Transcript of AE 1289 - The Goss: Swearing in Australian English

G'day you mob. Pete here. And this is another episode of Aussie English, the number one place for anyone and everyone wanting to learn Australian English. So today I have a Goss episode for you where I sit down with my old man, my father, Ian Smissen, and we talk about the week's news, whether locally Down Under here in Australia, or non-locally, overseas, in other parts of the world.

And we sometimes also talk about whatever comes to mind, right? If we can think of something interesting to share with you guys related to us or Australia, we also talk about that in The Goss.

So these episodes are specifically designed to try and give you content about many different topics where we're obviously speaking in English and there are multiple people having a natural and spontaneous conversation in English. So it is particularly good to improve your listening skills.

In order to complement that, though, I really recommend that you join the podcast membership or the Academy membership at AussieEnglish.com.au where you will get access to the full transcripts of these episodes, the PDFs, the downloads, and you can also use the online PDF reader to read and listen at the same time.

So if you really, really want to improve your listening skills fast, get the transcript, listen and read at the same time. Keep practising and that is the quickest way to level up your English. Anyway, I've been rabbiting on a bit. I've been talking a bit. Let's just get into this episode, guys. Smack the bird and let's get into it.

How the fuck are you, you old bastard?

Piss off!

Get fucked, you cunt!

Yeah. Good old Rodney Rude. He was a comedian, guys. So anyway, you've obviously, hopefully, worked out that we're 'taking the piss'.

We're swearing deliberately.

And we're swearing deliberately. Yeah. So, um, I thought we could do an episode of Australian swearing. We could talk a bit about what it is, how it differs from other places, and also when and when not to. Um, so yeah, I guess what would you consider swearing? Because it is a very objective, a subjective kind of thing.

Yeah, it's sort of it's, it's one of those weird things because it's subjective but it's well understood.

Mhm.

Every, even people like you and I swear a lot. Um, but people who swear a lot more than we do would know exactly what they were doing. You know that. They know they're swearing, they know that some people are offended, but they don't give a shit, so to speak. Um, and and so yeah, it's and it's bizarre, though when you look at it and go, why are there some words in any language? I mean, you speak two and a half languages. Um.

Three and a quarter.

Yeah, three and a quarter. Well, yeah. Your French probably isn't as good as it was ten years ago.

Definitely not.

Um, but, you know, Brazilian Portuguese has lots of swear words.

Yeah.

Every language does, and..

Japanese apparently doesn't. It's how you speak to someone.

Yeah.

It's the tone.

But how, how those words, which often came from and certainly in English, they came from Old English or medieval English. And they were my understanding is a lot of them were used in, you know, working class, labouring class people. Um, and upper class people decided that they didn't want to use those words. They were just, you know, looked down upon and then they just became forbidden, you know, you didn't use them. And, um, so they became what we now call 'swear' words.

Well, and it's interesting, I was reading that book, um, the I can't remember what it was called. 'Holy Shit' or something. 'The history of swearing'.. Sorry, I can't give a shout out. There's a female author, but it was a really good book because it went through effectively swearing in, um, the last 2000 years from sort of the Roman time through to present and how it's changed. And in Roman times, it was interesting that apparently swearing was much more related to, um, class and..

Yeah.

And like, what your role was sexually in interactions. So homosexuality wasn't really a thing in ancient Rome. Like you could you would have relationships. You could have relationships with men. And it wasn't seen as a, a really a negative thing, obviously, depending on the situation. But it was more about whether or not you were sort of receiving the cock, right? Like, to be, to be quite blunt.

Who was on top.

If you were the giver, you were the one who was doing the penetrating. You were the masculine person involved in that interaction. So you were fine. But the person who was in the effeminate kind of role was was seen as, you know, degraded and, you know, so they had a lot of slang or slang, swear words related to effectively stuff like 'cock sucker', right. Like, if you called someone a cock sucker in Australian English, we don't really use that. It's sort of American.

Yeah.

And I guess it would be referring to. It's weird. I had never thought about it until recently, but I didn't realise it was a homophobic slur.

Yeah.

I honestly didn't realise that because I thought you just. You don't have to be a man to suck someone's cock. Typically most people..

I suspect most of the cock sucking that gets done in the world is not by men.

And so I only saw that recently where I think a footballer in Australia had used it and got done for a homosexual vilification. And I was like, what? Oh, okay. Yeah, that totally makes sense, I guess if you're using it on a man. But anyway, so in Roman times, apparently there was some I can't remember the exact word, but there was a word they used for someone who effectively received the penis, and that was seen as the most offensive thing that you could say to someone. Whereas today, if you were to say that, call someone a cock sucker. It's almost like a a light way of calling someone a fuckhead, right? Like to, to, just an idiot. I again, I wouldn't, I wouldn't have even thought of it as a homophobic slur.

It's a, it's a reference to somebody being a lesser person.

Yeah. You're just a dickhead. You're a fuckhead. You're a cocksucker. You're a moron. You're a motherfucker. You know, like. But it's funny how I think 'cocksucker' and 'motherfucker' are very American.

Very American.

We would not typically use them. Um, unless kind of being, like, trying to pretend to be American as a joke kind of thing. Ah, motherfucker!

'Hey, motherfucker.'.

Yeah.

