It really wasn't that difficult, Jannert. I was trying to get you to just say but buuuut apparently you wanted me to say it.
Indeed. A fanny is a female genitalia in UK, and also used to call people a wimp. 'Drink that shot, ya fanny.'
It's like a game of rude word charades but on a forum, I never knew writers were such an entertaining bunch.
Interestingly, the word 'cunt' is now in quite common usage. Again, go figure.... Hope it's okay to say this on the forum, in this context. We're talking about swear words here.
Confusion I had, and here, back in the old days of the forum - said I was 'supping my meths.' Everybody USA thought I meant 'meth,' nobody talked to me for two whole years. Cheers. 'Bloody' shares tier with 'knackered?' Americans are 'pissed' for 'pissed off.' We are 'pissed,' they are maybe in jail? You have to put beer in your trunk over there, can't open that first one behind the wheel, live the dream. Still, they got loads of benefits with portion control, and more people of every variety in some places. If you go over there and open your mouth with a lady, she gets bothered: 'Oh my god, you have an accent!' 'Yos, I wield trunk of thunder, thrice past Mandalay.' 'I'll just get ya coffee, buddy. Then you move along, y'hear. Go kick back somewhere else, fuckin nut.' 'Thank you very much, madam.'
I didn't know Aussies said it too. In England it's a pretty gentle swear word, but still a swear word. I wouldn't think twice about your example - it sounds quite natural to me.
You've probably gotten every answer imaginable at this point, but just to add my 2p... Bloody isn't a word that carries any weight in the U.S. as a swear. We know full well that it has more "color" in other slices of Anglophonia, but just how strong that color is is a little opaque to us because it's just not in our lexicon, so to answer your question concerning regionalisms... yes, and it depends. Some words are used in all markets, some just in a few places. Like I know the word wog is rather offensive in the U.K., less so in Australia, and in the U.S. it will only evince a raised eyebrow of wonderment since we neither use that word ourselves, nor is it a word that we know gets used elsewhere but we just don't use it here.
'Wog' is offensive. In BBC terms it's probably top 5. We also have a 'c' word I heard the other day, racist word, pretty nasty, ignorant guys use it.
This is another example. The "C" word most definitely exists in the U.S., but it has no chummy, blokie usage like it does in the U.K. Whether or not it should have such a use is a completely different topic, but it cannot be denied that said use does exist in the U.K., where in the U.S. this kind of use of the "C" word is altogether absent.
I think so, it is '70s' racist - a tier over and above merely sexual words . Subject is quite nuanced up top end.
In Aussie land, "wog" was probably innocuous, but with this new slew of PC anti-racism stories and knicker twisting hitting the airwaves, I'd hazard a guess you couldn't use the word as freely as you used to.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/editorialguidelines/page/guidance-language-full I'm looking at this, other web 'hits' are dated about 2006/7.
You can say anything. You have to be very clever with 'character' to elucidate [sorry] once playground terms about disability, race... Sometimes it is the challenge to spark you off on the journey - in writing. I work with a guy who uses that [other] 'c' word, brags about his pub scene. But he is juvenile, never seen folk past the next village. What do you do? Clarkson said 'slope'- sophisticated, kind of menacing and intriguing throwback.
I would not be comfortable using "wog" in conversation although I do know people in the Greek/Italian community who have adopted the word. There was even a play called "Wogs at Work" years ago by first and second generation Australians with Greek heritage. I'd write it in the right context and with the right characters, but not say it if that makes sense. My thoughts are not really "will this term offend?" but more"will this term convey my meaning to my reader?". An American reading the 'Vigilance' suburban fantasy piece I put in the workshop would completely miss or be confused by the exchange involving the term 'bloody hell', whereas Aussies would probably get it. By using the term and other regonal slang and taboo terms I make it an Australian piece. This is fine, in fact beneficial, if I want to put it in an Australian sci-fi/fantasy periodical but a hurdle if I want GRRM to include it in his next anthology (not that he is returning my calls yet ) That's what makes this more than a romp through rude words, we're exploring the tools of our trade
There is nothing wrong using the word 'bloody' in this era of technology and Internet as we are exposed to multiple cultures and multiple such words, sometimes even worse words than this.
