Vulgarisms in English

It seems that everybody is now learning English and if you ask an English learner what kind of English he is learning, he will probably provide the following answers: American English, British English, standard English, English dialects, etc. But rarely can you hear anyone saying ‘I’m learning vulgarisms in English”. It is true that the adoption of vulgar terms in one’s languages would arouse other people’s oppositions, especially those from parents and teachers, and would also probably label that language user as “uneducated, illiterate, etc.” We , however, when look at English from the descriptive linguistic point of view, should never try to avoid the study of vulgarisms. Just as Ronald Wardhaugh put it “(in descriptive linguistics) Linguists are concerned with how languages work, not with how they can be improved (if indeed they can be). A sentence such as He ain’t got none is to be explained, not criticized or corrected.”  Then I would like to say that a sentence such as That god damned mother fucker kicked the shit out of my ass is to be explained, not criticized or corrected. “They may produce undesirable consequences when uttered in certain circumstances, but this observation is a social rather than a linguistic observation.” Thus, in the following pages I would list the most commonly used vulgar terms in English and classify them in an effort to analyze the occasions on which these terms could be used, the effects they could produce on such occasions and the reason for their existence.
English vulgarisms, as is known to all, are very often referred to as four-letter words. The reason is obvious: most vulgar terms, such as fuck, shit, darn, damn, etc., are composed of four letters. This might be a coincidence which is really hard to account for. But, anyway, we are not concentrating on why most of them are four lettered.
The English vulgar terms, basically, could be put into five categories. In the first category, we have those terms representing some ominous concept. The first example here is hell. In the Longman Contemporary English-Chinese Dictionary the first lexical meaning of the word hell is “(esp. In the Christian and Muslim religions) a place where the souls of the wicked are said to be punished after death” and the third lexical meaning of this word is “slang, a swear word, used in anger or to strengthen an expression”. Here are some examples of how hell is used: 1)The man said “Oh, God! My head hurts like hell!”(哦，天哪！我的头真他妈的疼) In this sentence, the expression like hell means very much, very hard, very fast, etc. 2) “I won’t, you say?------Like hell, I will.”(你说我不会？------去你的，我会！) Here we can also use such terms as by hell, the hell, etc. to express strong disagreement or refusal.3) beat hell out of, kick hell out of, knock hell out of, etc or knock the hell out of means to beat, etc severely. 4)come hell or high water means no matter what difficulties may be encountered. 5) When an abnormal criminal said “I killed her for the hell of it”, he meant that he killed her for fun or adventure. 6) When he came back late, his wife gave him hell. give someone hell means to punish, castigate or rebuke someone severely or to cause someone pain or misery. In the first three examples that are offered above, hell is very vulgar while in the last three examples it is used as a part of the slang. As we could see, when the man said his head hurt like hell, he expressed his pain more vividly than if he said his head ached very much. Words like this in English are darn, damn, etc and most of them have religious origins and are often used with God, for example, God damn it.
In the second category fall those terms related to the sex organs of human beings. The first one that comes to my mind is dick (penis, the exterior male sex organ). “No body would like to talk to John, cause he is a dick head.” Here, dick head means an idiot, a fool or someone being despised. Then in the following sentence, dick means to quit or to play truant. “ ‘Hi, buddy! Come to our party tonight at our fraternity!’ ‘Sorry, I can’t, cause I have classes this evening.’ ‘Then dick it.’ ” The other term I want to specify here is ball. When it is used in plural form, balls, it means testicles, nonsense, guts, courage or (usually of a man) to have sexual intercourse with somebody. “Don’t ask him to go with us, he’s got no balls.” (means courage) “ ‘He said you failed the exam’------‘Balls’ ” (nonsense) “He often ballses up our parties when he get hammered.” (Balls up means to make a muddle or mess of or to throw into confusion) Other examples are puss or pussy ( a puss-gentleman means a male who pays too much attention to his dress ), cunt(a woman regarded as a sexual object), etc.
