it sounded a bit racist so we changed it" but I guess it seems plausible given things like "titbit" being changed to "tidbit".
While someone saying "niggardly" is a bit suspicious given that it's a pretty archaic word that most people haven't even heard of, "sremoveding" is a pretty normal word to use in Britain. I imagine if some racist wants to start using it as a bit of coded bigotry they could, American-branded homophobia has already ruined the word "fags" to describe your cigs!
Sremoved? Jesus Christ that's just a normal word. What's next? Being from Niger is racist?
Is the issue that it sounds like an American origin racist word?
Should Spanish people also change their word for black because of youse?
Wait until they hear about the countries and people of Montenegro… or Niger… or Nigeria. I count myself as an honorary Welsh person. Nice harmless word - until you look into it and discover that it is at best a bad term. Should I go to war against anyone that uses the verb “welch” for all the negative connotations it has for my adopted people?
"his"tory reinforces the patriarchy because words sound the same! 🙄
“Hey, I said it with a hard D though!”
A hard D is what your mom got last night.
Hard D is the opposite of hard R, I guess?
Eh gate keeping non-offensive words seems a bit daft.
I learned a new word!
Reminds me of when Obama was president and some totally not racist tea party conservatives suddenly just loved mentioning that the president "reneged" on this or that.
You find reneged to be racist? Americans are wild wtf.
Welcome to the funhouse of undulating mirrors, where words become meaningless, they can mean whatever you want (or don't want) them to mean.
This is also where we imbue magical powers to some words, as we try to ban them... which only makes them more powerful and volatile, and they might even suddenly manifest themselves implied in places and other words where they've never been implied before!
I don't think it's racist. I think it's more that the person saying that Obama reneged thinks that makes Obama a "renegger" when it actually makes him a renegade.
It is when you specifically say it in reference to a black person while overemphasizing the part of the word that phonetically sounds like the first syllable of the n word. The word itself is not racist, the usage of the word to call out a person's race as a negative attribute certainly is.
God. My brain uses that word. And my tongue and soul hate it.
It derives from "stingy," so I'm not sure you even know the etymology of the word if you're trying to imply it has anything to do with race.
I could see this being the case if people used it incorrectly often; but it's not very commonly used at all, much less used out of context because it sounds like another N word.
The meme is calling people out who purposely use it to get a reaction
