Foreign Cuss Word: Difference between revisions
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* In the [[Artemis Fowl]] series by Eoin Colfer, Fairies often use the Gnomish curse word "D'arvit". It's noted in the first book that "if translated into English, this book would not be allowed to be published."
* A minor (but suitably irritating) character in Joseph Heller's ''[[Catch-22]]'' is named Scheisskopf (his wife being the lovely Mrs Scheisskopf).
** Not really a softening use,
* It used to be common for translators of bawdy works in Latin or other romance languages to leave seamier passages in the original language, so that they could only be read by "gentlemen".
** Stephen Jay Gould reported that the only reason his father mentioned to study Latin was to translate the passages in Kraft-Ebbing's ''Psychopathia Sexualis''. Since the book was published in 1886, this makes this trope [[Older Than Radio]].
** A bit later, the Loeb edition of Suetonius's ''Twelve Caesars'' had a page or two of his biography of Tiberius left untranslated. They were the pages about his rumoured debauchery on the island of Capri. Might have been corrected in later printings since newer translations generally include the passage.
** Liddell and Scott's ''[[Liddell And Scott Greek-English Lexicon A|Greek-English Lexicon]]'' (first published 1819, still the standard dictionary for Classical Greek) frequently gives sexual meanings in Latin. One of the great joys of taking Latin is to read literary masters call their critics or rivals, "donkey brained shitheads".
* There's a book about Japanese street slang, insults, etc. with the title "Zakennayo"
** The literal translation is ''just'' "Don't joke with me", as it's simply a contraction of the phrase "Fuzakeruna yo!". While this grammar usage is indeed ''really'' rude ("-na" suffix' dictionary definition 'IS'' "suffix for rude verb negation"), it's not strictly swearing. But in Japanese the more you maim the word in pronunciation, the ruder it gets, so the correct translation of the title would be indeed "Don't fuck with me". Yes, it's [[Mind Screw|that kind of language]].
* [[Dave Barry]]'s column "Europe on Five Vowels a Day" gives three "idiomatic expressions" commonly used by foreigners, with translations. "Ach du lieber!" and "Caramba!" are both translated as [[Gosh Dang It to Heck|"Darn it!"]] The French phrase "Zut alors!", however, is translated as, "Look! A lors!"
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* [[Dale Brown]] is fond of making characters drop into untranslated, say, [[Gratuitous Russian]] oaths.
* [[Ernest Hemingway]] made extensive use of this in ''For Whom The Bell Tolls.'' The Spanish-speaking characters have their dialogue written in [[Blind Idiot Translation|awkwardly literal]] English, but expletives [[Bowdlerise|appear as]] "muck" and "befoul" and even "obscenity" ("Go and obscenity thyself"). However, when the Spanish is left untranslated, it's "mierda" (shit - noun), "cagar" (shit - verb, as in "take a shit") and "joder" (fuck - both the verb and the interjection) all the way.
** A particular favorite is along the lines of "Me cago en la leche de tu puta madre": "I shit in the milk of your whore of a mother". Pretty
* "Sacrebleu" is a double subversion; literally it translates to "sacred blue" (which sounds harmless), but it referred to the Virgin Mary and there's a whole lot of stiff-upper-lip context associated with it, making it a serious curse in France (until about the end of the 18th century, anyway), but everywhere else just sort of a
* In the last ''[[Animorphs]]'' book, Jake uses [["Three Laws"-Compliant|the Chee's non-violence programming]] to force them to help him end the war, and [[Really Seven Hundred Years Old|Erek]] drops into a language he doesn't understand for about thirty seconds.
{{quote|'''Jake:''' ...what was that?
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** Also in the pilot where Sophie calls Nate a "wanker" when he's arrested her.
* In the pilot episode of ''[[Lost]]'', Sawyer (a Southern redneck) accuses Sayid (an Iraqi) of having caused the plane to crash. During the ensuing fight and argument, Sayid calls Sawyer "Ibn al-Kalb", which is Arabic for son of a bitch.
* One episode of ''[[Stargate SG-1]]'' features a very surprised Russian soldier saying "Bozhe moi," which is (inaccurately) translated by the DVD closed
** For reference, the actual translation is "My God." Same basic exclamation as in English.
** In ''[[Stargate Atlantis]]'', Dr. Radek Zelenka is played by David Nykl, who speaks fluent Czech. [[Word of God]] says only about half of Zelenka's Czech lines are scripted, and Czech fans have confirmed that not only is there a lot of uncensored swearing, he sometimes [[Bilingual Bonus|breaks the fourth wall]].
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== Western Animation ==
* "Wanker" and "shite", which are considered quite rude in British English, are apparently exotic enough that they can be used on ''[[The Simpsons]]'' without anyone batting an eye. See [[Did Not Do the Bloody Research]].
* Similarly, a single episode of ''[[Daria]]'' has the English character<ref>
* ''[[Futurama]]'' has Amy occasionally cursing in Cantonese.
** [[Bilingual Bonus|She was mostly just saying the names of everyday object in a derisive tone of voice.]]
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