Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with profanity

Toddler dropping the F-bomb! How to get him to stop?

mikee — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 09:45:20 -0800

My toddler is saying, "fuck". Funny when some kid on YouTube says it, not funny when your 2 year old says it at a church during prayer! And he's not trying to say truck like a defective Elmo. He's actually picked it up...(I'm no an angel, but my wife and I try to watch our mouths) and ohmygosh please any ideas on how to make him stop? What sucks the most is most other parents assume his mom and I swear like sailors. My theory on how he picked it up...he probably heard us or TV say the word or he was trying to say another word...we reacted to it...and now it's his favorite little show when he's angry and not getting his way. We've tried suggesting he was trying to say another word like frog or truck...telling him to say another word that's more fun like "fooey"...and now since he gets a devlish look on his face when he says it, so we've opted for discipline. Other parents: your kids ever done this so young? Did people look at you like the scum of the earth when he was throwing a tantrum at Target, too? lol

What did she $#&!ing say?

imposster — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 19:56:42 -0800

Top Chef (this week's episode, the semi-final): At the judges table, Gail Simmons had a multisyllabic outburst of profanity that was bleeped. What did she say?

Easy Reader goes blue, Lucinda turns to the green

Lucinda — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 10:28:44 -0800

Question about Morgan Freeman (spoilers for Wanted inside). One of the parts that got the biggest audience reaction was Morgan Freeman yelling "SHOOT THIS MOTHERFUCKER!" at the end of the movie. I've seen several movie reviews that also bring up this as a highlight of the film, leading me to think that he's never used profanity in a film before. Has he?

Who's the woman speaking on NWA's "Gangsta Gangsta"?

redteam — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 19:50:00 -0800

Who is the woman sampled speaking on NWA's "Gangsta Gangsta"? She says "hopin' you sophisticated motherfuckers here what I have to say", "he'll fuck up you and yours - and anything that gets in his way", and "he'll just call you a lowlife motherfucker and talk about your funky ways." I've checked http://www.the-breaks.com/ and the samples section on "Straight Outta Compton's" Wikipedia page.

I remember at Lollapalooza '93 in Los Angeles, the sound guys played the source of those samples in between bands. It was like a series of speeches by a woman. I'd really like to hear it in its entirety but I've never been able to find it.

Cussin' and Writin'

clairezulkey — Fri, 10 Nov 2006 08:33:08 -0800

Writers: When do you use profanity in writing? I'm working on an essay, and I'm at a section where I'm yelling at my boyfriend for doing something stupid and I'm waffling between putting down what I really said ("You better cut this shit out"), and making it nicer ("You better cut this out.")

Eventually I'd like to submit this essay to a major newspaper so I'll take out the profanity, but I was just curious if you other writers have policies on how much profanity you use in your writing--as much as you want? Just for effect? None at all?

Obviously, if you're writing for the New York Times, you're not going to be dropping f-bombs in your pieces, but how about for your fiction, creative nonfiction, essays, blogs, plays, screenplays?

Drunken Finnish Rant

MaxVonCretin — Thu, 31 Aug 2006 23:16:16 -0800

I am in receipt of a brief paragraph of text in Finnish (~35 words, posted inside) that I need to translate to English. I've tried using various online translator tools, but I suspect it might be too laden with OFFENSIVE DRUNKEN PROFANITY (just a contextual hunch) for them to make heads or tails of it. Can anyone recommend a translator that might handle it, or (better yet) are any Finnish speakers lurking who might be so kind as to interpret? THE RANT IN QUESTION:

Vittu kokoo ny ittes!!! Jätä muu maailma rauhaan!
Vittu jos etsit kemiallisia aseita - etsi Jenkeistä.
Jos etsit ydinaseita - etsi Israelista.
Kerää ny ittes!
*Keskity ennemmin siihen miten sun tyttäres hölmöilee baareissa!!! Haloo!
(=ruosalainen pornolehti!)

Bloody Hell!

Navelgazer — Wed, 30 Aug 2006 20:17:23 -0800

A general question about the etymology/evolution of profanity as it is generally used in the English language. I'm interested in both comprehensive site links and MeFite theories as to why some English profanity comes into/falls out of favor as times change, where the offensive terms come from, and why some of them seem to be country-specific (for instance, why "bloody" is offensive in England, but not in the U.S., while "cunt" is among the most taboo in the states, but is ubiquitous in Scotland, etc.)

I'm not looking for this to be a chatfilter query, but the sociology and linguistics of obscenity do kind of fascinate me.

What's the dirtiest book?

ktoad — Tue, 09 May 2006 12:53:52 -0800

What is the most profane novel ever written? I'm talking about the absolute dirtiest work of fiction. And by "dirty" I don't really mean sexual content, like a de Sade book. I'm more interested in sheer volume of swears. Thanks!

How to deal with a cussing child?

cedar — Wed, 19 May 2004 12:17:59 -0800

Cussing kids. My sweet little baby girl (8) cut loose with an unbelievable string of profanity when she got off the school bus today. I was actually embarrassed, and believe me, that takes a lot. I have no idea where it came from. We don't speak like that and her peer group consists of exactly one child (very small school). I didn't even know she knew these words. Besides grounding her forever (done) and I have no idea how to best to address this.

What is the derivation of profane language in Deadwood?

Ethereal Bligh — Tue, 06 Apr 2004 19:15:48 -0800

Paging Laguagehat! The new HBO series "Deadwood", set in the infamous old-west Dakota terrritory town, is notably profane—even moreso than other HBO shows. This has generated some press and controversy. [more inside] Reading the TWoP forum for the show and elsewhere, I've seen many people complain that the profanity is "modern" and "jarring". Some people have objected to "cunt", for example. But I know that "cunt" is a very old word and appears in Chaucer. So, too, are many of our profanities very, very old words. And in the linked article, the show's creator defends the profanity as historically accurate.

My intuition is that while a good number of profane words are very old, profane neologisms are coined and go in and out of fashion. I don't doubt that some of our profanities are relatively recent. The claim is made that "motherfucker", for example, is only a few decades old.

But even if most of the profanities that appear in "Deadwood" are very old, I also wonder if how they are commonly used doesn't change over time, in some cases quite dramatically. In this sense, "Deadwood's" profanity may be very anachronistic.

So I wonder what the linguists have to say about this, particularly our esteemed Languagehat. But this also brings up the related problem of translation; that is to say, is it more "accurate" to reproduce the language as it was spoken in 1870s Deadwood, or to translate it into a modern vernacular with a similar emotional resonance?

Are there any good techniques for training oneself to curse less?

Monster_Zero — Sat, 20 Dec 2003 11:28:11 -0800

I am developing a problem with cursing, and I'd rather like to curb it before I end up making a grave social mistake. Are there any good techniques for dealing with this? [more inside] Thus far in my life I have managed to ensure that I only do any serious amounts of cursing when nobody's around. I can tell, however, that the use of obscenities is slowly encroaching on my public self, and instead of accidentally cursing like a sailor in front of my parents, or belting out a string of foul language in a mall, I'd just like to try to put a damper on my use of bad language once and for all.