I only feel deeply offended when someone insults me with a truth, or something I believe is the truth. “Te estás poniendo gorda”, “te estás poniendo vieja”, “loca como tu madre”, maybe they hit home. And yet I’m pretty sure they are not obscenities. By definition, an obscenity is an “extremely offensive word or expression”. Since 2019 people get offended really really easy. Being confrontational or sincere equals to be insensitive. If I tell to someone “tienes que usar desodorante”, they will likely get offended, extremely. Hurt. I’ll be accused of “cultural insensitivity”. But they are not ‘bad words”. Now, if I say “mierda, coño, polla, tetas”, that is swearing. And yet they are just words, I don’t know why they scare us so much, or alarm us so much. They don’t hurt.
Probably these ones in particular provoke an unwanted mental image. “Muerte, hambruna, guerra” are also ugly realities, but are not improprieties. It’s a mystery to me. I can understand what I shouldn’t say in front of children, but I don’t know why.
¿Any ideas?
te estás poniendo gorda: you’re getting fat (f)
te estás poniendo vieja: you’re getting old (f) –> it is true, but it doesn’t really offend me.
loca como tu madre: you’re crazy like your mother
tienes que usar desodorante: you need to use deodorant
la mierda: excrements, shit
el coño: (ES) a woman’s genitals, not as strong word as ‘cunt’ but stronger than ‘pussy’
la polla: (ES) a man’s genitals, dick
las tetas: breasts
la muerte: death
la hambruna: famine
la guerra: war
I just noticed that ‘coño’ is a masculine word and ‘polla’ is a feminine word. It makes no sense. I’ll have to do some research.
La Mala Palabra 