vegancoderJul 20, 2024

I've recently realized that German basically doesn't really have obscene words

Of course there are words like "Scheiße", "Schlampe" and similar, but they are so not-obscene, that even day-shows like Scrubs have the actors saying them

Nothing on the level of the English N- and F-words

#German #Deutsch #language #languages #scrubs

Show threadRudiJul 20, 2024

@vegancoder

Obscenity is a social construct and German is such a descriptive language with their compound words that to consider a word obscene for existing just wouldn't compute

But then if you use the word "Schweinhund" it's almost the equivalent of calling them a genetic mongrel and they don't like the idea of that

Show threadvegancoder
@rudi most of Slavic languages are at least as descriptive as German, but at the same time have a lot of such words that it is unthinkable to air them in the day time in TV
Jul 20, 2024 at 12:27pmWeb
Show threadRudiJul 20, 2024

@vegancoder

German is Germanic not Slavic so there could be any number of other differences in the comparison besides the construct of obscenity

Show threadvegancoderJul 20, 2024
@rudi yes, but if I understood your previous thought correctly, you were saying that the obscene words in German are not so obscene because it's a very expressive language, so I gave Slavic languages as an example which might disprove that thought 🙂
Show threadRudiJul 20, 2024

@vegancoder

But instead of disproving the thought it showcased how vast contextual comparison becomes 😄