Mofo.

Yeah, exactly. That's very American. Um, so. Yeah, it it started in apparently Roman times, sort of like that around power and masculine and feminine roles. Who was the dominant figure? Who was the submissive figure? And they had swearing related to that. And then in the Middle Ages it was much more around religion. And that's where all that bloody oath.

Yeah.

Um, 'Jesus Christ', um, 'for God's sake'.

'Damn'.

'Damn you', yeah. 'Damn your eyes', 'go to hell'. Those sorts of things became really offensive. And the stuff that we use today wasn't saying, you know, 'shit' and 'fuck' and 'piss' and, you know, 'cock' and 'cunt' and all those sorts of words, stuff related to excrement and going to the toilet and nudity wasn't rude because it was something that everyone experienced all the time.

Exactly.

Like, you typically lived in the Middle Ages in a single room house.

And those were the words that were being used by labouring class people to describe upper class people who didn't want to have anything to do with it. You know, 'the Queen doesn't shit', you know? So.

And that's it. But you apparently your big thing was the invention of. I think it was the fireplace, where they took the fire out of the main room and they put it into a wall, and then they started creating different rooms in the house. And then all of a sudden, people had privacy. So you wouldn't be having, you know, if you had a family.

Nudity was no longer a thing.

Yeah. You weren't getting changed in front of other people. You weren't having sex in front of other people. You weren't going to toilet in front of other people.

Queen Victoria sort of completely exacerbated that by, you know, being so prudish.

Yeah.

And it became a thing amongst the certainly the middle class and the upper class.

Who'd want to replicate that.

Wanting to replicate that. So you, nudity just went out the window. You didn't talk about sex. You didn't, you know, it was..

It was very taboo.

You. Yeah. Clothing went from, you know, exposing legs and chests and things was perfectly reasonable to being, you know, particularly women being covered up from neck to ankles. Yeah.

So it's, it's been, it's funny I think having that realisation of swearing not necessarily being something that has a solid foundation that never moves, it's something that is kind of static and it changes based on social norms and and what's considered taboo or not taboo. Um, and we have these differences between countries like Great Britain and Australia, where they would use words, and especially Great Britain uses a whole bunch that are just sort of like cringey and funny, like calling someone a twat.

Yes.

That's, it's apparently a word for vagina, right? Like, you know..

Female reproductive, external reproductive.

But it sounds like a bird to me. And so if someone calls you a twat, and they use it to each other to be effectively idiot, right?

Yeah.

It just doesn't seem to be powerful.

No.

It just seems to kind of be like a mild, um 'Oh, you silly Billy' kind of phrase where it's like, 'Surely you can think of better than 'twat', right? Like, come on, mate. And 'nonce'. They use 'nonce' loads, which is apparently paedophile, right?

Yeah. No. It's nonsense. It's sort of an effeminate man.

Really? I thought it was a paedophile. Or it may be a gay man or something, but it's one of these things that, again, it just doesn't sound..

Nancy Boy. It came from, I think.

Okay.

Yeah, but yeah, I remember it just being like, hearing these and, um, bollocks, you know?

Balls.

Yeah. And just. Yeah, like the dog's bollocks or, you know 'Oh, you got a bollocks.'

Yeah. We don't use 'bollocks' at all in Australia. We're aware of it because we get so much British culture.

But again, it's just kind of embarrassing. Kind of almost. I don't know, it's one of those things where I feel like British people, they can swear when they use the C bomb, right? It's almost like you don't want to use it because it's just, it's so, so rare to come out of your mouth but can't, right, saying 'cunt'. And it does feel good.

Yeah.

It does have, what, it's those words that have the..

But, but again it's one of those words. And I think we might have mentioned this ages ago. Um, where the use of these words is we're no longer referring to the real thing.

No.

Yeah. We still use for 'the dog took a shit. Go and clean it up'. But, but we also use the word in a completely different context of 'get your shit out of here', which means 'shit' is just a generic noun for stuff.

Yeah, but it's..

Sorry, I don't use it to refer to reproductive..

Yeah. We don't, we don't use it. You know, they can't do, you know, you know, 'stick it in your cunt' is. People would use it but it's not used generically in that. And you know we will use the word 'fuck' to mean having sexual intercourse. But, but we also say 'get the fuck out of here'. That has nothing to do with having sex.

That's emphasis. And that's..

And getting the fuck out of here can literally mean 'leave now'.

Yeah, it doesn't mean 'leave fucking'.

Or 'get the fuck out of here'. It could mean 'you're kidding'.

Yeah.

Yeah. And..

And so tone comes in.

Yeah.

But it is funny because I'm writing a slang guide at the moment, and I have to put in the definition. And I'm putting in example sentences for a lot of these swear words. And it is just so hard when like the literal translation of 'cunt' would be 'vagina'.

Yes.

But it's so rare that you would never say, 'check out this chick's cunt'. Like, or 'I have a problem with my cunt. So I'm going to go see the doctor.' You know, like.

Exactly.

'He had a look at my cunt.' You would just be like. No. Ever, ever. Even, even if you were being rude.

However.

It's just so weird.

There would be people who would use that word for it. They would use 'vagina'.

You reckon they'd say cunt?

