>
>
>
>
> > We have seen religious cursing in Dragaera. I'm told French cursing
> > is religious. U.S. tends to be sexual and scatological. I wonder how
> > this varies around our world - and around Vlad's world.
>
> Well Holy Mary, mother-of-God, we don't have any religious swearing in
> the U.S. Christ, I mean, we're more godfearing folk than that. Hell,
> I'll wager we have fewer religious swears than any other language on
> earth, goddamit!
>
> Majikjon
>
> >> We have seen religious cursing in Dragaera. I'm told French
> >> cursing
> >> is religious. U.S. tends to be sexual and scatological. I
> >> wonder how
> >> this varies around our world - and around Vlad's world.
> >
> > Well Holy Mary, mother-of-God, we don't have any religious swearing
> > in the U.S. Christ, I mean, we're more godfearing folk than that.
> > Hell, I'll wager we have fewer religious swears than any other
> > language on earth, goddamit!
> >
> > Majikjon
>
> Jesus H Christ, can't you stick to the point? Holy Moses! Jeez!
>
>
Just reading the above made me reflect -- I assumed, reading the "Holy Mary"
stuff, that it came from a more-religious part of the US. Automatically.
And when I noticed myself assuming it, I wondered if maybe
more-religiously-inclined cultures (or in the US, subcultures) will tend to
swear more religiously. Or perhaps more recognizably religiously.
("Zounds", "Bloody" etc being no longer recognizably religious despite their
origin, and "Jeez" starting to lose it).
I lived in Italy for a few years and noticed that their swearing was usually
either religious, or sacred/profane mixes, (e.g. porcodio -- "pig-god").
They occasionally threw in "puttana" as somewhere in between (porca puttana
-- pig-whore) and it was considered really offensive. They had slang for
sexual/scatological bits and used them cheerfully as profanities, but they
had less power than the religious ones. And yes, they were all devout
catholics.
--
\Steve the Younger