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Quick question about Spanish profanity | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Questions About Your Target Languages |  | |
| Andrew~ Groupie United States howlearnspanish.com Joined 5063 days ago 42 posts - 67 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Japanese | Message 1 of 14 13 July 2010 at 10:21am | IP Logged | ||
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Joder vs. Follar and when is it sexual vs. when is it not.
So Urban Dictionary (great source for slang terms in foreign languages, by the way, especially Spanish) says that joder is generally only used in the sense of "f**ked with" or "f**ked up", but it does NOT usually have a sexual connotation, however my Spanish dictionary (spanishdict.com) seems to disagree with this and says that it CAN have a sexual connotation. Now, follar, on the other hand, is listed in Spanishdict.com as meaning "f**k" and only in the sexual sense BUT it also says that it's peninsular Spanish, implying that it's not used in Latin America--is this true? I'm a bit confused and would just like some clarification so I don't say something stupid at some point. I'm primarily concerned with Latin American Spanish, and would just like to know which word to use when, essentially. If I accidentally break my computer, I want to tell my Colombian friend that "I f**ked up my computer", not that I had sex with it :D . See what I mean? Thanks ahead of time for any assistance. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| patuco Diglot Moderator Gibraltar Joined 6810 days ago 3795 posts - 4268 votes Speaks: Spanish, English* Personal Language Map | Message 2 of 14 13 July 2010 at 11:35am | IP Logged | ||
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Follar means sexual intercourse, whilst joder does theoretically mean that also, but it's usually used as "damn" or "shit" would be in English (i.e. an expletive). It's also more "formal" than follar which is quite vulgar.
Basically, if you "f**ked up your computer" you would use joder (properly conjugated of course!) not follar. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| lynxrunner Bilingual Triglot Senior Member United States crittercryptics.com Joined 5717 days ago 361 posts - 461 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish*, French Studies: Russian, Swedish, Haitian Creole | Message 3 of 14 13 July 2010 at 8:24pm | IP Logged | ||
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Joder only means "f**ked up" as in "screwed up, messed up, ruined" - at least in my
dialect. You could say something like "Se jodió mi computadora!" for "my computer's ruined/f**ked up/whatever". *by the way, is there a reason "damn" and "shit" don't have to be censored but "f**k" does? I'm just curious; is there a rule in the forum about which words to be censored? I consider shit to be just as rude as f**k so I'm confused. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| patuco Diglot Moderator Gibraltar Joined 6810 days ago 3795 posts - 4268 votes Speaks: Spanish, English* Personal Language Map | Message 4 of 14 14 July 2010 at 2:43am | IP Logged | ||
There's no rule as such. The forum software used to automatically censor certain words (I think it still does*) but if swear words are being discussed, I don't believe that there's any need for censorship. I just censored f**k since, for me, it's much ruder than either damn (which I consider quite low down on the "profanity scale") and shit. EDIT: Just checking - Sc**thorpe (yes, this town still cannot be mentioned!) Edited by patuco on 14 July 2010 at 2:48am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| MixedUpCody Senior Member United States Joined 5051 days ago 144 posts - 280 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Mandarin | Message 5 of 14 03 August 2010 at 1:47am | IP Logged | ||
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This is probably off topic, but does anyone know how words become profane? I mean if synonyms are okay and the sound of the word doesn't cause physical harm how does it get to be bad in the first place? Seems sort of arbitrary to me.
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 5806 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 6 of 14 03 August 2010 at 12:33pm | IP Logged | ||
Often it's a case of elitism -- if the lower classes use a word and the upper classes don't, it's considered "vulgar". Take "bloody". At some point in history, this was described as a corruption of "by our lady", so was considered one of the most unconscionable blasphemies imaginable. But in fact, it comes from the same root as the German bludig (sp?) which is still used to this day exactly like the English "bloody", so "bloody" is exactly what it claims to be -- ie about blood -- and nothing to do with the Virgin Mary. However, while the upper classes would happily blaspheme with "damnation", that was OK cos it was a Latinate and/or French word, so educated, good and proper, whereas "bloody" was what commoners said so was obviously worse, despite having no actual genuine reason to offend anybody on heaven or Earth. "f**k" is a Germanic word, but "sex" is from Latin. Note the difference in perceived rudeness. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| MixedUpCody Senior Member United States Joined 5051 days ago 144 posts - 280 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Mandarin | Message 7 of 14 03 August 2010 at 6:48pm | IP Logged | ||
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Cainntear, thank you very much for your reply. That was the best explanation I've ever heard. It was funny that you brought up "bloody", In the U.S. people only use bloody literally or when they're pretending to be British.
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| psy88 Senior Member United States Joined 5386 days ago 469 posts - 882 votes Studies: Spanish*, Japanese, Latin, French | Message 8 of 14 04 August 2010 at 3:09am | IP Logged | ||
In the award winning Mexican movie, "Y Tu Mama Tambien", the female character uses "follar" very clearly to mean "intercourse". 1 person has voted this message useful |
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