Sophisticated Cursing

[yonitabonita]

For example in English, just take a nice quote from Shakespeare and you'll always sound (though not necessarily be) sophisticated, even when cursing.

I disagree. I think using Shakespeare to curse someone can easily make you look like a pretentious tosser. It's very hard to pull off other people's quotes well. It takes immaculate timing, for a start. Wordiness can often sound hopelessly clumsy. Delivery could easily sound too rehearsed, especially when you're using Shakespeare. And in my world, anyone that rehearses their curses, comes out ironically sounding like a half wit.

Some of the one- liners mentioned on this thread are witty, and read well. But I don't think they're practical every day, or even once-a-month sorts of insults.

My last point is that there's a distinction between insulting someone, which is a broad field, and swearing at them, which is much narrower. The one-liners used in this thread are insults, but not instances of cursing or swearing.

' Nuff said.

yonita

[HashiriKata]

Samples:

"He can compress the most words into the smallest idea of any man I know."

Abraham Lincoln

"He has no enemies, but is intensely disliked by his friends."

Oscar Wilde

"He is a self-made man and worships his creator."

John Bright

"Some cause happiness wherever they go; others, whenever they go."

Oscar Wilde

Quotes such as these sound undeniably witty when you read them and have time to digest them. I doubt that they would have the same effect in spoken exchanges, due to various contraints specific to spontaneous conversations.

[freefall]

Sophisticated cursing is definitely feasable. To pull it off, the speaker shows off one of his positive qualites (intelligence, knowledge, etc) while at the same time degrading his foe. Wit, as was mentioned, usually makes for the best kind.

A simpler method is to take a frowned-upon curse like "fuck" and compound it with sophisticated words.

"My gaze pierces your psychological veneer, your flesh-and-skull, deep into the tissues of your brain-mind, where I see, lying dormant, your full compendium of fuck-thoughts."

This will especially work if the person you intend to insult doesn't know the word "compendium" but the surrounding audience does. They will then laugh at the insultee's gawking face and the insult will be highly effective. The insultee has been excluded from the rest to a position of ignorance.

Now all we need is for someone to translate that to chinese.

[adrianlondon]

"My gaze pierces your psychological veneer, your flesh-and-skull, deep into the tissues of your brain-mind, where I see, lying dormant, your full compendium of fuck-thoughts."

Did you write that in Cornish, get a Spanish-hating French farmer to translate it into Basque, and then use Altavista to translate it into English via Japanese?

[Quest]

I think using 贬义成语 is one way of pulling off sophisticated cursing in Chinese, using 歇后语 is another...

[djwebb2004]

What about along the lines of Winston Churchill's famous put-downs?

Woman: Mr. Churchill, you are drunk!

Churchill: Yes, madam, and you are ugly, but in the morning I shall be sober...

I think this does not really meet the thread's requirement of an elegant put-down, as it is inelegant to tell a lady she is less than beautiful, but still...

[MarkKang]

I think using 贬义成语 is one way of pulling off sophisticated cursing in Chinese, using 歇后语 is another...

Quest, I have lived in China 14 years, but don't use 脏话. However something like you've suggested may fit the bill on occassion, or maybe just to amaze my friends. Do you have any good ones?

[geek_frappa]

I think insulting someone's parents or family is unbearable. A simple 沒教養 is enough for a fight, so comparing someone's father to a hamster is quite unacceptable.

i truly agree with skylee. even if you are mad at what someone has done, there is no reason to curse family or dead relatives in any language. life is so short and precious and before you know it, your time to reconcile will be gone.

furthermore... the purpose of language learning is build bridges. smiling and laughing are contagious , just as are fear, anger and aggression.

The one-liners used in this thread are insults, but not instances of cursing or swearing.

*hugs yonita*

agreed.

[Gulao]

I'm of the opinion that true "cursing," applied to people, at least, is unnecessary, sounds uneducated and only serves to make situations tenser. If you want to sound smart while putting someone down, it's best to go with wit. Use 谐音 or appropriate 成语 and proverbs, maybe, to a humorous effect that demoralizes your "opponent." To observers, you sound more collected and smarter than the person who's telling you to fuck yourself.

I hold a different view, though, on applying crude language to inanimate objects. Calling my computer 臭狗屎 (stinking dogshit) as an epithet when it crashes on me is not something I'm averse to if no one or a few equally foul-mouthed friends are with me, although if I'm alone, I'd probably just be using English anyway.

I do have to wonder, though. What about joking amongst friends? Among American friends, it is not uncommon for me to call a friend a crude name amicably, and things won't escalate because it's a joke. Is this phenomenon present in China as well?

[djwebb2004]

I must admit I hate meaning Chinese people who speak fluent English peppered with expletives including the F word. I know it is a result of watching American movies and concluding that all Westerners use these words all the time, but I think foreigners using swear words in another language - which includes us laowai speaking Chinese - will always hit entirely the wrong note!! But that is not to say that there never ever will be a situation where expletives are called for; just that such situations are pretty rare. Or put another way: situations where earthy insults would seem deserved are not necessarily rare in China, but nonetheless the use of them will probably not produce the results you want.

[mythia]

I think 歇后语 might be what you are looking for. My 2 cents on this:

电线杆子带帽子，不嫌脸长。

你嘴里吐不出象牙来。

sn!gger.

[magores]

I must admit to not being quite sure what "sophisticated swearing" is exactly ... Use a curse word, but reference Mozart in the same sentence? Use the medical term for a body part? Say it with an RP English accent?

As far as the crude stuff... Oh heck. Learning swear words is friggin fun. I don't see a darn thing wrong with it, and anyone that thinks different is a bas-fisherman!

Using them, however, is a heck-of-lot different.

---

The first time I heard one of my Chinese co-workers use a curse word in English, I made up a rule... Every time one of them says a curse word in English, they have to teach me a curse word in Chinese.

Across the last year, there have only been 5 times when the rule has been invoked, and each time they seem to wiggle out of actually living up to their end of the deal.

Of course, I do know a few of the cruder things, even without their assistance.

Do I use them? No. Never. Can't imagine a situation where it would come naturally enough for me to say it without stumbling. And, if I have to stop and think about how to say it, then I can guarantee that I wouldn't say it. In the heat of the moment, I think people will almost always revert to their native language.

Closest I've ever come in real life was when I said "er bai wu" when some guy on his bicycle swerved in front of me as I was riding mine. (Happens all the time. Traffic was just bothering me particulary bad that day.) And, I didn't even say it loud enough for him to hear. The person next to me did though. And giggled.

In joking around with my colleagues, sometimes I'll call them "popo laoshi". They invariably respond with "huai ren". This is all in fun. I could see a situation where you could use "popo" and the person would be suitably offended, but... 1) Why would you want to do this? 2) It doesn't really fit the concept of "sophisticated swearing"

So... If you really must swear at someone, then go for the crude stuff. If you don't want to use the crude stuff, then it probably is worth swearing at all, is it?

So there!