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Author Topic: Swearing up a Storm  (Read 3815 times)

Saede Riordan

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Swearing up a Storm
« on: 30 Aug 2012, 18:24 »

Warning: This is a topic about swearing, thus, it contains swearing. You have been warned, thank you.

So, I've been in the summit lately, and, pardon my language, but the only cursewords people seem to use in there are the standard english western ones. Hell, fuck, shit, ass, damn, etc. Now, those don't really make sense at all to use, if you look at the cultures of eve. So then...what does? How do people swear in the Amarr Empire? How do you insult someone in the culture of the Minmatar? What do people exclaim when irritated in the Caldari state? Now sure, we could pick some other scifi's space swears, and use those, but that seems like a bit of a cheat, so lets make our own.

A good swear should be short, preferably monosyllabic, it should be the sort of thing your character shouts when irritated, it can be two or three syllables, but those longer ones should build off the short ones, motherfucker is an extended form of fuck at the end of the day, which is monosyllabic. It should also reflect the culture that creates it. The sort of thing that would be considered both profane and acceptable to use. In english, fuck is pretty well rooted into our language as a word, its used very very broadly, and its accepted as profanity, its profane, but its okay at the same time. Saying nigger has a lot more negative culture stimulus, and has mostly fallen out of conversational use other then in black communities where the word has been reclaimed.

So lets sit down and brainstorm, here are some places I thought to get started.

Amarr Empire
A lot of what we think of as 'mild' swearing in western culture might be grave insults in the Empire, things like 'god damn' would have a large amount of cultural meaning. But what other things would be used? They don't seem the sort to use 'pottymouth' words, maybe some other religious sort of terms?

Minmatar Republic
Here, I think good places to start looking would be in the outcast marks, in offending ones clan or family, name slandering, etc. I'm not sure what words specifically would emerge from this, but it would be a good place to start.

Gallente Federation
Here I could actually see the 'pottymouth' stuff fitting right in and being culturally accepted as such. If any race was to use it, it would be the Gallenteans, but they wouldn't use words like 'damn' because, damn them to where?

Caldari State
I'm really not at all sure about the Caldari, I'm not as familiar with their culture as I'd like to be.

As a final note: The purpose here is not to come up with words in the languages spoken (There's probably already naapaani swearing out there though) but to think of what english words, due to cultural context, would be used as swearing in the given cultures. If we do make up words, it should be in the form of taking longer english concepts, and boiling them down to slang.
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Ken

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Re: Swearing up a Storm
« Reply #1 on: 30 Aug 2012, 18:27 »

Caldari State
I'm really not at all sure about the Caldari, I'm not as familiar with their culture as I'd like to be.

Ancestors choke!
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Makkal

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Re: Swearing up a Storm
« Reply #2 on: 30 Aug 2012, 18:40 »

Pitoojee.
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Esna Pitoojee

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Re: Swearing up a Storm
« Reply #3 on: 30 Aug 2012, 19:35 »

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I like the implications of Gallentians being punched in the face by walking up to a Minmatar as they so freely use another person's culture as a fad.

Victoria Stecker

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Re: Swearing up a Storm
« Reply #4 on: 30 Aug 2012, 19:40 »

PitoojeeEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE.

fyp.
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ArtOfLight

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Re: Swearing up a Storm
« Reply #5 on: 30 Aug 2012, 19:48 »

According to PF, Zaragram is a curse word in the Empire after the Mad Emperor.

I imagine knave would be used as an insult.

Wretch, cretin, damn (as in "to curse or condemn").

The State has "Ancestors choke!" Insults would include anything demeaning to a person's aptitudes, merits and honor.

I've used words like "scrap," "shaft," and "biowaste" as curse words regardless of the character's nationality.
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Graelyn

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Re: Swearing up a Storm
« Reply #6 on: 30 Aug 2012, 20:11 »

Kador's Balls!  :eek:

Look at that!
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Ava Starfire

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Re: Swearing up a Storm
« Reply #7 on: 30 Aug 2012, 21:10 »

Ahem.

