At some point during the semester one of my students said that she thought English people cursed more than Americans. She had spent a few years in England, and apparently the English were always dropping the f-word. By contrast, when she'd gone to the States, all the Americans tried to avoid cursing as much as possible. Or if they did let a swear word slip past, they immediately apologized for their language. Another student agreed with the first's observations and then added that the French cursed even more than the English did.
As I later reflected on this, it occurred to me that this was probably true. My students are always saying "putain" this and "putain" that. "Putain" by the way, is the equivalent of the f-word. And maybe this would seem normal on a college campus. After all, I've heard it plenty of times at UW and at KU--a common word in students' vocabulary. In France, however, it's definitely not limited to young people who are talking with their friends and peers. My dad once recounted the story of how he and my mom were taking a tour of the Louvre with an English-speaking French guide. They had stopped in front of a painting of two lovers, and as the guide was describing the lovers' secret affair, she casually added about the woman, "Of course she f***ed him." My dad was completely taken aback and quickly looked around to see if anyone else had noticed. Unfortunately, the other tourists' attention spans were a bit shorter and they showed absolutely no reaction, or perhaps they had just assumed that she couldn't have said such a word to a tourist group. My mom swears the guide did not say that word. However, given my experiences here, I'm more inclined to believe that she did. How many times have I heard journalists on national television say "putain"? Many, many times. How many times have I heard them say "f***"? Surprisingly more often than one would think. No FCC here to punish them with fines for indecent language.
Even in Gaby's family, the language is more vulgar than it is in my American family. And it's not as if his family is considered exceptional as far as bad language; rather, this is the norm. One evening before dinner, I told Gaby's mom that grading tons of essays was really "chiant" because that's the word I've heard people use when they want to say something is really annoying and boring. Her face lit up and she exclaimed, "Wow, you're really making progress in French!" This is the phrase she uses whenever I unintentionally use vulgar language. Literally I had said that that grading a ton of papers is "shitty." Similarly, if I wanted to express that something was broken, or ruined or messed up completely, I would be inclined to say it was "foutu" and I would be thinking "broken, ruined, etc." But really this is the equivalent of saying that something is "f***ed" or all "f***ed up."
I asked my students if they said such words in front of their grandparents. Most shrugged and said it depended on the grandparents while some even claimed that their own grandparents said such words. What? I tried to imagine my grandmother ever saying something along the lines of "My garden is completely f***ed up, Rod." o_O No. No no no no no.
In France those words just don't seem to carry the same taboo. I don't know if that's strange or if it's stranger that we place such importance on them in English. Or maybe it's just that curse words in English sound harsher and uglier than they do in French. Perhaps more people, including the French, would agree with the Merovingian that "[cursing in French] is like wiping your ass with silk."
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Excuse my French
Posted by Hil at 8:24 AM
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5 comments:
I'm not sure we (as in, me and my small family) curse a lot. I use slang a lot, my mother does a bit, but that's it, I can still think of occasions when I'm told to watch my language.
The thing about vulgarity here is that most words have completely lost their meaning. What I mean by that is when you say "con" in french, you'll think of "stupid" with little emphasis. When it's actually the c-word, to give perspective. But nobody knows that. Nobody. Same for "foutu", we think of "damn messed up", which is considerably less bad than it really is. Most people never thought of its etymology.
The english language has a tendency to be more literal. All latin languages are IMO less about precise descriptions, more about blurry evocations, minimal definitions. That's why we are bad at getting straight to the point.
(anyway, I removed my first commentabove to correct a grammar mistake...)
Slightly off-topic, but your (rather funny) imagery about your grandma talking about her f-ed up garden made me wonder...will those of us who use that word so regularly and more casually now, when we're in our 20s and 30s use that word when we are your grandma's age? And if so, will it seem funny to our grandchildren? (To be even more off-topic, I wonder the same thing about music. I mean, envisioning a grandma listening to Tupac b/c that is what she listened to when she was a teenager is just hilarious to me.)
I think I might die laughing if I ever hear Grandma say that her garden is f*ed up. Or anything else being f*ed up for that matter.
I would die too if I ever heard Grandma say that. I can't even imagine her EVER having said it. EVER. As for being an old lady and listening to what we consider "non-old people" music, I think that our grandparents might have thought that their music was something new and "radical" compared to that of their grandparents'. And then there are our parents. We laugh at their golden oldies, but back in their day that was "devil's music." hahaha. So maybe music will evolve once again to the point that even if we did listen to Tupac, our grandkids would think it was "old-fashioned." Altho, then again, I can't imagine how it could possibly get more in your face than it is today. Hmm...it should be interesting.
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