Why is English swearing so weak?

Franco   Wed Jun 27, 2007 4:33 am GMT
Why does English have only two swear words? The F word and C word.

All that is done is simply add 'fucking' to sentence so many times! So , unoriginal!
furrykef   Wed Jun 27, 2007 5:00 am GMT
We already had this topic a while ago. We don't need it again.
Franco   Wed Jun 27, 2007 5:07 am GMT
Where?
furrykef   Wed Jun 27, 2007 6:28 am GMT
Doesn't matter. In any case, English has plenty of swear words that you can use in plenty of ways to offend plenty of people.
Mark   Wed Jun 27, 2007 4:19 pm GMT
"Doesn't matter. In any case, English has plenty of swear words that you can use in plenty of ways to offend plenty of people."

Perhaps that is what makes them weak, to constantly hear swear words may lessen the effect, in polite society to swear may cause more offence than in a society where politeness is not a virtue.
Liz   Wed Jun 27, 2007 4:29 pm GMT
Let's not start this debate all over again...
Skippy   Wed Jun 27, 2007 5:29 pm GMT
Are they weak? My impression has been that English-speakers tend to be more offended by swear words than German-speakers using swear words to one another, or Spanish-speakers, or Italian-speakers, etc.

Maybe it's just an American thing to get offended by obscenity...
greg   Wed Jun 27, 2007 10:43 pm GMT
Skippy : « Maybe it's just an American thing to get offended by obscenity... »

Y a du vrai là dedans.
Jim   Mon Jul 02, 2007 9:00 pm GMT
That well-worn phrase ...

"It's not what you say, it's how you say it."

has a lot of truth to it.
Guest   Tue Jul 03, 2007 12:07 pm GMT
Doesn't matter. In any case, English has plenty of swear words that you can use in plenty of ways to offend plenty of people.

It's true: English is plenty of swear words, it's a coarse and racist language, we have already stated it few time ago

« Maybe it's just an American thing to get offended by obscenity... »
Are Americans offended by obscenity????!!!!!
AH! now we understand the reason why they send all the obscenity outside their country (which is the 80% of worlsd production at least) worldwide: because they are offended by it!!
Jim   Tue Jul 03, 2007 3:19 pm GMT
English is not a racist language. There are racists who speak it, sure, but blaming the language itself is just nonsense.
Miss Guided   Tue Jul 03, 2007 4:41 pm GMT
Oh give it a fuckin rest folks.
Damian in Edinburgh   Tue Jul 03, 2007 5:20 pm GMT
English is not short of obscenities I don't think - it's just that some are used much more than others and are the ones that are voiced the most. Anyway, over time certain words considered truly vile sort of lose their shock potency and either die a death in usage or became pretty tame in current parlance. Look through the glossary of terms listed at the back of Samuel Pepys' published diaries and you will see which words were really offensive in his day but which are now used to mean something completely different and are now more or less "respectable". His diary entries are littered with "shits" and "fucks" and used without any hint of vulgarity or obscenity.....they simply referred to normal functions. As time passed they became words not used in "polite society"....maybe the prudish Victorians saw to that.

If people think English is short of colourful obscenities then I'd like to know which Language(s) have them in profusion and to the best effect. I did read that Russian is pretty well endowed with graphic expletives but I wouldn't know about that.
furrykef   Tue Jul 03, 2007 6:10 pm GMT
<< AH! now we understand the reason why they send all the obscenity outside their country (which is the 80% of worlsd production at least) worldwide: because they are offended by it!! >>

Well, America's very diverse... for everybody who makes a vulgar joke, there's somebody else who's offended by it...

- Kef
Uriel   Wed Jul 04, 2007 6:37 pm GMT
Americans NEVER use obscenities. Whenever I say goddamn, motherfucker, or dipshit, I always mean it in the nicest possible way, of course.