PitoooOOooooOOOjeeeeeeEEEEEE!!!
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Khloe

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Re: Swearing up a Storm
« Reply #8 on: 30 Aug 2012, 21:25 »

I could see insults in the Federation involving people's social and financial status, given its focus on individualist determination. I wouldn't be surprised if a few insults weren't named after some infamous political figures in history.
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Gottii

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Re: Swearing up a Storm
« Reply #9 on: 30 Aug 2012, 21:35 »

Ahem.

PitoooOOooooOOOjeeeeeeEEEEEE!!!

See also Esnalicious
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Seriphyn

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Re: Swearing up a Storm
« Reply #10 on: 30 Aug 2012, 21:36 »

I'm gonna go with "anything" for the Fed.
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Streya

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Re: Swearing up a Storm
« Reply #11 on: 30 Aug 2012, 21:38 »

Amarr: I'd imagine that in the Amarr Empire, swearing would have just as many religious overtones as everything else in Amarrian daily life. Calling someone a "lip-servicer" in lieu of "kiss-ass", for example, would be quite Amarrian in my opinion and would drive the same point home with just as much insult in that culture. Sinc e there is also emphasis on one's family lineage in determining social rank, some swear words like "bastard" would actually carry more insult and be slightly more taboo.

Minmatar: I really have much less clue here. I can see much of Minmatar cursing being borrowed or derived from Amarrian and Gallentean swearing, as those are the two cultures that have had the largest influence on the Minmatar people in the last thousand years or so.

Gallente: Pretty much in agreement with the OP. We'd see many of the space-equivalencies as what you hear in modern English, barring perhaps the more religiously-derived curse words such as "damn".

Caldari: As pointed out earlier, anything attacking one's merit and  honor would fit in well here. It might be neat to look at Japanese swear words for analogies in this case. Caldari society does seem to respect all ranks in the corporate structure, or at least respect their practicalities. So while it wouldn't make sense to call someone a "peon" (as Caldari society would appreciate the janitor, because someone has to do the cleaning), it would make sense for "swindler" to be a curseword because it insults the person's professional honor and ethic..
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Graanvlokkie

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Re: Swearing up a Storm
« Reply #12 on: 31 Aug 2012, 00:52 »

The translator fish in my ear translates all subtle curse words from the difficult to understand regional ones used in the various languages and regional dialects, to the standard english western ones, so I know when someone is swearing at me?

There is nothing worse than thinking someone is giving you a friendly greeting by comparing you to the lecherous empress, when in fact they are telling you to fuck off.

On a related note, I am always confused when people use made up greetings and other words in channels. Just because I RP doesnt mean I read your blog and all your story postings and know what you are meaning. For all I know, IC and OOC, they could be appearing in the channel and yelling, "suck me bitches".
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lallara zhuul

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Re: Swearing up a Storm
« Reply #13 on: 31 Aug 2012, 02:13 »

\o/ Posting in (yet another) 'urdoinitrong'-thread. \o/

I'll have to agree with Graanvlokkie here.

Neocomm translates even the swearwords.

Most cultures see swearing in public as something that only the most uncultured individuals do.

Capsuleers are the 'elite'.

Swearing in public would probably make you seem even more like a dolt in capsuleer circles than elsewhere.
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Matariki Rain

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Re: Swearing up a Storm
« Reply #14 on: 31 Aug 2012, 03:05 »

We're not talking about making up words here. We're talking about the different ways different cultures swear, along the lines of the RL differences between Catholic religious profanity vs Protestant scatological vulgarity.

While we know that the translators are good with a bunch of things including idiom, we're not going to translate each statement in The Summit into the full range of languages: we're (in general) going to put it in its original "language format" and leave the readers to make their conversions for idiom.

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