Speak of the devil (was: Innocent=not knowing)

[Jules Levin]

At 04:31 PM 2/24/00 -0000, you wrote:
>> However, watch out for the use of chert as an innocent expletive. There
>are
>> some Russians, especially religious ones, who are offended by it. (Vy
>> pochemu chertykhayetes'?) We tend to think it innocent because the devil,
>in
>> English, is. So we translate and figure it's all right. In Russian, the
>> devil ain't.
>Hello Genevra,
>I couldn't help responding to the above. One of my Welsh teachers taught us
>the word for devil, but added, 'Don't ever let me hear that you have used
>it.' Seems to have been effective advice as I seem now not to be able to
>recall it<g>

The trivialization of invoking Satan is a recent phenomenon in English.
Arcane expletives like "what the deuce" were euphemisms for that one.  One
of the worst things one can say in Norwegian (at least c. 1965) is "fy
fannen" [can't guarantee the spelling], which basically means "Fie! the devil!
Likewise, in Lithuanian, eik velniop "go to the devil" is considered
ba-a-ad language...  So the Russians who are offended by Old Nick's name
are merely carrying forward traditional Christian culture.

Jules Levin
Comp Lit and Foreign Langs
University of California, Riverside

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