Quote:
Originally Posted by Breeze
From an American.
I know what shag means,and ~~~~er, pram,and know bloody has always been used as slang, but what exactly does bloody translate over to in American? perhaps you have a list of slang and how it translates over. serious:) oops i see one word got edited. I guess that is one like the f word over here.
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It's just a fairly mild adjective/adverb Jackie (these days anyway) like saying "danged" or "darned" in the USA .. and doesn't readily translate into any American equivalent, as its roots aren't clear. Unlike gee, heck and gosh, it's uncertain where it comes from. For example Gor blimey is generally held to be a corruption of "God blind me", gee a scaled down version of Jesus, heck for hell etc. The argued origins of bloody range from "by Our Lady"; "by the blood" tracing back to the Wars of the Roses; coming from "bloody drunk" meaning drunk enough to fight; or corruption of a Dutch word bloote which means naked, so used as absolutely.
Back in the fifties it was the kind of word your parents would use but you weren't meant to repeat :) .. in the 60s considered a "strong" word to use on TV, then fairly quickly became a mild and pretty inoffensive word in everyday language to all but the most sensitve ears .. a bit like "b ugger" (which originally came from a French word referring to a Bulgarian sect of monks said to practise sodomy), or "sod" (probably from the same root, sodomite) both of which are used now as a mild expletive, or even affectionately ..
"he's a daft old b ugger" or "silly old sod" .. (although b ugger seems to offend the software here, whilst sod sneaks through, presumably because it also means a piece of turf .. like clod which can be used to mean lump of soil or fool .. I love the richness and vagaries of language :) .. and software which sees peril in "b uggery" but not "sodomy" :)
Caryl