Yeah. yeah. Some would. But. But at the same time, you know, the typical use of 'cunt' is referring to a man of lesser status. Somebody that you do not like.

Or someone who..

It's a real, it's a real insult. However, the words, you put an adjective in front of it and it changes it completely. So if I call you a 'cunt', it's an insult. If I call you 'a mad cunt', it's a compliment.

Yeah.

That's..

That's it. Yeah, that's. It's not that you can just do that with any adjective.

No you can't.

You can do it. Usually you can in a negative kind of way. Like 'Oh he's a dodgy cunt. Slimey cunt', you know. But then we have some, some rare ones I guess we're kind of going all over the shop, but.

Yeah.

So who swears in Australia? Do you think that there is..

Most people.

Do you think there's a group of. Do you think it's like Britain, where there is the upper class. And they would typically are? Again, in my experience and imagination, they would actively avoid swearing to appear more upper class.

Or in terms of publicly, yes, I and that's I think that's the thing is that there are people who will swear most of the time, and you and I can probably in that realm where..

There's a spectrum.

Yeah, where there are. But there I wouldn't swear in a professional setting. Um.

Yeah. It's so interesting if I wouldn't do it in public unless it was around people that I was comfortable with, or knew. I wouldn't just walk up to the doctor and say 'fuck, I've had a kind of a day, mate'. And my dick is, you know, like, I wouldn't use just all these words randomly with a, in a situation like that.

But in the formal setting..

There are, there are people, though, that you typically like bogans, very lower class, uneducated kind of- excuse me, I'm burping away. Um, people where they drop in the F bomb and the S bomb all the time.

Ah, well, my..

'Fuck, I went to the fucking shops with my fucking camera..'

Yeah, exactly..

And you're like, 'mate, you just wasting my time..'

'You just wasting your breath!'

.. all these extra.

Get to the point quicker!

Tell me the story. Well, it no longer means anything.

I know.

I'm using it all the time, but.

But whereas there's. Yeah. Billy Connolly the, bless him, the Scottish comedian who who says that it's the best word in the English language because it's the most expressive word in the English language. Because it can. It's an emphasis word.

Yeah.

Um, uh, and so, you know, there are times where you, you know, you're going to use it to an audience that may be inappropriate, but you're making an emphasis. Um, yeah. We get people saying it on television now.

Yeah, I remember John Cleese, right? He, wasn't he saying he was the first person to say 'shit' and then 'fuck' on TV in Britain?

Yeah.

Oh, man. Yeah. But so yeah, there is that spectrum. You'll have people that are typically that kind of like lower class, uneducated, not all of them, obviously, but there are people who belong to that kind of part of, um, our..

My sister used to call him 'the fork' and 'forken boys'.

Yeah.

Yeah. You get on a train and be 'fucking..'

Yeah, exactly. And young boys, typically, too.

Yeah.

.. and the boys are. .

Yeah, they're showing off and..

Trying to figure out, you know, how to be cool and everything. And then you'll go through..

.. I can swim..

You'll go through to the spectrum of people similar to us, I imagine, where it's kind of like I probably do it more than anyone else in our family, just because for whatever reason, I just, you know, turn it on a little more. Um, you guys typically don't, but then in private settings, say, like you and I talking to each other, we're going to do it more often than we would otherwise. And then you'll probably keep going further up the ladder.

Well, you'll also, I think that's true in most conversational styles, is that you will mirror the other person. You'll you'll speak in a manner that is acceptable. It's sort of this implied acceptance of how you will talk to each other. Um, and you will not do it with other people, like in a professional context.

I find that with tradies..

Transactional context.

Tradies will start swearing, usually in a strangers if I'm meeting their trade. Like I remember one of my, one of Noah's friends dads, um, I met him at day-care or whatever and he was just straight away just swearing. And I was just like, Oh, okay, all right.

And that's unusual.

That's where we are. Like, that's, you know, that's the level I'm at. I don't mind swearing then, but yeah, if you walk up to one of Noah's friends mums or something, the first word..

'Where the fuck are you.'.

'Yeah, what's up cunt!' Yeah. Good, good. And here are the cops.

Yes. Yeah are you uhh..

But I remember watching a video. I think it was, um, the Queen's husband. What's his name again? Prince..

Well, the ex queen's ex-husband.

Well, yeah. The Queen's.

Yeah. They're both..

Prince Philip.

Prince Philip. Where they're sitting down, taking a photo. This blew my mind. I remember they're sitting down taking a family photo, and they're faffing around taking, you know, piss farting around. Um, and he's getting pretty fed up and he just says, you know, looks at the camera and he just says, 'Take the fucking picture.' And I remember like, Oh my God, even the Queen's husband swears. Like, and it probably..

He was in the Navy!

.. wait. Even more wait, when it's someone like the Queen's husband is swearing.

Because of Edinburgh? Yeah.

It must be such a weird thing when you do have those kind of power differentials. Like you wonder what it would have been like if you'd been in that inner circle. If you hear the king swearing, do you match him? Or do you just, do you just..

.. let that one ride?

You're like, Ah, no, I'm not going to start dropping F bombs.

Exactly.

And yeah, there is a power position thing to that. You know, that you probably...

You forget yourself.

You forget your- exactly.

I can do it. You can't.

There's mirroring, and there's mirroring here. So.

