Public Address | Cafe | Up Front: I Swear, It's True

Moz

Mon, 10 Oct 2016 13:01:01 +1300

I'm playing an online game a bit ATM, and a fair number of mental children there seem to use "pick three of the top 10 offensive words" as a name generation system. Others go for "most offensive phrase". I would like to be kidding. And there seems to be no…

Rosemary McDonald

Fri, 09 Sept 2016 15:41:11 +1200

The very best swear words are the ones that conjure an image....

"Brown nose".....which is what you get when you've been....

....."buttsnorkelling."

Sacha

Sun, 28 Aug 2016 20:06:07 +1200

no guarantee I gots it right

Sacha

Sun, 28 Aug 2016 20:01:38 +1200

We were trying hard not to swear around her but only because as we explained it is much more fun when you don't do it all the time.

sweet

Katita

Sun, 28 Aug 2016 17:13:55 +1200

For reasons hardly remembered (something to do with a daggy pair of red tracksuit bottoms) my dear Mum is known as The Whore in Sheep's Trousers. Particularly useful when addressing birthday cards to her from overseas.

Jason Kemp

Sun, 28 Aug 2016 12:04:40 +1200

One for the linguistic historians out there. This talk by Prof Kate Burridge from 2012 was intriguing. She is Chair of Linguistics at Monash University.

It is a talk about why, ultimately, euphemisms make our lives easier. I suspect swearing makes life easier as well.

OK it is a academic…

Moz

Sun, 28 Aug 2016 09:19:29 +1200

Has anyone else had the Mockers going through their heads

I assumed the title referred directly to it, even though the lyrics don't really apply.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kwiKd_o4Mtc

Hebe

Sat, 27 Aug 2016 22:47:09 +1200

fucken eh

Have always thought that is "fucken A". Thanks for the enlightening.

Jason Kemp

Sat, 27 Aug 2016 18:31:06 +1200

Just re-watching 'Black Books' right now. Somehow that series seems to strike an expletive tone without actually swearing.

Also I remember when my daughter got to school finally at age 5. She and a number of her 5 yr old friends stumbled on a mystery word called the "f" word…

nzlemming

Sat, 27 Aug 2016 12:58:02 +1200

I should bloody well hope so

Other people are probably too hip to mention it. Cockwombles, all.

Emma Hart

Sat, 27 Aug 2016 12:23:52 +1200

Has anyone else had the Mockers going through their heads while reading this thread?

I should bloody well hope so.

Shaun Scott

Fri, 26 Aug 2016 23:36:56 +1200

Emma- thank you so much for this post. i am in the midst of shit work, and and the soon to be demise of an old friend (minimal contact in recent years but close link with the important parts of whanau and with emotional history), and this truly made me…

nzlemming

Fri, 26 Aug 2016 23:12:16 +1200

Slapped to the floor with a huge cock, perhaps.

You'd have to ask Steven Joyce about that

nzlemming

Fri, 26 Aug 2016 23:11:15 +1200

Has anyone else had the Mockers going through their heads while reading this thread?

Rich Lock

Fri, 26 Aug 2016 20:38:45 +1200

My favourite reaction to that Donald Trump twitter pile-on was someone who was so delighted with the creativity displayed that he wanted a tear-off calender with a new British insult-phrase on each of the day's sheets. Would probably be a decent money-spinner for someone who put it up on Kickstarter…

Sacha

Fri, 26 Aug 2016 19:10:13 +1200

Fuckwit spits out well.

fucken eh

Sacha

Fri, 26 Aug 2016 19:09:05 +1200

that moment when Ron Mark mumbled the F-word, and the sign language interpreter translated it as a middle finger

faithfully. recommend asking to see 'bullshit' sometime.

Hebe

Fri, 26 Aug 2016 19:07:31 +1200

Douche-anything is too American, douche-canoe particularly so. I for no particular reason find it especially irritating and something I have never heard anyone say in real life.

The thread has made me think about why and when I swear: it's usually fury or frustration. Fluency and assonance of the words…

Sacha

Fri, 26 Aug 2016 19:06:45 +1200

does seem vastly more likely :)

Russell Brown

Fri, 26 Aug 2016 18:42:04 +1200

it was banned at the Titirangi Library on the basis of RB’s bad bad language

See, Russell tells people it’s MY fault. Lying cock-sandwich.

And if so, what a twatcock I turned out to be! I genuinely can’t recall (and I have recently consumed too many potent craft beers to…

TracyMac

Fri, 26 Aug 2016 18:26:54 +1200

The poms really are the best at coming up with creative swearwords. I mean, I like the American "douchecanoe" (I feel it should be run together), but "cockwomble" and "fuck trumpet" are so Old English in their use of assonance in the paired words. And a nice spondee for emphasis.…

Paul Williams

Fri, 26 Aug 2016 17:36:04 +1200

It has been a long time since I've spent sufficient time at Public Address! This is all genius.

Australians have many, often localised, variations of traditional NZ terms. "Died in the Arse" is one, "Rat Fuck" another.

nzlemming

Fri, 26 Aug 2016 17:22:15 +1200

He thinks is a wit but he is only right half of the time ....

