Wordy soul
Ever since finding out that I was a humanist, I’ve been trying to cleanse most of the religion based idioms from my day-to-day speech.
‘Bless you’ as a response to sneezing was easily replaced by the secular equivalent of ‘gesundheit’, although I have yet to find away to ask other people to do the same in response to my sneezes, but there are some trickier words and phrases…
I do love to blaspheme – it’s my default form of profanity. ‘Christ’, it has such an expressive sound.
The thing is, these words are now hollow to me. I mean, they have lost their weight and impact. I might as well use ‘Thor’ or any other deity from a religion I don’t subscribe to.
Also, it becomes more insulting to people who do believe – there’s something slightly more acceptable about blasphemy if you believe in god… it’s as if you must really mean it, whereas when I use it, it just sounds like mocking.
Then there are the phrases used in the comic, and others such as ‘how the devil are you?’… they’re great too; interesting idioms that add colour to language and evoke all forms of imagery. And not only do I love these phrases, but I realise that there are no replacements. When I stop using them I lose the ability to evoke those images.
I don’t think I ever realised what a mammoth task this was going to be. It seems that you can leave religion only so long as you take a vow of silence.
: (
Why so sad?
Why say anything to someone who sneezes? Isn’t the correct response to glare at them until they say “excuse me” since they just expunged bodily fluids near you?
“Gesundheit” means “health,” right? (it’s a german yiddish word) and is meant as a blessing. Who exactly is bestowing this blessing? I’m just playing devil’s advocate and I’m all for scrutinizing why we say the things we say, but it seems a little silly.
*person sneezes*
You: “I hope the universe favors you with random luck!”
??
My personal favorite thing to say to someone who sneezes, “Que le bon Dieu vous benisse, ou le diable vous rotisse.” (French: “May the good Lord bless you or the devil roast you.”
But then again I’m saying that because it’s possible they just sneezed out a malignant spirit. : )
“I hope the universe favors you with random luck!”
That’s great! Let’s all say that. In fact, why wait till someone sneezes? Let’s just use any opportunity to wedge that into casual conversation.
Well, we’re all constantly oozing bodily fluids, so it’s always appropriate! : )
South Park had the atheist future and they would replace “Jesus H. Christ” with “Science H. Logic” and stuff like that. I like that one, but for a while I was trying to replace any instance of “God” with “Slinky” in my speech, based on a religion I made up of worshipping Slinkies. And I like to blaspheme mostly as passive aggressive revenge for all the commercials for Christian Rock compilation CDs I’ve had to sit through watching late night TV.
I really need to catch up on my South Park.
I hear you can watch if online these days… think I need to book some face time with the internet.
Top stuff with slinky… it’s nice to have an object of worship that so clearly demonstrates physical laws such as gravity.
I prefer Futurama’s “Sweet Zombie Jesus!”
Great line…
FRY: So you guys don’t believe in robot Jesus?
ROBOT RABBI: We believe he was built, and that he was a very well programmed robot, but he’s not our messiah.
Alternatively, form the same source, Bender’s “Oh, your God!”.
/b
>I might as well use ‘Thor’ or any other deity from a religion I don’t subscribe to.
..as in “Thor God’s Sake!”?
/b
Redcard
Genius level pun…
you are congratulated and punished appropriately.
Technically all the days of the week were derived from religions of some sort, seems to be mostly greek gods. Then there is the whole structure of the calendar, a 7 day week has a lot of religious underpinnings and Saturday and Sunday as rest days has more religious underpinnings.
Interestingly enough from Wikipedia I learned that any month that begins on a Sunday has a Friday the 13th in it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunday
Cool fact of the week. I did not know that.
Friday 13th also having religious connotations – 13th apostle and all that…
Adam, you could just follow my example and swear freely, ignoring all origins of the chosen words.
Ben, I couldn’t swear like you if I tried… I always thought that the (northern) English accent was great for swearing, however it is bested by that of our antipodean cousins.
I’ve spent too many years swearing and cursing with abandon. I really need to cut back. But it warms my soul a little to know that you are carrying on the tradition.
I find that “microwave oven” has a good mouthfeel as a swear word. When I’m at work and feel the need to curse (say, because someone just spilled a pot of boiling ramen all over my leg) my favorite swears are “dirty word” and “labiodental fricative”. That last one also has a really nice mouthfeel, and if people don’t know what you’re talking about it sounds filthy.
Excellent work.
I suppose as a parent you have to have the alternatives, as opposed to just spelling out words.