Don't forget yourself.

Yeah, yeah. So look. Yeah, I think it is. It's one of those things where it's just judging where it's appropriate and when it isn't. Um, you're only going to get it wrong once.

Yeah. Well, and this is one of those things. When I was learning Portuguese, I kind of mucked around a lot with swear words to begin with, with Kel, because I wanted to gauge them and get a sense of where they sat in intensity. Because I think a big problem, and I've had this with students before, where they'll tell me someone swore at them. And then when you dig into it a bit more, you just hear, Oh no..

They were just swearing.

They were just swearing, but they weren't actually vilifying you or, you know, saying, saying anything awful like about you. They were just talking to you and being like one of those kind of like, ah, fucking thing, fucking sucks, and fucking. But they weren't having a go at you. And so I think there's, there's multiple reasons why it's important to understand swearing, whether or not you decide to use it. It's obviously that you want to be able to really understand situations when someone is having a go at you.

Yeah.

And when someone's just trying to be informal with you because it's a way of relating or trying to be friendly. Because again, if if a tradie comes up to me and starts swearing or, you know, he's chatting to me and swears, my first reaction is, Oh, he's relaxed around me. Yes. He's not treating me like I'm, you know, some sort of upper class fuckwit. You know, he's just he's just treating me like he would someone that was on the job site working with him. Um, so it can be a good sign that you're accepted. But it can also be that people are getting, you know, sort of racially vilified or treated awfully. And you need to be able to..

You've got to be able to distinguish- and you can't do that by analysing the words.

Yeah.

It's all presence..

Absence. Yeah.

It's all contextual. And certainly I mean. I spoke a little bit of French when I was at school, learned French at school. And first, things you learn other than what you're supposed to are the swear words. And French swear words are really the same as English swear words. They're, you know, they're exactly the same contextually. But when I remember talking to you, you and Kel about, you know, Brazilian Portuguese, and you cannot translate them.

Well, they're not easily..

But the translation in English either doesn't make any sense at all.

No.

Where you go, that's actually not offensive. But in Portuguese, it's extremely offensive.

Yeah.

And so, you know, you can't just go, oh, I know what that word means. Unless you know the context and you understand how its usage is related to particular socio economic groups or, you know, countries like, you know, you're talking about England and Australia, we we understand each other and we can translate. But there are words that we use that they don't and and reverse.

Well, I think that's, I'm watching at the moment. Shogun.

Yeah.

If you've heard of that series, this is the newly redone one and it's really good. But I always find Japanese culture so interesting because it's just so different.

So formal and literal.

But when they translate, obviously the show is, the show is done. It's an interesting kind of setup where, um, the protagonist is like an English pirate who's washed up in Japan, like the ship is sort of just been adrift and smashed in a storm. And they wash up in Japan. And this is like, I think it's the 15 or 1600 where Portugal has access to Japan, um, for trade. And they have their Catholic priests and everything. They're sort of proselytising and trying to convert Japan to Christianity. Um, but there's no English. There's no, the English haven't found the place. They know of it, but they haven't never found it. Um, so anyway, the show is interesting because it's kind of like done as if the English guy speaks really good Portuguese, but he's speaking English to us, the watchers, the viewers the whole time. But he's interacting with, like one of the, um, priests, uh, students who's learnt Portuguese. That's a Japanese high born kind of person. And so they're speaking in English the whole time on the TV show, but they're actually speaking Portuguese to one another.

Yes.

Like, but then they're interacting with the Japanese people. And on the show, the Japanese people are actually speaking Japanese to one another. And so it's so interesting watching how they translate on the TV show The Japanese to English, because you'll get the subtitles for it, and the Japanese to Portuguese, which is actually English. And then they have a conversation and everything.

Yeah.

And so because there's swearing sometimes and there's informalities and everything, but it's so hard for that to carry across from Japanese like they have different I think it's verb forms that you would use on people who are above you versus below you societally, right? Like class and caste and all that was way more important there than it is in Australia. But you can't translate that into English with verbs.

No.

Really. And..

We don't have the same grammatical structures.

And it's you wouldn't even be able to do it with sir or ma'am. You have to, like the meaning is just totally lost effectively. And with swearing. Like how would you, if you were to call someone you know, this 'dirty fucking cunt' in English? How do you translate that into Japanese, right. Like because they don't really have swear words per se, at least as far as I know. They use other ways of of showing disrespect to people, or respect. So that side of it I find just endlessly fascinating with language learning. And how you, you know, translate these things because, yeah, there's been certain things where I'll be joking around with my wife, and we'll be swearing at each other in one language or another, and you'll say something, and the other person will just piss themselves laughing because it just makes no sense.

It's just not funny.

Yeah, yeah. Like, you know, if you were to say.

I think this is not funny..

If you were to say, 'go fuck yourself', you know, that sort of thing, like, oh no, I think I said something like, um, 'I fell over and ate shit' the other day.

Yeah.

And she was just like, What?!

Yeah.

What the fuck are you talking about? You ain't shit..

That's a very- that's an Australian term. Yeah.

It means I fell over and hurt my..

It fell over and hurt myself. Badly.

Yeah, there's loads of those sorts of things. That's just hilarious.

Exactly.

