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Comment by gerdesj | Hacker News Reader

"There is a rule, never swear in a foreign language"

I'm an anglophone - en_GB.

The word fuck has been adopted by pretty much the world as a naughty expletive that generally doesn't cause complete outrage but is expressive enough to be generally outside normal and polite conversation. I think it is a triumph of people getting something right: As a complex species with disparate concepts and languages, we have managed to pick a single word to cover quite a few concepts and situations. Fuck's time has come (ooerr).

To be honest, I'd like to be able to swear in a foreign language (I can manage German and French so far but without much enthusiasm). Please feel free to reply with your finest swearing and put downs.

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If you replace 'fuck' with 'procreate' or 'fornicate', it should be more polite: Oh procreation, what have you done now?

However, as Hollywood managed to promote 'fuck' as a generic expletive with no meaning, these are actually less polite, as they emphasis the meaning that was gone.

I also wonder why people write f*ck. If you want to swear, do it. If you want to be polite, don't do it. If a censoring system won't let you use fuck, be more creative. F*ck with a star just seems to say you're a pushover.

> Please feel free to reply with your finest swearing and put downs.

How about strange?

I binge-watched all of Farscape in under a month during college over a decade ago, and "frell" (usually in the form "frelling ____") seems to have become a permanent part of my vocabulary. The word is a 1:1 translation of every meaning of "fuck", used very liberally in the series.

There's a bunch more swears and work-inappropriate sayings they also leave "untranslated", but "frell" was probably the most used.

Sounds like BSG and frak

The Irish deploy the work "feck" in nearlly the same way as the English word "fuck" but it isn't considered rude. I should probably know the full etymology of both words but can only comment on the Eng.Ang/Sax version which is basically: fuck. WP etc seem to waffle about wind fuckers/fokkers etc but fundamentally, I think the word means exactly what it means - that is how words work!

Feck is a bit more intriguing. I think feck really means the same as fuck but it is the Irish sticking it to the English and turning a rude word into a simple expletive that Mummy can use. If so - good job. I would love to hear some thoughts about this from someone from the Isle.

I'm an anglophone - en_AU.

The rest of the world seems to have never got the memo about the affectionate uses of the word cunt.

Same in some parts of the UK—north east of England in my case. It's fine among friends, but I'd never say it in a business meeting or to my grandmother. It's all about the context and delivery—calling someone a cunt will be taken very badly indeed if you do it in the wrong situation.

The rest of the word fuck them instead of simply noting them. You sound like a stamp collector 8)

Swearing in German is dreadfully dull, you donkey who has a bird.

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