In the third category lay the terms related to sexual intercourse. The most “famous” one is fuck. Fuck, actually can be regarded as “an international vulgarism”. Fuck, the vulgar term for having sex, can be used in almost every sentence that one can speak, which is just like the Chinese word ma de(妈的). Here are some examples of how this word is used. 1) “You stole his apple, didn’t you?”------“Fuck you, John, who told you that?”(Here fuck you, which is often used as a set phrase, is a way to express the speaker’s displeasure or resentment) 2) “You want to pull the trigger pull the trigger, you miserable blind mother-fucker!!”(From the movie the Scent of a Woman) An interesting thing to note here is that even though mother is often regarded as the object of the word fuck in both Chinese and English, there is a slight difference between the subjects of these expressions. In Chinese, the agent of the action fuck is the speaker, that is to say if a Chinese says “fuck your mother, John!” he means that he is the agent who fucks John’s mother while if an English speaker says “ John, you mother-fucker” he means that John is the agent who fucks his own mother, which implies incest. 3) “It’s very cold today, isn’t it?”------“No, it’s not very cold. It’s fucking cold.”(In this conversation we meet the most fashionable word fucking, which means very, extremely or to a great extent when used as an adverb.) 4) “ I’m totally fucked up last night, so I don’t have a damn clue of what had happened.”(Here, fucked up means to be drunk) 5) That wound is sweet fuck all or fuck all bears the meaning that the wound is nothing at all. 6) “Can we do this tomorrow? I’m fucked today.”( fucked means exhausted or useless) 7) What the fuck are you doing here? Who the fuck do you think you are talking to? When the fuck did you come back? etc.( the fuck in these sentences has no special meaning and is only used to express a kind of surprise mixed with resentment) 8) Fuck actually can mean a lot in everyday conversations. An extreme example is this: A driver, after checking up his car engine said “ the fucking fuck won’t fuck!”. The real meaning of this is “the fucking engine won‘t work”. Other terms related to sexual intercourse are bastard ( the literary meaning of which is a child born of parents not married to each other and is now most often used to call a difficult or unpleasant person or thing, an unfortunate person, or neutrally, a chap. “Where have you been hiding all these years? You bastard!”你个混蛋，这几年死到哪儿去了？), sucker( an easily cheated person) and slut ( literally a dirty and untidy woman, now refers to a person who has sex with a lot of people merely for the purpose of the satisfaction of sexual desire) “Don’t hang out with her, she’s said to be a slut.”
The next category contains term related to body fluid, emunctory and egesta. British people and Australians use bloody as their “national vulgarism”, for example, they would say “You bloody miserable son of a bitch!” “Piss off, Peter, I am working now”(piss off means to go away) “ What he said really pissed me off” means his words annoyed or upset me very much. “You cheated me, asshole!”( asshole is similar to bastard or mother-fucker in terms of usage 骗我，你个王八糕子) Another fashionable word is shit. “Oh, shit! I lost my wallet.”( an expression of shock esp. when something terrible happens 妈的！我的钱包丢了) “Ernest almost kicked the shit out of Ron’s ass” means that Ernest beat Ron severely. “Oh, dad, you don’t know shit!”( Oh, dad, you don’t know anything!爸，你懂个屁！) “What she said was bullshit!”( What she said was nonsense 她说的话简直就是放屁)
The last category contains comparatively small numbers of words which are related to animals, but the only one that I can offer as an example here is bitch. Bitch is a very vulgar term used to dress women. “Don’t go to ask her. That bitch has no fucking clue of what has happened.”(别去问她，那婊子什么都不知道)
Vulgarism is an effective way to express one’s emotions and will relieve people’s stress, make people relax and is a kind of irreplaceable special music for life. Vulgarisms are blood veins and animate substances, which will make all other ways of interjections faint in the face of them. People also use them to express their disdain towards unreasonable systems and use them as banners for challenges or even fights. Vulgarisms, when used among friends or relatives or on other informal occasions, will make people feel a more intimate or relaxed relationship. But on formal occasions like in a lecture, a speech in public, etc. vulgarisms will certainly arouse the audience’s disdain or contempt. Thus on formal occasions those terms as I have listed in this essay should be avoided.
As a conclusion we should know that vulgarism is an inevitable or even indispensable part of human language, culture and civilization, the most clear evidence of which is the coexistence of vulgarisms and taboos for so many centuries. Vulgarisms, though bombarded by constant taboos imposed by political, social, religious, ethical and individual factors, have never been on the decline or extinct, which indisputably proves the vitality of vulgarisms.
Bibliography:
1. Longman Contemporary English-Chinese Dictionary. Beijing: Modern P, 1996.
2. The Scent of a Woman. Hollywood Motion Picture.
3. Zhao, Qi. “The Cultural Background of double binds and single foregorunds of languages.” A Collection of Research Papers in the English Subject, 1997: 265-82.
