Posted: Apr 15, 2012 7:20 pm
Lion IRC wrote:Zwaarddijk, I would be interested to hear your thoughts about the rationale - in terms of linguistics - for the use of expletives. How "reasonable" is it to... !X#&!!MF@[b][/b] ?
Or as a moderator on Undernet #apologetics said to someone recently...
"Wow, you swear a lot. You must really know your topic well."
I can't give an answer in less than five pages for that, but I will probably get to it somewhere just after sociolinguistics.
@LionIRC
Duly note, though, that Paul the Apostle calls things dung as well to make a point about them. If a kid these days says something is shitty, you'd probably find that a rather terribly poor phrasing - is it any less poor when Paul used it to make his argument sound more convincing?:
Yea doubtless, and I count all things [but] loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them [but] dung, that I may win Christ,
ἀλλὰ μενοῦνγε καὶ ἡγοῦμαι πάντα ζημίαν εἶναι διὰ τὸ ὑπερέχον τῆς γνώσεως Χριστοῦ Ἰησοῦ τοῦ κυρίου μου δι᾽ ὃν τὰ πάντα ἐζημιώθην καὶ ἡγοῦμαι σκύβαλα εἶναι ἵνα Χριστὸν κερδήσω - σκύβαλον being "dung, shit, excrement".