And it's funny because I think Australians in particular like using this stuff to be comical.

Yes.

To some degree. So we have these kind of like, 'take the piss'. Um, 'piss farting around', to 'eat shit', you know..

'Fuck around'.

Yeah, that are just kind of funny..

And 'fuck around' doesn't mean having sex with multiple people.

No.

It means having fun and playing.

Yeah, or mess around.

Yeah.

There are loads of those things, but there's also obviously in, um, English and Australian English in particular, uh, homophobic slurs that, that are used or racial slurs that are used. And I think that's probably where you and I both draw the line to some extent. I think the only time I would ever really use any of those would be when I'm trying to describe what they are to someone like, and I'm almost. Yeah, well, I am avoiding using them in this episode, just just for the sake of not having snippets out there of me using that could be taken..

To mean that those things are not swear words in a sense that they are not words that we have acquired from an older form of the language. And some of them are in a different context. Mostly, they are words that were deliberately created as being pejorative.

Yeah.

And and so that's you know, I think that's the difference.

Yeah.

Um..

Well, I guess like to talk about one of them, right. 'Fag' and 'faggot' that are pretty much words that I think I used when I was a teenager, a lot more than I do now. And I think it's that thing of you don't really appreciate the harm or the..

You mean 'cigarette and a collection of sticks'.

Yeah, that's it, exactly. But you don't, you don't understand the context and how it hurts people who are, say, homosexuals. And it becomes when you get older, typically you're like, I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings. I don't want to..

And you never. And that's the thing, is that it's, those words were just acquired from completely different meanings in English for the pure purpose of being pejorative, for being a negative and insulting. You would never say, Oh, my friend's a fag! Well..

This is, this is, this is the interesting part of the conversation that I wanted to get to, right? Like it's become kind of repossessed by that group, sort of like the N word in the US. Where if you are one, you're allowed to say it and use it to describe- not necessarily every single say gay person is going to go out there talking about their friends as being fags. But you do definitely hear and see it in, um, TV shows with gay characters.

Yeah,

But I think it's a way of them showing..

They do it as the the tongue in cheek pejorative.

Yeah.

Yeah. 'Ah, you silly fag.' You know where it's 'ha ha, slap you on the back', you know.

Yeah, and I think it's also we can use that word kind of thing, right? Like we're taking the power out like 'slut walks', right? Or the the, the whole thing of protesting being a, you know, called a slut as a woman, they would wear scanty clothing and go protesting and being like, Yeah, I'm a slut or whatever to, to own the power of that, to get that back and sort of take it away from other people.

Yes.

And show that there's nothing wrong with, you know, that. But the, the 'fag' and 'faggot' thing is interesting because it comes 'fag', obviously. Or at least it's one of those weird words where Brits seem to use it all the time for talking about cigarettes.

Yeah, and Australians..

.. makes me cringe..

Australians used to, in the 60s and 70s, when I was growing up.

.. never. Ever. Use that today.

No, but you wouldn't. No. You'd never call somebody. 'Oh he's gay' back as in being happy.

Yeah.

Yeah. Because now it has a completely different meaning.

Oh. Yeah yeah yeah, yeah.

And so it's one of those words that the original meaning of the word still exists, but the colloquial usage is now got a negative connotation to it.

Yeah.

So we would never, we would just find another word for the original meaning. We wouldn't try and use it.

But yeah. So 'fag' was often is often used in other places for cigarettes and it still makes me cringe.

Yeah.

Um. And 'faggot', again. It just feels so bad saying it, but originally it was what? A bundle of sticks?

A bundle of sticks to put on a fire.

And then it was used for the old women that used to go out and collect the bundles of sticks. They were old fags, which is, I guess, where similar to like old hag or whatever. And then interestingly, I guess it's probably got a connotation with penises, right? And that's where..

I have no idea how..

.. switched over.

You. I think you're drawing a long straw there along, if you'll excuse them very bad pun. But, you know, I have no idea how the connection got made. But, you know, it is one of those words that you looked at it and went, What?

But there's, going back to South Park again. It was really interesting. And this was that sort of.

An interesting lens on society?

Well, it was, it was, it was funny because I remember watching this episode when I was probably at high school, and it kind of resonated with me a bit, because 'fag' was one of these words that we used a lot, but it was one of these words where as a kid, you, you, you've obviously learnt it from someone who was using it as a homophobic slur, and then you start using it to mean just an unpleasant person or someone you don't like, and it or someone who does something but it like..

But it is only used in that context because it has the homophobic../

I totally get that now. But the South Park episode was funny because they had these guys on Harley-davidsons that would always drive around making a lot of noise because they wanted to be noticed. And I think it's like Eric Cartman, um, you know, gets like all the kids, including Eric, start calling those Harley-Davidson riders 'fags'. Like, 'Get out of here, you fags!' Like, 'Stop doing it, you fags.' And they just, the home, they get more and more offensive with making noise, like carrying drum sets and whistles because they're like, Notice us! Notice us! And the parents of the town hear about the kids calling them fags and are just like, You can't do that. That's homophobic and everything. And they're like, this has got nothing to do with gay people.

Yeah.

