Maybe this is part of the whole language barrier I encounter as a non-native speaker.

[Baker, John]

Thinking about this further, it seems to me that Arun Raman is asking specifically about taboo deformation in the profanity context.  In English these seem mostly to be found in the contexts of profanity (darn, heck), defecation (pee), and sexuality (archaic quaint and Internet fark come to mind, though I'm probably missing something obvious).  I don't know to what extent taboo deformations, as opposed to other euphemisms, are found in other languages.  I would be interested in what Arun has to say about Indian languages.
 
 
John Baker
 

________________________________

From: American Dialect Society on behalf of Baker, John
Sent: Fri 2/22/2008 2:23 PM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: Re: Maybe this is part of the whole language barrier I encounter as a non-native speaker.



        Isn't this just another way of asking whether other languages
have euphemisms?  And, of course, there are euphemisms in many languages
(all of them?), although there may be variation in what is treated
euphemistically.


John Baker



-----Original Message-----
From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf
Of Brenda Lester
Sent: Friday, February 22, 2008 2:12 PM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: Re: Maybe this is part of the whole language barrier I
encounter as a non-native speaker.

I found this in my Steiner's French and English dictionary: "Allez vous
coucher," which is colloquial for "Go to blazes." And "blazes" is a
euphemism for "hell."

  bl


Arun K Raman <arunkr.shivers at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
  ---------------------- Information from the mail header
-----------------------
Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: Arun K Raman
Subject: Maybe this is part of the whole language barrier I encounter as
a non-native speaker.
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Without going into the territory of what is or is not profanity, It
always astonishes me when people censor "profanity" with substitute
words that are obviously meant to be something else.

My daughter was watching some PBS children's program called "A Big, Big
world" and I heard the phrase "what the heck..." as an obvious
substitute for "What the hell..."

Does this happen in other languages as well? Or is this a fairly
western/English-based pheomenon?

I can't recall much of this happening in most Indian languages.

-- is
-
Arun K Raman

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