Assorted curses (TOT=terribly OT)

[Eta Beta]

FRANK, all cursing fans :-)

> ["Nom de dieu" = "for God's sake" !] Note that, as far as I am personally
> concerned,  I am not in the least upset by this, being an atheist. But,
> to those who follow a religion that orders them not to pronounce the
> name of their God in vain, it might be shocking to discover that they
> just voiced a euphemistically disguised placeholder for "name of God".

Well, an uncle of mine is possibly the most pious man I've ever met, but
his favourite interjection is "sacranon!", a local (venetian) variation
of another French variation of the same, "Sacre Nom (de Dieu)".
He does perfectly understand its meaning, but doesn't find it offensive,
as it appears...

However, although I love Leon Prunelle's (and other characters) take
at cursing, my all-time favourite remains old Captain Haddock (of
Tintin fame), with his "Mille millions de mille sabords!", which sounds
even better in the english rendition, "Billions of bilious blue blistering
barnacles!"  :-))))

And his insults are legendary... "you anacoluthe!"... a guy made a web
page on those alone, unfortunately I lost the address...


DANIEL

> What is the literal meaning of "For ... Sake"? Is it 
> nescessarily connected to a curse when it doesn't mention God in it? I
> mean, could 
> "For Pete's Sake" also be offending to religious people?
[...]
> The reason why I'm asking this is that I wonder if religious 
> people could have been offended by the title of Barks' story "For Old 
> Dime's Sake" (US 43).

But no, "for xxx's sake" is a perfectly "legitimate" expression in
english except when some divinity is involved or, perhaps, when it's
obvious the central word is a replacement for that...

"For old dime's sake" means literally "for the good of old dime",
nothing religious implied...

However, I think it is interesting to be noted that most catholics
don't seem to believe that pronouncing gods' names in vain is really
bad... the equivalent of "for God's sake", in italian "per l'amor di
Dio", and other similar ones are of everyday use by teachers, mothers,
children and in TV as well...

Lots of latin people, although surely not the most pious ones, often
call gods pretty bad names, too, while it seems to me that actual
blasphemy is not even accounted for in "northern" languages...


In the end, I like to remember my granddad, a practical man, who
maintained that blasphemy is either useless, if there's no gods it's
just a waste of breath, or dangerous, if there's a god he/she might
get pretty angry at being called names...

I personally think it's simply rude and disrespectful of those who
have a belief, whatever it is... but I'm talking, as I said, of actual
blasphemy, nothing to do with "rogntudjuuuu!", nor "sacranon!", which
I really find amusing... :-)


Cheers

Eta Beta