Like, what do you mean? And I think they get them, they get taken to court or something. And Kyle gets up and he's like, they said, Well, what do you think a fag is? And they're like, Harley Davidson riders! Yeah. But then they also say 'You can be a gay fag, but you can also be a fag who isn't gay. You just ride a Harley.' And so they had this whole really funny thing where the kids didn't even realise. And I remember it being like that sort of, to some extent when I was a kid with some of these words where you wouldn't even necessarily think about where the original word came from, but you were using it.

Yeah. So I think that's a distinction between so I wouldn't use things like fag or faggot.

I don't think I've ever heard you say them.

Well I wouldn't use them, but I also don't, I also don't see them as swear words.

Yeah.

There's a distinction between a swear word, as in a word that people will cringe at because it is used- it is inappropriate, in some circles, as opposed to one that is deliberately designed to be insulting.

Yeah.

Yeah, the word fuck is not deliberately designed to be insulting. Um..

When there's, it's sort of a way..

Yeah, the way, the way you choose to use it might- Ya stupid fuckhead. Yeah.

I-I identify as a fuckhead, and I find that very offensive!

Exactly. So you're choosing to use it in context to be offensive, but the word itself isn't. Whereas that cultural acquisition of a word that was a homophobic slur to just be insulting to somebody still has the homophobic slur as part of it. So.

Yeah.

Yeah. So it's the difference between a swear word and an insult. So.

Yeah. There's, it is just endlessly fascinating. That sort of, that sort of thing. But 'gay' was another one that we used as kids to mean something that was just silly or stupid.

Yeah.

You know, Ah, don't do that, man. That's so gay. Like.

But again, but culturally acquired from 'gay', meaning homosexual.

You grow up. And at least my personal journey was that you sort of get to that point of realising whether or not you mean it. It can be taken the wrong way. And if you have friends who are gay and they hear you saying that all the time, it has the potential to be something that that can be upsetting to them. And so you just sort of stop doing it. But it is funny. You'll still hear kids like younger kids using that kind of language, but it's very rare for you to kind of hear people my age or older using, I don't know, I just find that sort of the use of swearing and how it changes through different classes of people, different age groups. Probably different genders too. I would imagine..

And different generations?

Males swear more than females.

And not just age groups. As in like I would use words now. I'm the same generation that I've always been. You know, I was born in 1957. I'm, you know, the end of the baby boomers. Um, but I use words now that I wouldn't have used in the 1970s.

Yeah.

And not because it was Oh no, you don't say that word.

Which, it wasn't common.

It just wasn't commonly used. And I can't even think of anything off the top of my head..

Well, there'd be loads of words like that..

So that's that generational things just come through and. And like, you know, swearing has just become more acceptable generally. Um, yeah. Swearing in public is still against the law in Victoria.

Yeah.

Um, if somebody gets offended by it, you know, being offended is not against the law. But. Yeah, but if somebody is offended by you swearing or reports of the police, the police can charge you with offensive behaviour.

Yeah.

Um, swearing and, you know. Really!?

Make sure you only swear in front of one person. So it's hearsay.

Yeah.

Two people.

It's the only witness. Really?

Yeah. Are you fucking serious?

Exactly. Pretty much. Um, and so, you know, there's there's an element of that too, that you look at it now and go, is it generically so acceptable? You know, if, if, if you can watch a prime time television show and not a show with actors on because they're playing a part, but just, you know, somebody's being interviewed or a, you know, reality TV show or whatever, and swearing is perfectly acceptable to put in there. Why is swearing still against the law?

Yeah.

Like why is, why why doesn't somebody ring up and go, Excuse me. On channel seven last night, somebody said the word 'fuck'. Um, I'm offended by the use of that term. Can you please sue Channel Seven, or get Channel Seven taken off the air until they stop using that language? Which technically, by the law, it could be doing? No, it'll get thrown out of court immediately because it's just stupid. But you go, all right, why is it still against the law? And that comes into this whole thing, and we're sort of getting into the, you know, right down to a tangent, but, um, that we now, you know, where technically the word 'offended' is not in the laws, but, um, the word 'vilified' is.

Mmm.

And I see there's a distinct difference between those two, but the law doesn't. And that's the challenge, is that if I insult somebody, not because I'm choosing to be to be insulting, but they choose to be insulted based on the language I use, if it's homophobic, if it's racist, if it is against their religion or whatever, then I'm breaking the law and I look at that and go, No, I'm not. If I'm deliberately vilifying somebody, as in I am trying to hurt them, either physically or I'm promoting other people to hurt them or whatever just by the use of the language, that's vilification. If I'm insulting them, they are choosing to be offended and insulted by the word that I'm using. It's a very different- it's a fine line, but it's a very different thing. Um, and that's that boundary, if you like, in terms of culture. Not the law, but in terms of culture is, is it okay to say to to swear in general conversation? It's a personal decision. You've got to decide, um, am I going to offend other people and do I care?

Mhm.

If other people are offended, is that their problem or my problem?

Well, that's it, right? It's kind of like you, if society is going to work you out one way or another.

Yes.

You know, you're going to get the results of what you sort of reap, right? You're going to..

Society is made up of multiple layers. There'll be a whole series of people who won't be offended by you using that word, and a bunch of people who will.

When you have that story of that. Was it a Greek woman who ran a restaurant in..

Oh the Italian..

Italian or..

The Italian?