I suppose, on that basis, you could just call someone a Paul Henry...

Geoff Lealand

Fri, 26 Aug 2016 17:12:41 +1200

He thinks is a wit but he is only right half of the time ....

william blake

Fri, 26 Aug 2016 16:58:19 +1200

Guttersnipe.

Sister Mary Gearchange

Fri, 26 Aug 2016 15:59:38 +1200

See, now "lying cock sandwich" rolls off the tongue smoothly. I think that's vital for a good bit of swearing. Not in print form, mind, but when spoken. A lot of the ones you mentioned simply don't lend themselves to being used in anything other than print. And that's a…

EliotBlennerhassett

Fri, 26 Aug 2016 15:38:27 +1200

Swing from the futtock shrouds and tap a firkin behind the arras.

linger

Fri, 26 Aug 2016 15:31:47 +1200

A motorist is just a more rapid wanker, innit.

Kumara Republic

Fri, 26 Aug 2016 15:27:34 +1200

"Bollocks" seems to work in any situation. And my Twitter feed was briefly reminded of that moment when Ron Mark mumbled the F-word, and the sign language interpreter translated it as a middle finger.

And even further back, Canada's Pierre Trudeau once told a group of striking truckies to "mangez…

Moz

Fri, 26 Aug 2016 15:20:29 +1200

Womble is an excellent suffix for swearing, and I'm not sure why. Cockwomble, cuntwomble, fuckwomble, douchwomble, you can fucking womble free the fuck all over that shit. Yeah, ok, I'm swearing just because I can. I'm still an arse man at heart, though. Arsehole, arse-licker, arse-emptying-dickhead.

Oh, and motorist. It's…

Joe Wylie

Fri, 26 Aug 2016 15:17:34 +1200

Fuckwit spits out well.

Fuckwit seems universally beloved. An elderly Australian a few years back was describing how, as an adolescent in a small NSW town during WW2, he was made a fire warden. This involved patrolling the town while wearing a helmet emblazoned with the letters FW. Everyone, including…

nzlemming

Fri, 26 Aug 2016 15:13:07 +1200

True story. I used to answer the government's email at www.govt.nz and we would get all sorts of inquiries that I would either answer briefly or flick on to the relevant department. A lot of them were from school kids, many of them American (I used to have a little…

Bart Janssen

Fri, 26 Aug 2016 15:01:21 +1200

I personally prefer those swears that lend themselves to shouting, generally single syllable but also with a good hard consonant to build up pressure behind before you let rip.

Bugger is always good – but to be fair I like that one mostly because the teenage American student helpers in…

Bart Janssen

Fri, 26 Aug 2016 14:56:48 +1200

As an added bonus swearing increases your ability to tolerate pain – unless you're a male with a tendency to catastrophise

Hebe

Fri, 26 Aug 2016 14:27:31 +1200

Fuckwit spits out well.

Fen Tex

Fri, 26 Aug 2016 14:24:32 +1200

MY favourite 'swear' in exasperation is "Expletive deleted!"

Nick Russell

Fri, 26 Aug 2016 14:21:58 +1200

On a very tangentially related point – I think we all owe Donald Trump an enormous debt of gratitude in this context. Namely that he provokes us all to ever-greater peaks of achievement in the exploration of profanity. He is the spur of so much achievement in this noble field…

Nick Russell

Fri, 26 Aug 2016 14:12:58 +1200

I just like to say cocksplat. It gives me enormous pleasure, as Stephen Fry once said.

David Haywood

Fri, 26 Aug 2016 14:07:17 +1200

See, Russell tells people it’s MY fault. Lying cock-sandwich.

Perhaps my memory is playing tricks on me. It does certainly sound like the sort of thing that would be all your fault, now that I think of it…

nzlemming

Fri, 26 Aug 2016 13:53:23 +1200

I forgot to mention "Jesus on a stick!", "Christ in a bucket" and "Jesus H. Fucking Christ!" for the trifecta.

Emma Hart

Fri, 26 Aug 2016 13:46:52 +1200

it was banned at the Titirangi Library on the basis of RB’s bad bad language

See, Russell tells people it's MY fault. Lying cock-sandwich.

David Haywood

Fri, 26 Aug 2016 13:44:19 +1200

And give a special wave to the Titirangi Public Library.

Years and years ago, when Public Address first went on the internets (late 1990s? Early 2000s), it was banned at the Titirangi Library on the basis of RB’s bad bad language. Maybe he mentioned that Doug Myers was an aresehole…

Prudence

Fri, 26 Aug 2016 13:40:56 +1200

Gorgeous!. You do my head good Emma.
I like 'frog's pisle'
"You wanking frog's pisle"

Emma Hart

Fri, 26 Aug 2016 13:21:30 +1200

I feel I should apologise for all the filters this column will not make it through. And give a special wave to the Titirangi Public Library. Also, my copy of Word had a nightmare with this. Interestingly, while it simply assumed most of the words were spelt wrong, it was…

Public Address

Fri, 26 Aug 2016 13:21:30 +1200

Discussion from blog post.