OTHER LINKS：1. Stop complaining! 别发牢骚！
2. You make me sick! 你真让我恶心！
3. What‘s wrong with you? 你怎么回事？
4. You shouldn‘t have done that! 你真不应该那样做!
5. You‘re a jerk! 你是个废物/混球！
6. Don‘t talk to me like that! 别那样和我说话!
7. Who do you think you are? 你以为你是谁？
8. What‘s your problem? 你怎么回事啊？
9. I hate you! 我讨厌你！
10. I don‘t want to see your face! 我不愿再见到你！
11. You‘re crazy! 你疯了!
12. Are you insane/crazy/out of your mind? 你疯了吗？（美国人绝对常用 ！）
13. Don‘t bother me. 别烦我。
14. Knock it off. 少来这一套。
15. Get out of my face. 从我面前消失！
16. Leave me alone. 走开。
17. Get lost.滚开！
18. Take a hike! 哪儿凉快哪儿歇着去吧。
19. You piss me off. 你气死我了。
20. It‘s none of your business. 关你屁事！
21. What‘s the meaning of this? 这是什么意思？
22. How dare you! 你敢！
23. Cut it out. 省省吧。
24. You stupid jerk! 你这蠢猪！
25. You have a lot of nerve. 脸皮真厚。
26. I‘m fed up. 我厌倦了。
27. I can‘t take it anymore. 我受不了了！（常用）
28. I‘ve had enough of your garbage. 我听腻了你的废话。
29. Shut up! 闭嘴！
30. What do you want? 你想怎么样？
31. Do you know what time it is? 你知道现在都几点吗？
32. What were you thinking? 你脑子进水啊？
33. How can you say that? 你怎么可以这样说？
34. Who says? 谁说的？
35. That‘s what you think! 那才是你脑子里想的！
36. Don‘t look at me like that. 别那样看着我。
37. What did you say? 你说什么？
38. You are out of your mind. 你脑子有毛病！
39. You make me so mad.你气死我了啦。
40. drop dead. 去死吧！
41. fXXk off. 滚蛋。
42. Don‘t give me your shit. 别跟我胡扯。
43. Don‘t give me your excuses/ No more excuses. 别找借口。
44. You‘re a pain in the ass. 你这讨厌鬼。
45. You‘re an asshole. 你这缺德鬼。
46. You bastard! 你这杂种！
47. Get over yourself. 别自以为是。
48. You‘re nothing to me. 你对我什么都不是。
49. It‘s not my fault. 不是我的错。
50. You look guilty. 你看起来心虚。
51. I can‘t help it. 我没办法。
52. That‘s your problem. 那是你的问题。
53. I don‘t want to hear it. 我不想听！
54. Get off my back. 少跟我啰嗦。
55. Give me a break. 饶了我吧。
56. Who do you think youre talking to? 你以为你在跟谁说话？
57. Look at this mess! 看看这烂摊子！
58. Youre so careless. 你真粗心。
59. Why on earth didn‘t you tell me the truth? 你到底为什么不跟我说实话？
60. I‘m about to explode! 我肺都快要气炸了！
61. What a stupid idiot! 真是白痴一个！
62. I‘m not going to put up with this! 我再也受不了啦！
63. I never want to see your face again! 我再也不要见到你！
64. That‘s terrible. 真糟糕！
65. Just look at what you‘ve done! 看看你都做了些什么！
66. I wish I had never met you. 我真后悔这辈子遇到你！
67. You‘re a disgrace. 你真丢人！
68. I‘ll never forgive you! 我永远都不会饶恕你！
69. Don‘t nag me! 别在我面前唠叨！
70. I‘m sick of it. 我都腻了。
71. You‘re such a bitch! 你这个婊子!
72. Stop screwing/ fooling/ messing around! 别鬼混了！
73. Mind your own business! 管好你自己的事！
74. You‘re just a good for nothing bum! 你真是一个废物！/ 你一无是处！
75. You‘ve gone too far! 你太过分了！
76. I loathe you! 我讨厌你！
77. I detest you! 我恨你！
78. Get the hell out of here! 滚开!
79. Don‘t be that way! 别那样！
80. Can‘t you do anything right? 成事不足，败事有余。
81. You‘re impossible. 你真不可救药。
82. Don‘t touch me! 别碰我！
83. Get away from me! 离我远一点儿！
84. Get out of my life. 我不愿再见到你。/ 从我的生活中消失吧。
85. You‘re a joke! 你真是一个小丑！
86. Don‘t give me your attitude. 别跟我摆架子。
87. You‘ll be sorry. 你会后悔的。
88. We‘re through. 我们完了！
89. Look at the mess you‘ve made! 你搞得一团糟！
90. You‘ve ruined everything. 全都让你搞砸了。
91. I can‘t believe your never. 你好大的胆子！
92. You‘re away too far. 你太过分了。
93. I can‘t take you any more! 我再也受不了你啦！
94. I‘m telling you for the last time! 我最后再告诉你一次！
95. I could kill you! 我宰了你！
96. That‘s the stupidest thing I‘ve ever heard! 那是我听到的最愚蠢的事！
97. I can‘t believe a word you say. 我才不信你呢!
98. You never tell the truth！ 你从来就不说实话！
99. Don‘t push me ! 别逼我！
100. Enough is enough! 够了够了！
101. Don‘t waste my time anymore. 别再浪费我的时间了！
102. Don‘t make so much noise. I‘m working. 别吵，我在干活。
103. It‘s unfair. 太不公平了。
104. I‘m very disappointed. 真让我失望。
105. Don‘t panic! 别怕!
106. What do you think you are doing? 你知道你在做什么吗？
107. Don‘t you dare come back again! 你敢再回来！
108. You asked for it. 你自找的。
109. Nonsense! 鬼话！