‘Microwave oven’ – it is already dirty word in my house. Actually, you’ve raised a very interesting point… since 0 HL (hearing loss) I have frequently mis-heard people thinking that they were swearing. I think mouth forms have a lot to do with that.
A quick, and rather unscientific test shows that ‘Microwave Oven’ looks very similar to ‘Mother ******’, and added to the the intonation and setting… maybe in 60 years it will be a curse.
In general, we use multiple senses for just about everything, even when it seems like we’re just using one. There’s a name for this but I don’t remember what it is… ah, according to Wikipedia it’s called Multimodal Integration.
And a fine demonstration of that is the McGurk effect. You know it?
I don’t, please continue…
Repent unbeliever, and replace all your blasphemes with the one true god, our flying spaghetti monster.
“Pasta almighty!”
“By his noodly appendage!”
“For the love of FSM!”
Unfortunately there is no version of lucifer, no anti-FSM to the FSM.
Let us pray.
Ramen.
But surely, Atkins is the devil in this mythology – and the diet is the black mass?
Genius!
I think attempting to expunge religion from your speech would indeed leave you mute. While I think it’s honourable to remove the direct influences of modern religion from your life (choosing where your tax goes, to what charities you donate, etc), language, like religion, is an inherent part of the development of your own culture and society, like evolution, tribalism, industrialisation, capitalism, the car, etc. Without these things making their mark on your life, to put it simply, you wouldn’t be living the existence you do.
I’ve started to use “balls!” as my swear when something isn’t going how I expected it to. There wasn’t any thought behind it in the first place, but you could rationalize it by blaming the honorable testicle for getting us where we are today.
Sadly, “ovaries!” just doesn’t have the same ring to it.
“Gonad!” could catch on, but it would need some practise.
But other parts of the female anatomy work perfectly fine.
Vulva, in particular is very good.
And of course, there’s the ever popular tits.
Ah, I say “balls” too. It becomes a habit pretty quickly, hmm?
Oddly enough, my dad has used “gesundheit” for years, and of course it’s become one of my traits, too. So should you sneeze around me, Adam, you’ll get your gesundheit.
What words I use as profanities changes every so often. I go through phases. At the moment, I’ll use “buggering buggery”.
Reeeeally?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jtsfidRq2tw
It’s pretty cool. The general thing is that the brain depends on visual cues to interpret language sounds, not just hearing. Wikipedia has a bit more info too:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mcgurk_effect
That went in the wrong place! Ack… not sure how I did that. Opps.
THE THREADS ARE BROKEN!
(Cue world collapse into chaos.)
*Roo unstitches the fabric of The Flowfield Unity*
the best response to a sneeze I’ve ever encountered was “what was that!? it sounded like a [i]rhino![/i]“
“That sounded like a rhino!” is a great response to a sneeze!
Especially because “rhino” literally means “nose” (“rhinoceros” means “nose-horn”) and so therefore, if you look at it the right way, it WAS a “rhino” that made the sound.
I am such a language geek…
it’s great, i’d love to know more about words
I must just insert that I found the best ever alternative to mother****** the other day…Motherfluffer!
It also works with my favourite swear, f***tard, which becomes flufftard. But pisscakes remains ever vigilant as it is, and Munflewhiptish is currently busying itself with the complimentative side of things.
Oh, balls, look how nerdy I’ve gotten!
My current favourite cuss is “f**k me side ways”. This doesn’t work when the nearby women (or men 0_o ) offer to assist.
Another good one is to swear when it is entirely not needed, like replacing “fair enough” with “furry muff” (say it out loud, fast).
Oh, Ben, I say “Fairy nuff” instead of fair enough. I type it that way too.
Fairy? Furry, much more vivid visual image?
how about “shit a chicken”?
i’ve been wanting to use it, but no suitable situation will present itself,
i need to start making enemies
I’m a “fairy snuff” girl, myself.
Although I do like your “furry muff”. (I love this comic, it gives me oppurtunities to say things I couldn’t normally fit into context.)
There has been some first class cursing opportunities.
I’m trying to incorporate some of them into daily usage…
Best expletive ever? Team America: “Jesus titty-fucking CHRIST!”. Blasphemy, blasphe-you, blaspher-ev-er-y-one, hey!
I want to find out some German swearwords, it must have some very phonologically satisfying ones mustn’t it?
Scheisse (Shy-sir or shyse, depending on how you want to pronounce it) :Sh**
ervert.
verfuhren (testing my phonetics skills…uhm, vair-feur-renn)
That’s about all I know. But I can wish you a happy new year in German after my most recent trip there.
i found you and your words are very complicated.