The grand- you're talking about the one in..

Yeah the grandmother.

Yeah. Years ago.

..'I can fucking get you..'.

Yeah, yeah. This is. It's one of my favourite stories. This is one of my favourite restaurants ever told it, and it only lasted for a couple of years that I after I was aware of it, and was while I was a university student. So. And it was in Fitzroy, um, which is an inner suburb of Melbourne, close to the University of Melbourne, where I was a student, and you were a student. Um, and a couple of my friends found this place and said, You've got to go here. It's this great little Italian restaurant. The food's great. It's really cheap. Um, good food, cheap when you're a university student. Yeah, give me more of that. And a couple of friends and I went, all right, we'll go down there. We walked in the door and there's this little old lady, and she was probably about 60. But, you know, she's when you're 19, you think that's a little old lady? Um, and she's sitting at the front door, you know, clearly, she turned out she was the grandmother in the family that ran this business. And you'd open the door and she goes, What the fuck do you want? Um, we just wanted somewhere to eat!

Is this a restaurant?

Yeah. Sit over there. Sit where you fucking like. Go over there. Get your own bloody plates and things. And she didn't know she was swearing! Because she just learned to speak English from her grandchildren.

Who spoke like that.

Who spoke like that. So she was greeting people at the door. But it turned out that people would go there to be deliberately sworn at. It was like, You've got to go here. The old lady is going to swear at you!

.. Like, a sign code skit, right?

Yeah, exactly. So, um, it was it was hysterical. The food was fantastic, but it was one of those places where you go, there's no menu. It's what's on. It's spaghetti and meatballs tonight.

.. the fuck you want.

And, yeah, spaghetti and meatballs tonight. And they just bring this big bowl out, plonk it on the table. And none of the chairs were matching. None of the cutlery or crockery was matching. It was just a fantastic place. But. Yeah. 'What the fuck do you want' when you walk in the door. And I think she meant 'What would you like?' You know, that'd be.

It'd be even more disconcerting and strange if she was smiling at you and everything.

Exactly.

'How the fuck can I help you?' 'How can I help you?'

'Where the fuck would you like to sit?'.

Exactly!

Which is pretty much what she was doing. But.

Um, the last thing to touch on, I guess, is. Yeah, racial sort of, um, swear words or insults. Do you typically are they common? Like, it's one of those things where I feel like most people know, but they don't ever use them.

Um, you know, I, I won't say you because I can't tell what you hear. I very rarely hear people using racial, racially offensive words now, in comparison with what I was like when I was a child.

Yeah.

In any way.

Really?

Yeah.

So when it was, when you were a child, it was everywhere, was it? Yeah.

Yeah, and I won't use some of the words because..

Yeah, that's it..

And that's it. Yeah. Perfect. You have to say 'You fucking cunt' but I won't call somebody the A word or the N word or um, but that was really common. Really. Yeah.

Because I think that..

And even common on, and that's, and I will use them uh, just as a context. You would have somebody interviewed on television, and it was very rare to interview somebody on television in the 60s and the 70s, because it was really..

Just in general.

In news. Well, the news was, a newsreader would sit in front of a TV camera and read the news.

Mhm.

Um, but every now and then you'd get a, you know, a video from somebody. 'Oh the bloody abos around here, there', you know. And you would never say that now.

Well no..

And this is in the 1970s.

.. say it. Even if..

It would never go to air. It would never go to air.

Unless somehow it was..

Whereas the same, the same person now being interviewed in there. You go, Ah, these fucking people.. They wouldn't, that wouldn't go to air.

Mhm.

And so that's where we've moved from. That using swear words now is acceptable to go on to live television.

Yeah.

Um and even in newsprint now they will print the whole word. Yeah. Typically now. Rather than, even five years ago, it would just be you would see the F asterisk asterisk asterisk.

Yeah.

And and you go, well, we know what the word is. You just put it in there,

.. for God's sake. Yeah.

Um, whereas those sort of racially offensive terms are just never going to be used now, and you don't hear them. I don't know what you.

I think you would. It would depend, right. If you're into African American culture and watch TV shows with pretty much any of those, kind of like Lois..

Oh yeah, I'm talking about in Australia. You're wandering around the streets in Australia.

No, no, typically not. And it would be as a result. It's funny. I think if someone were to use that kind of language, it punches home even more. You're just like, Whoa, massive taboo dude.

Yeah.

Oh look. And like-.

I think that he knew! And..

As a as a good example of that if you're talking about, you know, homophobic slurs and racial slurs, um. Popular sport like AFL football, um, NRL, rugby league. Um, you go to the AFL football now 20 years ago and more. There would be homophobic slurs and racial slurs going all the time whilst people were playing. Yeah, people in the know, people in the crowd.

Oh really? Okay.

And players on the ground. But mostly people in the crowd. Yeah, yeah. Um, at other supporters or, you know, at the players on the ground and so on. That still happens today. It's very rare. But when it does happen, it's almost like a thousand people will point and go. He said it! He said it! Police! Come and get them now! And they're tossed from the crowd.

Often banned.

And banned. And if it's, you know, said against a player, it's it's it's pulled out. And so it's, it's not that those things are just sort of let ride now. They're now being called out publicly.

Yeah.

