What do you think about foreign curse words being used on a television shows?
Asked by
JLeslie (
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January 14th, 2024
from iPhone
Foreign meaning the word is from another language.
From what I was told, the other day Chris Hayes said the word fakakta when interviewing George Conway. I would guess 75% or more of the viewing audience doesn’t know what it means. Supposedly, Conway used the word mishegas in the same interview. Most people who know some Yiddish I think would interpret fakakta as fucked up or shitty. You could say it means messed up or crappy I guess? Mishegas isn’t a swear word, but still a word a lot of people might not know, it mean chaos or annoying nuttiness.
Some words get adopted into English, so I guess that counts as English, but then it still begs the question is it cursing if the English definition is a slightly different translation and used regularly?
For instance a lot of Americans use schmuck and don’t know what it literally means in Yiddish.
I guess if it is said on cable anything goes, but what about on the networks like ABC or NBC in the US? Those networks do have standards for foul language, but if it is in a foreign language does it count? What are the rules on that? Or, your feelings about it.
What about foreign words that aren’t swear words, but not the language of the program?
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7 Answers
I can tell you that “Schmuck” in German means “Jewelry”.
@ragingloli In American English it is used like the Yiddish meaning, idiot or jerk, but in Yiddish more literally it means penis or dick, but still used the same as jerk.
Makes no difference to me. Fifty years ago, cursing was considered bad and offensive. Now (2024) you hear it everywhere in English.
So if a person curses in a language that don’t even understand, why would it bother me?
I’m fine with it. Where I live and where I grew up, in ethnically diverse areas, there are lots of Italian people, Polish people, Jewish people, Hispanic people, many ethnicities, so we were all familiar with all types of words. Hispanic phrases and Italian phrases are like second nature around here, and Yiddith phrases too.
Many use the word Dork without knowing that means a whales penis.
The Chris Hayes thing cracked me up. I haven’t heard that word in years.
Yes, it’s cursing, just like saying “dagnabbit” is a curse. But the foreign curse doesn’t land hard because it isn’t widely understood to be a naughty thing, so they needn’t be censored. Most of our strongest curses are about bodily functions. If the curse word doesn’t recall poop or sex, or to a lesser extent Christian blasphemy to the casual ear, it doesn’t typically offend enough for people to bother.
Just a personal bias, but I imagine the people to complain to the FCC about this kind of merde are less likely to be multilingual, anyway.
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