An Off-Color Post ( 粗口 )

Cursing. Cussing. Swearing. Using profanity. Or “speaking foul language,” as people like to say in the Fragrant Harbor. 

Some of the first words people learn in another language are curse words. 

I’ve heard many times that Cantonese is a particularly good language to swear in. I don’t have anything to compare it to other than English, which really needs to work on its swearing game, but Canto does seem to have endless interesting combinations. 

Now I’m not really a swearing kind of person, but I do think it’s important to learn the words. Especially when you are teaching little punks who think it’s funny to swear at you if they think you can’t understand. It’s much better to know and not just suspect it’s time to go into “stern glare mode.”

I do swear inadvertently, one of the pitfalls of language learning. And it’s not just me. I’ve had more than one four-year-old phonics student mess up the word “duck.”  “Sheet” is also a tricky one. I always tell my students they have to smile when saying that word. “Beach” is a bitch too.

I’m in the same boat. Just get one little tone wrong, so the word a little too short and suddenly “shoe” turns into something else. Did you know that “church” (and plastic and teach and old and dog) are all pretty similar to a swear word? As well as the “catch” in “catch fish.” I felt a little better because last week I watched a Youtube video where the guest (Ansheles, a Russian guy who speaks Canto) kept saying that bad word as well and didn’t even know! His co-host was quietly dying next to him. There’s danger everywhere. 

So I have a vested interest in learning these words. Not only so that I know when others are swearing, not only so that I know how not to pronounce words, but I also like to know why people are laughing at me. 

If you are having a hard time remembering the Canto bad words, try out this handy sentence as a memory device. “Little (or few) dogs can brush shoes.” This gives you the swearing basics. If you don’t get it, ask a local to translate it and repeat after them. The chances are pretty high that you’ll mess up at least one of the tones, happily discovering the correlating curse word. 

Fascinatingly, numbers can also be used in swearing. Kind of like how in English you can say “g2g” or “4U” but with a more offensive twist. I know at least 9 and 7 can stand in for bad words. Any others you know of? Just leave them in the comments. I promise I won’t be offended!

Did you know you can swear musically too? Several weeks ago, a few friends were hanging out at my house, and Justin was playing guitar. He looked at another guy and played a few twangy notes on the guitar only to be flipped off. Everyone laughed except me. Justin must have seen my confusion and told me that if guitar players want to cuss at another guitar player, they can play the notes of a popular cursing phrase (same tones). My mind was blown. 

It is still cursing, but isn’t that just adorable?