March 27, 2008
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*@&?*!
We had a teenage British friend over this evening to watch Mel Gibson’s The Patriot. (Yes, ironic.) While watching the movie, twice I said a word which in the United States means absolutely nothing. But, I’ve heard it used/read it England before.
“Hey, is ****** a bad word in England?” I asked our guest.
Without a second’s hesitation, he said, “Oh, yes.”
Great. I wonder how many times I’ve said this word and am now thought of as a sewer mouth. How many other ways have I unwittingly been an offense? Arrgghh!
(The word, just in case you want to know so you can swear at your friends in British, starts with “B” and rhymes with “hugger.” I am loathe to even write it now that I know it’s foul. Probably all of you knew it was inappropriate and are laughing at me. Poor, dumb American.)
Comments (40)
It’s not a swear to us Americans, so in my mind it isn’t much of a swear. Even in British parlance I get the sense that it’s more of a mild oath on the level of “darn” or “sc**w”.
Oh, I made a much worse blunder in Australia…who knew that something that we thought was so innocent was so filthy? What can you do?
Are you keeping a list of the words that have different meanings in England? My friend and I did it for the semester that we were there, and I kind of wish that we’d kept it! That seems like the kind of word fun that you might enjoy as well.
Well, it makes things interesting…they should hand out a little booklet when you arrive at the airport!
Ahhh language! My dad’s from The Netherlands so when we visit with relatives there is often some mix up between our Dutch and their English. Usually not swearing, but dumb enough to be embarrassing!
LOL. I feel for you. I called a european friend that one time……………..he said, “Obviously, that doesn’t mean to you what it does to me.” So……I looked up the word. (DONT LOOK IT UP!!!!!!) So, I know your embarrassement and feel your shame….been there-done that-with the exact same word.
Thanks to my acquaintance with british media, I am privileged to know the meaning of that word. To think I knew something from british culture that you didn’t! Will wonders never cease?
Well, if they were over here….they’d put their footsies in their mouths too. I thought maybe you meant the word that starts with B and rhymes with muddy, which they also consider a swear word.
I sometimes find myself translating British jargon for my husband. (He’s well traveled, but never to Britain.) Recently, he outright thanked me for my brief commentary on that word. Apparently, he’d missed its significance in many a movie until then.
My dad had a similar situation as yours. It was the year the USAF sent him to Thailand unaccompanied. My mom took us to live with her father in the Netherlands, and Dad spent a few weeks with us there before leaving for Thailand. While in Thailand, he toured all over when he wasn’t working. He missed us badly, and just kept touring to help with the missing us part. He also liked playing with the languages, mixing Dutch (Nederlandse) and English and Thai and such. He saw many beautiful things, and said the Dutch word for pretty all the time while touring. He used as much Dutch as he could, because he missed us so much and knew we’d be speaking more Dutch than English. So, long story short, after several months there, he learned that the Dutch word for pretty is pronounced exactly the same as the crude Thai word used for lower female anatomy (we Americans, or those who are filthy enough to use it, start that word with a C). Finally, after months, someone was brave enough to tell my dad what he was saying. It explained why he flustered the gentle Thais so often.
Oh, and my sweet friend from North Carolina blundered cutely recently: we were at a wedding reception and my husband and I were swing dancing. She was caught up in our joy at dancing together, and started asking around as to who could shag and who couldn’t. It confused our friend from New Zealand, who said, “YOU obviously know how to shag because you have 2 children.”
Hohoho……..open mouth, insert foot? We, here in Oklahoma, forgive your potty mouth. hahahahahah
Wikipedia to the rescue: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_words_having_different_meanings_in_British_and_American_English
I’ve never been able to to figure exactly how crude that word is considered to be. From what I understand, in meaning it’s not that far off from the “f-word”, but people seem to be more relaxed about it. Then again, quite a few words and expressions that are little thought of these days once had very crude meanings. The original meaning of “poppycock” (Old Dutch, if I’m not mistaken), for instance, was rather similar to the English “BS”.
@lordjabez -
Great. Now I can see how else I’ve been a vulgar American. Sigh. (Great link! Thanks!)
Wow! Reading the comments has been quite a lesson in international swearing!
Thanks for the heads-up on this one, because we watched something (maybe aYou-Tube video) of ridiculous accidents which uses the word over and over and totally cracked us up. We’ve used it several times at home since, just because the context we’d seen it in was so fuuny. Have to remember not to get in the habit! =
Oh sooo funny! My sister married a man from El Salvador. After their wedding in Florida, they drove with my parents back to Michigan. They watched lots of cable tv and her husband picked up the F word. He just thought it was some slang. He said it sooo many times over the trip back. My sister was mortified and it took a really long time for him to purge it from his language! Great first impressions.
Also, I wouldn’t worry too much about your blunders–they’re probably used to clueless Americans!
That same thing happened to me a few years ago with a young boy from France. As I was trying to communicate an idea to him I used a Cajun French word that we used all the time, even my godly grandparents said it (the acid test!). But when he heard it his face changed dramatically and his eyes got really big…oops. I tried to ask him about it, but he just said it was very very bad. The Lord rescued me though, and way across the sanctuary (it happened at church) I saw the only other Cajun man I know out here in California! I hurried over and asked him about it…of course it’s not a bad word, it just means ‘crazy’. It helped to hear that but I still cringe inside when I think of it!!! I feel your pain.
ryc~Thanks so much for you comment on my pizza!
