Is this acceptable?

[onlyMark]

Imagine you are walking round a shopping centre in Germany. You fancy a break and want a coffee and piece of cake. You spy this sign -




The centre is busy with families and you look for a free table outside as there are places inside and out. You then see the following that is associated with the coffee shop. It is placed on the floor in a prominent position outside the entrance. As an advert -



A factor maybe to be considered is it is in full view of everyone passing by (it would be a poor excuse for an advert if it wasn't), it is low down and at child eyesight level. Be aware that an extremely large majority of people living there know English, so it would be easily understood.
A simple translation is it says that a take out coffee was ordered but the person sat down in the seating area to drink it. The joke is that it is a rebellious action but in a very minor key rather than overthrowing a Government etc. I bet you got that anyway.

So, acceptable with the swear word? Maybe another word could have been substituted but probably would not have the same effect?

[fumobici]

Cuss words never really sound dirty in a foreign language, do they? They're just kind of quirky and funny.

[Deleted]

'Fuck' and 'motherfucker' are heard all of the time on French television because the French think the words are funny. "You fuck my wife?" from Raging Bull is used all the time in comedy routines.

[chexbres]

I like using 4-letter words like "fuck". They're short, and get right to the point.
Anyway, little kids probably wouldn't be offended - if they can read, that is.
Some parents might over-react to seeing a "dirty" word in public, but chances are that their children have already heard and tried out words - and word combinations - that are much worse than this one.

[lagatta]

This Dutch ad is much worse, playing on the Dutch grandparents' (Oma and Opa, as in German) lack of knowledge of bad language in English:



I think it may have popped up at APIAS, at some point.

[Deleted]

European children are progressive.

[amboseli]

I'm not German, but I wouldn't be shocked anyway. These words are commonly used nowadays.

[onlyMark]

This is one of the points, the word is commonly used. But should it be? I doubt we can go back to the time when it was rarely used and had a shock effect when it was.
My kids have never heard me say it but of course, they know it. If they say it, and they have done a couple of times when I'm there, I try and correct the error of their ways. How would it be if a child was saying FUCK FUCK FUCK as he/she walked along. Would you feel that is OK - because it is now a common word?
Just because it is common, does that make it now ok to use?
If there is still a reticence to use it then should we now ignore every time it is?

[Deleted]

I think you are missing the point of it having no effect on anybody whose native language is not English. There are plenty of shocking words in every language, and they are normally not permissible in polite speech among native speakers. Nasty English words carry absolutely no sting or stigma for non native English speakers, though, just like 'va fan culo' sounds funny and not shocking to anybody whose native language is not Italian.

However, you are right to discourage your kids from saying it because 1) kids should not use that language and 2) nobody can stand hearing a foreign speaker using local swear words unless they speak the language perfectly. It is always annoying when somebody has picked up the bad words in a language but is unable to construct a 'normal' sentence properly.

[amboseli]

It is exactly as kerouac says: English is not my native language. The word 'fuck' doesn't have a real meaning here. Of course I know what it means, but I don't think of sexual intercourse when I hear it.

[onlyMark]

When I saw it originally I felt this was not on. It was too obvious. Then I remembered where I was. It is right that it didn't have the same emphasis as if it had been in the UK. But, I still went into the coffee shop and spoke with someone who said he was the manager. He thought it to be fine. One thing though, he objected to me saying the word in the hearing of other customers.

[bjd]

Having grown up in an English-speaking country, especially at a time when this word was really not acceptable, I still get a bit shocked when I hear it used constantly, especially in France where it doesn't have the same "weight" as it does in English.

The coffee shop manager is a bit of a hypocrite though, isn't he?

[onlyMark]

That's what I thought. He asked me to keep my voice down. Mind you, I can have a loud voice. But, I asked him also why it is ok to have it written for all to see but not spoken. Funnily enough it was at that point that Mrs M dragged me away. She realised that with the anomaly (written ok, spoken not) I was going to labour the point a bit too much.
However, yep, I think using a swear word from one language in another language can be quite funny and have a different intention and emphasis. I use Spanish swear words (learnt from the builders) and German ones when conversing with Mrs M but only use mild English ones. She on the other hand seems to be able to swear well in Arabic and Slovenian as well as English, German and Spanish. It all gets rather confusing depending on where we are and who we are talking to.

[patricklondon]

I've reached the stage in life (maybe this is also one for the "Old enough to remember" thread), where I've seen swearwords lose force through their becoming accepted in a much wider range of discourse (and, of course, in another language a word can be much weaker than its cognate word in another, which is why you can't translate swearwords literally, or it sounds ridiculous or like a bad imitation of Hemingway).

But as some words lose their force, what words replace them?

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[Deleted]

In France, besides the nasty speed radar devices that give tickets, many villages also have an 'informative' radar machine that shows you your speed entering town and has either a smiley face or a frowny face. There is also a text line at the bottom that either says "merci" or things like "-1 point" or "-2 points." It was reported that one of them in some town was modified to say "fuck you" to speeders. The employee was severely reprimanded but not dismissed.

[Deleted]

It's also not just swearing in different languages that leaves people bemused. In France we absolutely do not understand why "tabernacle" is apparently the most vulgar swear word in Québec. I looked it up to see if perhaps it was just a coded abbreviation for something along the lines of "Take the communion hosts out of the tabernacle and shove them up your ass!" -- but not even. The word all by itself is nasty, and I learned that chalice and host are, too, when you sprinkle them in a rant rather than having a conversation with the priest. We are well aware that there is great anger against the church in Québec, but turning the words for their paraphenalia into vulgar insults is really, really odd.

[bjd]

I remember reading a newspaper article about how swearing depends on the culture and what is the thing that makes people most upset. I assume the Quebec religious swearing came about because of the heavy-handed role of the church in Quebec for so many years. Other countries, where motherhood is holy (although women are often second-class citizens!), swearing about mothers is really powerful.

[lagatta]

Yes, and against the Virgin Mary. The Québec swearwords using Church furnishings are quite distinctive.

Now they harken back to the past, as many younger Québécois have probably never been inside a church, except perhaps for a funeral or to look at the architecture.

[rikita]

well, the views of what children need to be protected from, and how, seems to also vary by culture. i wouldn't mind my child seeing that sign - by the time she can read that, in english, she'd be old enough for me to be able to explain to her the difference about using swear words in ironic context or using them towards people etc. ... and anyway, she's heard me swear at times ... as my little brother said at age six, about a different swear word: "I know it's bad and you shouldn't say it, but sometimes you just HAVE TO say 'Scheiße'!"

and yeah, if someone was speaking at someone else in an elevated voice, using the same word, i'd take more offense at that - not at the word itself, but because that has a risk of coming across menacing if i am not able to make out the whole context of the conversation ...