Profanities are words that are meant to be used for insulting people, making derogatory remarks and/or hurting their feelings and in turn act as vents of anger and frustration for the person using them.
Speaking profanities/cursing starts at an early age. Children learn these things from many sources – mainly older children. Up to some age it is still considered a bad habit by the children themselves as they are under the watchful eyes of their parents. But gradually it becomes a trend and everyone starts using them and soon become fluent in it. Almost all of the curses involve female relatives, human anatomy(both male and female) and refrences to sexual activities in general, but in the beginning noone knows what they're saying as it's just a trend and it is ‘cool’ to tag along.
But after some rigorous years of training, when every word has a known universal meaning and there are more combinations than you can count, it becomes habitual and is not always used for the purpose in the above mentioned definition. It becomes a common language shared by close friends! Confusing isn’t it? But have you never noticed how your tongue seems to be stuck to a filter while talking to your parents, relatives and teachers or anyone else you don’t want to get into unnecessary trouble with(yes it does happen, especially when you consider the fact that everyone hates teachers and the mind can think of more curses for a teacher than the number of names you find in the yellow pages). Using profanities among friends becomes a sort of bridge which defines your closeness to that person, for e.g. you wouldn’t be as comfortable in calling a friend’s friend a male body part as you would be in calling your friend the same, although all of you share the same knowledge of the language and its usage. Over time the traditional ‘Hello’ and ‘How are you?’ are replaced by ‘Hey you S.O.B.’ and ‘How’s it going a*****e?’ These words are also used as punctuation marks in a sentence, as exclamatory remarks and every other human emotion possible.
One thing I don't understand is why saying the same thing(swearing) in English is considered better than in Hindi? Hindi is considered cheap, whereas English is considered cool. It's not just the swearing, it's general usage of the language. People who can't speak in English properly are considered illiterate and uneducated. I remember I used to get so irritated when a player of the Indian cricket team receiving a Man-of-the-match award spoke fractured English(almost Hindi) when he was interviewed. But it wouldn't be the same if some African player did the same. I would think, it's OK, English is not his native language, atleast he's trying. What the FUCK?! How is it different for us then? Why is it different? Why are we so ashamed of our own culture? There are people who are much more educated(they even have Doctorates!) than most people around them but it's not considered that great because their education is mainly Hindi-medium.
I remember some years ago, the guy who won the title of Mr. India(the modelling thing, not the invisible guy!) was headlining the news. Why? Not because he won the title but for the fact that he didn't speak any English. He gave all his answers in Hindi. Now that's one Cool guy.
P.S. : थिस ट्रांस्लितेरेशन थिंग इस ऑसोम! (This transliteration thing is awesome!)
Speaking profanities/cursing starts at an early age. Children learn these things from many sources – mainly older children. Up to some age it is still considered a bad habit by the children themselves as they are under the watchful eyes of their parents. But gradually it becomes a trend and everyone starts using them and soon become fluent in it. Almost all of the curses involve female relatives, human anatomy(both male and female) and refrences to sexual activities in general, but in the beginning noone knows what they're saying as it's just a trend and it is ‘cool’ to tag along.
But after some rigorous years of training, when every word has a known universal meaning and there are more combinations than you can count, it becomes habitual and is not always used for the purpose in the above mentioned definition. It becomes a common language shared by close friends! Confusing isn’t it? But have you never noticed how your tongue seems to be stuck to a filter while talking to your parents, relatives and teachers or anyone else you don’t want to get into unnecessary trouble with(yes it does happen, especially when you consider the fact that everyone hates teachers and the mind can think of more curses for a teacher than the number of names you find in the yellow pages). Using profanities among friends becomes a sort of bridge which defines your closeness to that person, for e.g. you wouldn’t be as comfortable in calling a friend’s friend a male body part as you would be in calling your friend the same, although all of you share the same knowledge of the language and its usage. Over time the traditional ‘Hello’ and ‘How are you?’ are replaced by ‘Hey you S.O.B.’ and ‘How’s it going a*****e?’ These words are also used as punctuation marks in a sentence, as exclamatory remarks and every other human emotion possible.
One thing I don't understand is why saying the same thing(swearing) in English is considered better than in Hindi? Hindi is considered cheap, whereas English is considered cool. It's not just the swearing, it's general usage of the language. People who can't speak in English properly are considered illiterate and uneducated. I remember I used to get so irritated when a player of the Indian cricket team receiving a Man-of-the-match award spoke fractured English(almost Hindi) when he was interviewed. But it wouldn't be the same if some African player did the same. I would think, it's OK, English is not his native language, atleast he's trying. What the FUCK?! How is it different for us then? Why is it different? Why are we so ashamed of our own culture? There are people who are much more educated(they even have Doctorates!) than most people around them but it's not considered that great because their education is mainly Hindi-medium.
I remember some years ago, the guy who won the title of Mr. India(the modelling thing, not the invisible guy!) was headlining the news. Why? Not because he won the title but for the fact that he didn't speak any English. He gave all his answers in Hindi. Now that's one Cool guy.
P.S. : थिस ट्रांस्लितेरेशन थिंग इस ऑसोम! (This transliteration thing is awesome!)
1 comment:
Oi, achei teu blog pelo google tá bem interessante gostei desse post. Quando der dá uma passada pelo meu blog, é sobre camisetas personalizadas, mostra passo a passo como criar uma camiseta personalizada bem maneira. Até mais.
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