more taboo avoidance

[Michael Newman]

Spanish is probably the most treacherous language from the perspective of taboo avoidance in translation. What's horribly offensive in one dialect can be mild or even normal in another, the most famous case being coger which is pick up or get in some dialects and fuck in others. Cabrón is always somewhat offensive, but it's much milder in Mexican Spanish than Peninsular Spanish. I have no idea about other dialects.  



Michael Newman
Associate Professor of Linguistics
Queens College/CUNY
michael.newman at qc.cuny.edu



On Apr 30, 2012, at 7:28 PM, Victor Steinbok wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Victor Steinbok <aardvark66 at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      more taboo avoidance
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> I thought HuffPo does not shy from printing full expressions, but that
> does not mean individual bloggers may not exercise their own brand of
> censorship.
> 
> http://goo.gl/QFuqA
> 
>> A scorned dentist is facing jail time after surgically removing all of
>> her ex-boyfriend's teeth after he dumped her, authorities in London said.
>> ...
>> "I tried to be professional and detach myself from my emotions," she
>> told the news site. "But when I saw him lying there I just thought,
>> 'What a b-----d.'"
>> ...
>> "But when I got home I looked in the mirror and I couldn't f--king
>> believe it," he said. "The b--ch had emptied my mouth."
> 
> The Telegraph excised the same words, as did the Daily Mirror, and both
> did in the same fashion.
> 
> http://goo.gl/bbFQO
> http://goo.gl/dyjX1
>> 'But when I saw him lying there I just thought, "What a b******".'
>> ...
>> 'But when I got home I looked in the mirror and couldn’t f******
>> believe it. The b**** had emptied my mouth.
> 
> Sylvia Wood at SFChronicle only did that to the first word, skipping the
> second line entirely. [The two dashes are not equal on the page--one is
> an m-dash, the other an n-dash.]
> 
> http://goo.gl/zqQM5
>> "I tried to be professional and detach myself from my emotions," she
>> told the Daily Mail. "But when I saw him lying there I just thought,
>> 'What a b--d.'"
> 
> No cover up in Spanish for the first word, however--although I am not
> sure how "offensive" it may be. Note that the second quote is sanitized
> in Spanish sources (and other Spanish language sources that I came across).
> 
> http://goo.gl/6q6dT
>> "Traté de ser profesional y alejarme de mis emociones, pero cuando lo
>> vi, pensé, ¡menudo cabrón!", asegura Anna.
> 
> http://goo.gl/WDSoR
>> "Pero cuando lo vi ahí tumbado pensé 'qué cabrón'", admitió.
> 
> I'm still trying to figure out why "bastard", especially translated from
> Polish, would raise such difficulties. It would actually make for an
> interesting comparison--if you Google the name of the victim, copies of
> articles show up in multiple languages.
> 
> Same excision in Russian, which just looks bizarre (it may look bizarre
> here for entirely unrelated reasons):
> 
> http://goo.gl/GR9Cs
>> "Я пыталась быть профессионалом и отстраниться от эмоций. Но, когда я
>> увидела в кресло, то подумала "Что за у****ок?", - делится женщина.
> 
> Everyone seems to know exactly what was said, but they keep avoiding
> "bastard".
> 
> VS-)
> 
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