Um, which is a good thing. You know, I don't you know, I have no problem with swearing, but I don't think, you know, vilifying somebody else based on..

It is funny how there's..

Something over which they have no control.

But even..

Sexuality or their race or anything else..

Even if you use those words, not vilifying anyone. I think the average person, just because typically they're only used for that. You would just be like..

Well, it's the fag, isn't it?

Yeah.

You're not going to..

No, no no don't. And it's funny like with 'fag', I feel uncomfortable when gay people use it. You'll just be like, Just don't man. Just don't. Because I feel like someone's watching. I'm going to get caught on film. It'll be like that thing of the gay person sitting across from you saying, Just say it, man. Just say it once.

Yeah.

Like, yeah, and you do. And the cops are instantly there. Like, Come with me, sir, and you'll be like, You did this on purpose, you son of a bitch!

Just keep it back. Yeah.

Fucking..

Yeah.

I know there was. It was so funny. I saw, um, Norm MacDonald. Is it him? The comedian? Is it Norm MacDonald? He was talking with..

Garry MacDonald.

No, it's Norm something. I've forgotten. And he was talking with Mike Tyson, right. The boxer.

Ah. Norman Gunston.

No.

Ah.

Um. But he, this this comedian who's passed away was talking with, um, Mike Tyson and he was getting him, Mike Tyson to read something out and it apparently had the N word in it. And he was just like, I just want to hear you say it. And then afterwards, Mike's like, You say it. And then he's like, Fucking say it! Say it! What are you, what are you going to say it, you pussy? And he was like, throwing his fists around and Norm was just like, Holy shit! I'm like. It's like, I feel like I'm gonna die! And it's so funny because you just see him suddenly, like, just freeze .because he's like, Am I going to have to say the N word on TV? Or Mike Tyson's going to kill me? And Mike Tyson kept switching out of, like, deadpan, like aggressively telling him, Say it! Say it! And then just laughing and then saying No, but say it. Like you. Just like, talk about a rock and a hard place.

I know. Yeah.

Anyway, this has been a long episode.

It has. Yeah.

I guess..

Probably not the place to end it, with Mike Tyson.

No, but it was one of those things. I wanted to talk about it because I often get asked, how do you swear in English? When should you swear, when should be? When you should be worried about being sworn at? And I remember from learning foreign languages, even when you get to a really high level in that language, quite often you're not necessarily apt, you know, talented at swearing or understanding it because it may not be something you use.

Yeah. And I think the, and it's not just swearing, it's use of local vernacular. You will, you're better off not doing it.

Yes.

Yeah. You're, you're never going to be looked down on if you don't swear.

If in doubt, go without. It's the opposite of condoms.

Yes. Exactly. Yeah. If it's not on, it's not on.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah. So. Yeah. Exactly. So you're never going to be looked down on if you don't use it. But if you do use it, understand the context in which you're doing it. And that's not just swearing. That's just use of vernacular.

Yeah.

If you're going to start to copy people, understand what they are doing. There's nothing wrong with trying it out. But there's also nothing wrong with asking people.

Yes. Yeah. Well and that..

Well if you hear it in conversation. You know, Is it okay for me to say that?

But that's a good way of practising using it too, where you can in a kind of, uh, you know, calm situation that isn't, isn't aggressive. You can use these words without the fear of offending anyone, right? Like, if you had friends that you speak to in English quite often, or who are native speakers, obviously in an environment where it's effectively a private conversation.

Yes.

You could ask them questions. Like how would you use this word? I heard this the other day. Someone said this to me, am I worried about this? You know.

'Is it okay for me to say that?'

Yeah, and I would be doing that all the time. When I first was with my, you know, wife Kel, she was, and I was learning Portuguese and trying to get better. I wanted to use the words, you know, because I often heard people swearing and I wanted to use them, but I wanted to use them correctly. And I didn't want to sound like an idiot, and I didn't want to needlessly offend people either. You know, we've talked about it before with, like, calling someone 'black'.

It's easy enough to deliberately offend people. You don't have to do it.

But I didn't want to get it wrong. And so quite often I would end up having these long kind of conversations. And they were quite entertaining because quite often they were. How do I say that in English, though? Because I would be like, hey, you say [Portuguese language] and all these things in Portuguese, like what are the. When do you say this? When do you not say this? How do you shorten it? What's like as you say "caraca"? And then you also say "caralho", is one of them like less polite than the other? They both kind of the same word, "caraca". That's another one, you know. Can we say that in this situation? If I said this to your grandmother, would this offend her? You know, like..

That's a good test.

You know, and then they would often be like, Hey, I've never thought about it. How do I do this in English? You know, like if I was chatting to so-and-so, can I just say the equivalent of "caralho"? Or like, do you have one? And I quite often, you know, you just they're going I don't think we do. I think you just, you just, just wouldn't. Just don't. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, hopefully it's been an eye opening convo and.

Convoluted though, it may have been.

Yeah. Well hopefully it's been entertaining. But also hopefully you haven't been too offended by the fact that we've used, you know, a significant, significantly higher proportion of swear words than usual. So.

Yes. Not that we don't swear.

Yeah. I hope you had a fucking good time, guys. Anyway.

Good shit, Pete.

Yeah. That's it. Thanks for joining us.

Bye!

See ya!