Oh botheration

[erratio]

Inspired by a thread on a mailing list about learning how to downgrade one's swearing practices, feeling as though I can't swear while at work because there are customers around who might hear me, and by the usual early morning meandering thoughts that being at work provides me with, I have decided to outsource my swearing needs to the Hebrew language.

Reasons for swearing in Hebrew:

1. The fricative /x/* sounds pleasingly violent for the purpose of using swearing to vent my rage
2. Almost no one I know understands Hebrew
3. For bonus points, the only people who are likely to both understand and take offense at my misuse of the Holy Language are ultra-orthodox Jews, and since their narrow-minded and patriarchal take on Judaism pisses me off this can only be a Good Thing.

* It's similar to a throat clearing sound

Comments

Ah, swearing in Hebrew...

[(Anonymous)]

There are 'swear words' in the Bible as well, you know? My favourite is /šgl/ (שגל). It appears several times but, everytime it appears as a verb (the noun means "concubine") it's been edited out. The 9th century Tiberian Jewish scholars, known as the Masoretes, edited lots of things out by writing alternatives in the margin. Modern printing tradition still includes the edited-out words, alongside the added-in words, and the added-in words are the ones that are actually read (it's known as qere/ktiv). Anyway, wherever they edited out שגל they changed it for שכב ('to lie down [with]'). שגל by itself actually means... well, I won't say it here.

Let's just say that it has the same semantic range as the monosyllabic transitive verb for "have sex" in English. Sorry, no gutturals in this one...