I like to think I hold all forms of swearing in severe contempt. But that would make for a gross exaggeration. If anything, most. If anything, I might appeal to the Lithuanian minor register on that rare rapturous occasion. But beyond those infrequent acts of hypocrisy, I have a sinister tendency towards a cool, pompous, academic gait.
I might have mentioned Lithuania’s near verbatim adaption of the Russian nomenclature to compliment the indigenous, milder terminology. I’d be curious as to the roots of this borrowing. Lithuania hasn’t stopped intriguing.
As for Poland, approach any group of conversationally engaged men (particularly men, though not to exclude the women), and the swearing finds an unprecedented coefficient per unit dialogue. I’ve not perceived the equivalent elsewhere to like extent.
I wonder what the lingo had been a century back with the Jews, the Tatars, the Gypsies, the Lithuanians and the rest of Slavs in one pot Zamenhov held in studious regard repressed borderline contempt? What sort of language might you engage among the barracks, the stands, the factories, the bakeries, the commercial heaps, the rotten holes in the walls in those contentious moments?
I guess I’m up to my nape in nostalgic sentiment as far back as the Commonwealth. Or maybe I evoke the russified sections of the partitioned territory.
If anything related to swearing even remotely interests me it’s the ancient vulgarisms and the etymology.
On various occasions my dad suggested Mongolian influences across the respective Russian nomenclature; if not the total proprietorship. Owing equally to the alluring nature of the notion and its ultimate irrelevance, I’ve not bothered to conduct even the mildest inquiry.
Does that happen among ye? For the sake of sanity, I surely hope. Certain non-critical issues are more fun conjectured than cross-examined and corroborated. In addition, being ignorant of the factuals, enveloped in strictly the rumours and conjectures, we aren’t compelled to lie.
I scorn at ruining a healthy fantasy. And I scorn at non-ambiguous pointblank lies all the more.
Concerning the ancient, who doesn’t dig discovering debasements and sacrilege of bygone cultures across otherwise elegant writing? For instance, through Don Quijote I’ve likely picked up more Renaissance Castilian Spanish vulgarisms than contemporary. (Alas, not in the memory banks.)
Something analogous of Voltaire’s Candide can be said, albeit milder in scope.
Which raises an important point. When high literature, or something of existence sufficiently long and held in high regard, manages to employ a healthy cohort of profane jargon, you can be certain you’ve got a damn solid piece of work. And should it be poetry, versified or otherwise, you’ve probably got a masterpiece.
Cervantes, Apollinaire, Ezra Pound, Gabriel Marquez, Juan Rulfo, Mayakovski, Joseph Heller are just a few of the names I recall or imagine recalling adeptly handling the profane register to a rather phenomenal poetic impact.
But the way most people swear … Impelled by emotion … Of poor aesthetic. But to each his own. Will probably make for a historical curiosity three hundred years on.
Questions, comments? Connect.