Profanity in Russian speech WAS Re: HP in translation

[dumbledore11214]

> > --- In HPFGU-OTChatter at yahoogroups.com, "constancevigilance"
> > <constancevigilance@> wrote:
> > > 
> > > Common Russian speach is peppered with profanity and 
vulgarities 
> as a
> > > matter of course - it is just the way people speak and it is 
> part of
> > > the native color. Hearing only cleaned up speach in the films 
> would
> > > sound odd to them, so they usually spiced up the dialog.
> 
> >--- In HPFGU-OTChatter at yahoogroups.com, "Catlady (Rita Prince 
> Winston)" <catlady@> wrote:
> >
>  
> > It seems to me that common American speech is 'peppered with 
> profanity
> > and vulgarities as a matter of course' but we require that 
movies 
> and
> > especially TV shows have dialog that is cleaned up compared to 
real
> > life. IIRC George Orwell wrote somewhere that common British 
> speech is
> > full of profanity and vulgarity, and IIRC he mentioned Chaucer 
as 
> an
> > example.
> >
> 
> 
> Alla:
> 
> Um, what do you guys mean by **common speech**? Because if you 
mean 
> the speech of russian criminals, then sure I would say you are 
right.
> 
> But if you are talking about people who at least have some sort of 
> education, then no, not really.
> 
> And I am not talking about people who are descendants of Pushkin, 
> Tolsoty and Dostoevsky, lol. I am just talking about normal 
people, 
> who at least went to college.
> 
> 
> Russian language collection of profanity is very rich indeed. 
> Personally I believe it is connected to the fact that during 
soviet 
> regime millions went to prison and those who survived brought it 
> from prisons, just my non scientific thought.
> 
> 
> I think that was the thing with those movies - action movies, etc. 
I 
> think that was belief of the translators that this is how criminal 
> talk would be more recognisable for everybody. Again, just a non 
> supported thought.
> 
> So, what I am trying to say? Just that I think that this is a bit 
of 
> stereotype, same as russians drink vodka every day, lol.
> 
> Sure, many people do - not ALL of them though, hehehe. I grew up 
> there ( in Ukraine, but really it all was soviet union) - I tried 
> one sip of vodka in my life, literally.
> 
> I have to say though that my observations do end at the end of 
year 
> 1997, hehe. I had not been back yet, so maybe now all people use 
> profanity on the regular basis.
> 
> 


Alla:

Replying to myself - missed a couple of sentences. Just wanted to 
make sure I am clear. Profanity is a part of national culture, that 
is for sure. Many great writers used it in their books as well, etc.

I am just not sure that the speech of normal, average person is that 
spread with profanity on the day to day basis.

I know a lot of those words in Russian, lol. Except two or three I 
almost never use them, in fact I was taught by my parents that well 
behaved person  never uses profanity, hehe. As adult, I of course 
use it sometimes, but really quite rarely.

Come to think of it, that if I am especially stressed in my everyday 
life I prefer using English words, not russian - they sorta feel 
less real as profanity, if that makes sense.