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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| William Camden Hexaglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6062 days ago 1936 posts - 2333 votes  Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, Russian, Turkish, French | Message 9 of 20 03 October 2010 at 5:27pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Dictionaries, if they mention swear words and so on at all, don't always give clear guidance to their use. It is probably a good idea to be able to recognise such words but to avoid using them.
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| Old Chemist Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4963 days ago 227 posts - 285 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German | Message 10 of 20 03 October 2010 at 5:41pm | IP Logged | |||||
Absolutely. I have said elsewhere that I used various words I considered only rough slang - though swear words - and it got me into trouble. On a trivial point, I notice you speak Turkish. Is it true that "Erm," as pronounced in English as a hesitation has a rather personal meaning in Turkish?! 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| William Camden Hexaglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6062 days ago 1936 posts - 2333 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, Russian, Turkish, French | Message 11 of 20 05 October 2010 at 1:26pm | IP Logged | |||||
Yes, that is an obscenity, though I have never heard it actually used by Turkish speakers. I think if you throw such words about, your prestige is likely to plummet. In Midnight Express, Billy Hayes gives phonetically spelled versions of Turkish phrases he heard during five years of incarceration, some of them obscene. One he spells as omine koydum. Of course, Hayes was hanging out with mafiosi, as opposed to the Turkish Language Association. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| vilas Pentaglot Senior Member Italy Joined 6750 days ago 531 posts - 722 votes Speaks: Spanish, Italian*, English, French, Portuguese | Message 12 of 20 05 October 2010 at 4:16pm | IP Logged | |||||
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In Italian when we say that somebody something is "Figa" or "Figo" if is masculine means somebody is nice , attractive, excellent and "figa" means pussy, c**t...
In UK "c**t" is somebody not very nice. At the opposite everything that comes from "cazzo" (prick) is a bad thing or a bad person like "cazzata" or "cazzone" etc . the only exception is "cazzuto" that means a strong willed man 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| getreallanguage Diglot Senior Member Argentina youtube.com/getreall Joined 5261 days ago 240 posts - 371 votes Speaks: Spanish*, English Studies: Italian, Dutch | Message 13 of 20 09 October 2010 at 6:11pm | IP Logged | |||||
You might have misheard 'bendito', which is the masculine for the adjective for 'blessed'. 'Bendito' is sometimes used in Spanish as an ironic, tongue-in-cheek or mild form of 'maldito' (damned), which is basically like using 'f*cking' as an adjective in English. For example, 'el bendito ingeniero ya me tiene harto' (roughly 'the good engineer is driving me up the wall'), where the real meaning of 'bendito' is exactly the opposite. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| fireflies Senior Member Joined 4971 days ago 172 posts - 234 votes Speaks: English* | Message 14 of 20 12 October 2010 at 1:36am | IP Logged | |||||
Pendejo sort of sounds like bendigo too but that seems less likely to be mistaken for bendigo. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Deji Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5230 days ago 116 posts - 182 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Hindi, Bengali | Message 15 of 20 12 October 2010 at 5:55am | IP Logged | |||||
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In Hindi or Bengali DON'T call someone a "sala". Literally it means "brother-in-law". In common street use it is a lot
worse than "god-damned son of a bitch". Now how this got the meaning that it has--as a videshi, I leave it to a deshi to explain-- or theorize about. One of my favorites (basically because I like owls) is "Ullu ka bachha"--"son of an owl". That means a very stupid person. Interesting that we assume owls are wise and they assume they are stupid. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Old Chemist Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4963 days ago 227 posts - 285 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German | Message 16 of 20 12 October 2010 at 9:17am | IP Logged | |||||
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Thanks for all your fascinating and informative posts! The remark about the Turkish obscenity comes from a BBC documentary where an English teacher caused howls of laughter everytime he hesitated using that sound. I thought, from what was said, it was a fairly inocuous word. The BBC obviously got it wrong. Edited by Old Chemist on 12 October 2010 at 9:56am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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