評論
打印
As a boy I'd have been in dead trouble if I'd ever used the name of Jesus as a swear word at home. Blasphemy just wasn't tolerated, even though my parents were non-believers. The boundaries between acceptable and unacceptable language are shifting all the time. John Terry, for instance, has just been acquitted in court of racial abuse. But when I started out as a court reporter many years ago, the mere uttering of a very rude word would have been enough to get you arrested, without racial connotations.
作為一個男孩，如果我要是用耶穌的名字來罵臟話的話，我會陷入很大的麻煩中。盡管我的父母不是信徒，褻瀆神明是完全不被容許的。可接受的語言和不可接受的語言之間的界限一直在變。 例如，約翰?特里剛剛在種族歧視法庭被無罪釋放。但我很多年前開始做法院書記官時，僅僅說一個粗魯的詞，即使沒有種族上的隱含意義，也足以讓你被逮捕。
I remember how the alleged word could never be said out loud, and had to be ceremoniously written down by the witness, usually a police officer. The paper was then folded and handed to the magistrate, who carefully unfolded it and duly looked shocked, all in disapproving silence. The most offensive swear words used to be religious rather than sexual. They contravene the Commandment "Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain," which was seen as blasphemy. That was so serious, in fact, that a whole coded language was developed so that people could go on swearing and yet stay away from the stocks, or the gallows, where open blasphemy might've put them.
我記得，當時證詞都不能大聲說出來，必須由證人（通常是一名警察）正式地寫下來。然后文件會被折疊起來，交給地方法官。法官會小心的打開文件，然后隨即會被他所看到的震驚。這一切都是在一種不贊成的寂靜中進行的。 最無禮的臟話通常與宗教有關，而不是與性有關。它們違反了 “你不可徒然地采用耶和華的名字”的戒律，因為這會被看作是褻瀆神靈。實際上，這后果太嚴重了，以至于人們發展處了一套暗語。它可以使人們能夠繼續罵臟話，而同時又可以遠離手腳枷或是絞刑架，而如果公開褻瀆神靈的話，就會是這樣的下場。
This is technically known as the process of "mincing", as in the phrase "mincing your words". It disguises the word's origins just enough to keep the swearer clear of the law. Swearing offers us a brief glimpse of the religious history of our country. Before the 16th century Protestant Reformation, ordinary people would commonly have referred to the Blessed Virgin Mary as "Our Lady", as Roman Catholics still do. Hence the oath "By Our Lady", which was minced into the swearword "bloody", has to be at least 500 years old. Another familiar swearword refers to the Albigensian heresy in the 13th century. Other examples of minced oaths include the now harmless "cripes" or "crikey", which were disguised forms of the word "Christ". "Blimey" originally meant "God Blind Me!" which was a way of invoking divine punishment if I'm not telling the truth, so you'd better believe me. A few religious swearwords are still on the banned list, so I'm not going to tell you what they are. Others have dropped out altogether. Outsidecomic books, nobody says "Zounds!" any more, which was a minced version of "By God's Wounds", a reference to the Crucifixion and clearly of Mediaeval origin.
這在技術上被稱作“mincing（矯飾）”，如在短語“mincing your words（說話不要拐彎抹角）”中的意思一樣。它偽飾單詞的起源，使得臟話能夠不受法律的限制。 臟話可以讓我們簡要地了解我們國家的宗教歷史。在16世紀宗教改革之前，普通人通常會稱圣母瑪利亞為“Our Lady（圣母瑪利亞）”，而羅馬的天主教徒如今仍這么做。因此，誓言“By Our Lady（圣母作證）”，后來被委婉地改成了臟話“bloody（該死的）”。所以這個臟話至少有500年的歷史了。另一個熟悉的臟話是指13世紀的阿爾比派異教的。還有一些被矯飾過的臟話的例子，如現在已經無害的“cripes（天啊）”或“crikey（哎呀）”，這兩個詞都由“Christ（基督）”偽裝而來。“Blimey（啊呀）”原來是指“God Blind Me！（上帝使我盲目）”，是用來表達“如果我沒說實話的話，就讓上帝懲罰我，所以你最好相信我！”的一種方式。 有些與宗教有關的臟話如今仍然是禁止說的，所以我不會告訴你們它們是什么。其它一些臟話已經過時。除了漫畫書，沒人再說“Zounds!（咄）”。這是“By God's Wounds（上帝的傷口）”的委婉版，意指上帝在十字架受難，很明顯是起源于中世紀。
Just as churches are such a familiar part of our visible local landscape you hardly notice they are there, so profane oaths and swearwords are part of our everyday verbal landscape, and again we hardly notice them. But the fact that we still know they're not polite, to say the least, means we haven't completely lost track of where they came from.
正如教堂是我們當地風景中熟悉的一部分，所以我們很難注意到它們的存在一樣，褻瀆神靈的一些詛咒和臟話也是我們日常口語中的一部分，所以我們很難注意到它們。但事實上，我們仍然知道它們是不禮貌的。這至少意味著我們還沒有完全忘記它們的起源。
