Un phoque
If you learned all your English from non-native speakers, British people, television, or the movies, you might be excused for thinking that the word I will call phoque is one of the most commonly spoken words in the United States. Ah ben you'd be wrong-- except in specific groups, the average American does not use it with people he or she does not know well, except sometimes deliberately to shock. There are lots and lots of exceptions, mostly on the east and west coasts and within certain communities (Reddit, Hollywood and Silicon Valley come to mind). And usage is changing fast, too. But in many parts of the U.S.A., which is still a very religious and conservative nation, you can go months or even years on end without hearing it in public.
But non-native speakers think nothing of strewing their conversation with "phoquing this" and "phoquing that" and "Phoque him" and "What the phoque?" Germans, Dutch and Scandinavians are especially prone to this, possibly because they all speak English well (but not usually as well as they think they do or they would stop doing this). The French do it too.
The German word for phoque is ficken, which probably sounds about as nasty to me as phoque does to a German. (V in German is pronounced f, by the way, which is one reason why you don't meet many German girls named Vicky.)
This rant was inspired by hearing a German woman at a party drop a long series of f-bombs into her prattling English conversation as if that was really a cool way to talk. It actually made her sound like an obnoxious foreigner.
I wanted to lean over and say, "Fick dich in deiner eigenen verfickten Sprache*!" and see how she likes it.
*Phoque yourself in your own phoquing language!
Good post. And very true.
I worked for a US investment bank, and even in boardrooms every sentence uttered included the "f" word. Being a native French speaker, I picked it up like any other colloquialism -- until I moved to an old-fashioned British firm when it was a big no-no! But until then, I didn't have any particular sensitivity to the word since it was used regularly in "good" circles.
I also worked for a well-known non-profit in California where the aristocratic founder used the "f" word all the time. Yet, you would never catch him or me saying the equivalent in French!
When I first lived in London, I would not say m*rde but had no problem saying sh*t -- while my English roommate would say m*rde all the time but would never say sh*t.
One can be completely bi-lingual and feel completely bi-cultural, and yet miss on important issues of basic etiquette.
Posted by: Laure | 03 July 2012 at 06:24
How interesting! Yes, another expat gave me the advice early on to be careful about swear words-- it's so easy for a foreigner to get them wrong. I have a friend who used the f-bomb non-stop with everything (from L.A., lives in New York) until his toddler started to talk like that... unattractive in a toddler!
One of the issues is that many people from the f-bomb and non-f-bomb cultures just don't have that much contact with people who are different from them, and do not "get" the other culture. They just think the other people are uptight prudes (in the first case) or coarse and offensive (in the second).
Posted by: Sedulia | 03 July 2012 at 10:54
swear words in foreign languages do not have this "harshness" to them... they are less emotional because it is just not "your" language...
you should have told that German woman how her frequent use of f**k offended you - otherwise she might never stop?!
the letter can be pronounced [f] or [v] in German... there are girls called Vicky in Germany as the name is pronounced [viki:] like in English (although Germans prefer the "full version" Victoria and use Vicky as a nickname)
your German sentence is nice... u just should use "verfickt" instead of "fickend"
oh... sorry for my bad English btw ;)
Posted by: julia | 03 July 2012 at 12:51
Thanks Julia! I'll fix it... I was kind of embarrassed to ask a German friend how to say it correctly!
Your English is perfect, by the way.
Posted by: Sedulia | 03 July 2012 at 15:40
My favorite here is France is to hear a Frenchman angrily shout, "I PHOQUE YOU!" instead of a simple, "PHOQUE YOU!"
Posted by: phillippa | 03 July 2012 at 18:19
Funny! The French also think we say "Damned!" instead of "Damn!" I guess it's like the way we think they say "Sacre bleu," which I have never heard.
Posted by: Sedulia | 03 July 2012 at 18:51
Really funny! I escorted a group of high school French students to Ireland once, and I really laid into them about not saying "phoque." But then in Ireland everyone said it. My poor students weren't sure whether to be offended or just think their teacher was a prude.
In private, I swear /a lot/. My (French) husband has picked up on this and we swear a lot together. But I find myself telling him to hush when we are out in public!
Posted by: Gem | 03 July 2012 at 19:21
Ireland has its prudish regions too! You were not likely to run into them with a tour of French high school students, but you were right anyway to tell them that, I think!
Posted by: Sedulia | 03 July 2012 at 23:04
I get a lot of "sacrebleu" in the U.S. (pronounced sah-crlee-blooh). People think that it's a common expression in France, but it isn't (it's only a swear word from one of the characters in the comic book series Tintin).
They also find the word "putain" cute because they like the sound of it, and because they hear it so often in French movies.
Also, people here are convinced that Jerry Lewis is famous in France, and laugh at the French for it. He did get the Légion d'Honneur, but that's all really. I'd never heard of him until I moved to the U.S.!
@Philippa: rofl on "phoque" - reminds me of the German nihilists in The Big Lebowski.
Posted by: Laure | 04 July 2012 at 04:03
Here's a great post by David Lebovitz on the same subject:
http://www.davidlebovitz.com/2013/10/la-bombe-df/comment-page-1/#comment-254988
Posted by: Sedulia | 26 October 2013 at 19:58