Sheri
Actually, Bugger is a verb and has to do with gay sex, if you get my drift. That’s from Texas…
Dear Mary,
I absolutely love that movie, and for the life of me can’t remember the word (rhymes with hugger) anywhere in the film!
(That’s meant to be a joke.) You probable said something about “the little (rhymes with hugger).” I won’t scandalize you by printing the definition of what the verb means in the King’s English! (well, it’s slang in Britain, so it’s not really the “King’s English.)
There are words in England that SEEM like they should be dirty but aren’t. Bangers and mash, for instance, is sausage and mashed potatoes.
Michael F. Nyiri, poet, philosopher, fool
Yeah, that is a bad one all right, but it probably depends a lot on who you talk to also. People seem to be casual about swearing and where once the D- word was total base profanity I now hear the S- word regularly from many of my Christian housewife friends, so I wonder if language just out grows itself.
ryc- I used to be into fly lady when the kids were little, I mean really little- you know how it is just so much easier to do things when they are babies, but haven’t been to her site in years. I had her calender a couple of years.
My kids do help, but they are still at an age where them helping is as much work for me as doing it myself, but they do. Notice on my chart the stuff in their colors they do alone and the stuff in green they help me with. I also have them fold laundry a lot.
I think 8-10 is probably about right. An hour for tennis, another for band, 3 for work/school. Everyplace else is within 5 min. of our house usually. karate was about 12 away, but we are on a break.
GRILLED STICKY BUNS? Tell me more! like throwing a danish on the Foreman? hmmm… sounds cool!
@morrighu -
Charming. This story just gets better and better.
@ElizabethDNB -
Grilled Stickies, a State College tradition!
http://www.thediner.statecollege.com/stickies.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6cQ3SUzt6pU (a video of it! ESPN)
@buttershugs - My mom is from the Netherlands and my dad is American. I grew up with quite a few funny miscommunications because of little language things.
eep! *claps hand over mouth and slaps self silly* I’M A POTTY MOUTH!! allow me to bury myself alive. I must have said this a million times and offended countless british. Oh snap.(was that one safe?)
Well, one can’t be blamed for that, because they share the blame as well. In England, a word that begins with a “b” and rhymes with “witch” is not bad at all. It’s written in British Children’s Literature, coming from the mouth’s of British children! To them, it’s just an animal, where it is a great offense here in America. To an extent, it’s merely a cultural thing. However, this dirty word you write of is only an offensive word when a British person is in the room.
“Woe is me, for I am undone! Because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips.”
Isaiah 6:5
Kiss a live coal from the alter, and all will be well.
Oh wow, b***er is a horrible word in British dialect? Dear lord, and here I thought I knew a lot about our fine-accented friends. I DO know that a certain 4 letter word that starts with C and ends in “unt” is THE WORST POSSIBLE WORD you can call someone there, even worse than our tried and true F word. The world is surely an interesting place X_X
On that note, I want to extend an invitation to you as a friend to share my site’s comfort with you. I’m always looking for new minds to enjoy the ponderings I write, which I PROMISE are worth your while, so please feel free to come by sometime and enjoy yourself to some words. Regular readers are always a pleasure to have, and I’ll do everything I can to make your experience worth having again and again.
ANYWAY, have a wonderful day, and I hope to see you sometime! :3
@Marlin_Spike -
Excellent point! I’ll just say it when the British are absent. Hee hee
HA! How did you end up in England? You said you love Panera….i work at one,-)
Noo…it can’t be too vulgar. It’s used millions of times throughout the harry potter series. I’m sure there would be A LOT of uproar if it were an obscinity
Now I had heard that ‘bloody’ was a bad word with them, and I had never heard of ‘bugger’ other than it’s a misspelled word for ‘booger’–something that’s very common in my house! (but here, it’s more “boogie” than booger…!!)
@doughhgirll -
I do love Panera. We are in England for 5 months while my husband is doing math research at The University of Cambridge.
Try it in Australia! We’ll forgive you if you use it at the right time.
Thank you for the birthday wishes! I had no idea that word was offensive in England. Wow. I don’t use it, but I think I’ll stay on this side of the pond, just to be safe
Oops!
That reminds me of something once said about Britain and the USA being two cultures separated by a common language. (or something to that effect)
wow, you really do learn someting new everyday
but most cultures have diffrent word that mean diffrent things else where, dont feel bad, many people do it.
My Mom would do a double take when we said someone was “making out” which meant something more in her time period than it did it mine. “Making love” was just wooing. Oh, dear, don’t feel too bad, -it is a cultural exchange and they’ve learned something about American slang and you’ve learned something about English slang.
When I was in Disneyworld in Florida, I saw a young girl fall over and exclaim “Ow, my fanny!”
I was taken aback, to put it nicely.
Yumm! Yumm! Those sticky buns sound great, T.P.! (I had to call you “T.P.” this time… for your potty mouth! — hee! hee!)
I don’t get it about that word, though! I mean, I think they pronounce it with the “ug” sound, like calling an insect a “bug”, but, we (or, should I say “I”) say it like the word “book” except with a “gger” at the end. They don’t pronounce “book” like “buck”, do they? So, if ”fook” was a real word and the English pronounced it like “book”, I don’t think we’d be offended and think they were saying the word that rhymes with “buck” but starts with an “f”, would we? …hmm. O.K., never mind. I just played it all out in my head, and, yeah, we probably would.
… so, I guess the word doesn’t mean a snotty nose, eh?
I could have told you that!
So is “bloody”. It refers the the blood of Christ.