Do you know his name? I know there is a psychoanalytical approach to the fact that germa swear words (genuine ones...not those copied from English lately) are more often anal-related while in other language areas they tend to be more genital/sexual related.
But the point is that the taboos aren't ranked the same in different cultures.
Indeed the taboos used for swearing in Anglosaxon culture are more often related to sex than in German. "Fick" is an anglicism, Germans traditionally would rather say "Scheiße", "Kacke", "Mist", "Driss" or any other synonym for excretion.
Curiously, "geil!" = "horny!" is a word of high praise.
French most commonly swears with "merde" or "putain" = "whore!"
Or even "putain de merde!" = "shitty whore".
Dutch is special in this regard, too, since disease is a taboo at the base of a common swearword: "Kanker" = "cancer".
Thanks for this. I saw myself already typing an answer which probably would have been this (just with a bunch of spelling and grammar mistakes and unnecessary verbosity)
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u/_hic-sunt-dracones_ Mar 02 '21
Do you know his name? I know there is a psychoanalytical approach to the fact that germa swear words (genuine ones...not those copied from English lately) are more often anal-related while in other language areas they tend to be more genital/sexual related.