How about more Profanity?

[Sequoia]

I'm assuming you're playing the English version. I can't say I've noticed any either. I remember CMAK had the Americans saying "Give them Hell boys!" and that was the worst of it. Perhaps some of the other language versions have some swearing.

[El Hombre]

Originally posted by LarsS:

I found this thread and can't help to wonder if there actually is any profanity in the game. I've never noticed any (don't speak Arabic). But my Paradox edition has the PEGI profanity (or bad language, as they call it) rating on the box.

No Arabic profanity that I heard. It's mostly the usual "hit the dirt", "stay low", etc...

The accents are relatively correct for the region as well (there are many different accents even within Syria, so it's a bit tough to state with certainty).

[birdstrike]

Maybe there's something in the briefings.

[The Warrior]

Originally posted by Sequoia:

I'm assuming you're playing the English version. I can't say I've noticed any either. I remember CMAK had the Americans saying "Give them Hell boys!" and that was the worst of it. Perhaps some of the other language versions have some swearing.

Thats about what i remember too although I could swear I heard bastards a couple times.

Some things I think would be cool though:

Bite my shiny metal a--!

Eat my shorts!

Take that you dirty rats!

Is that all you got!

This is Sparta!!

Just a thought.

[Pvt. Ryan]

There is plenty of cursing when I play CM.

[Sequoia]

I've heard the Finnish in CMBB was pretty colorful. Which reminds me, I haven't seen Sergei around these boards in a while. Any one else have?

[Omenowl]

I am sure there are several factors that come into play.

One is the culture was much less accepting of profanity. So cursing was less prevalent.

Two is a lot of selective memory. People don't remember how they talked years ago.

Third is people do tend to change how they talk depending on the situation and people they are with.

Fourth is shame or afraid of setting a bad example. People don't want to admit they cursed, shot prisoners, etc. It goes against the person they believe they are.

[LordCalvert]

You english speakers should be proud of the so called F-word! Its extremely versatile and it´s been around for a thousand years (when a word shows up in writing you can be sure it´s been used by people for a long time already). ****, ficken, ****a, knulla! (Do I have tourette´s? **** off!)

[LongLeftFlank]

As other have noted already, the ante has been raised on cussing since the 1940s, in step with our social change in focus from religion to sex.

My guess is that the F-bomb was used back then more as a noun or verb referring to sex, and not as an (ahem!) ejaculation.

Also, in a more religious time (WWII), taking the Saviour's name in vain, or related terms like "Damn!" or "Bloody Hell!" were quite sufficiently shocking to count as expletives. These don't even count as cussing nowadays, except perhaps with your granny or pastor.

IIRC, characters in Battle and the other UK war comics I read growing up didn't even get to say "damn" until the mid 1970s.

"Bastard" (calling one's lineage into question) was also vastly more insulting back then than now. In the 19th century, one could fight a duel to the death over such an insult.

And in more agrarian cultures, comparisons to animals were, and remain, very insulting indeed("Sonofabitch", "Schweinhund!", "Sukinsyna", "Son of a Camel")

Not sure about "****e". That one seems pretty eternal.

[John Kettler]

A British soldier during the WW II, having tried and failed to get his recalcitrant machine to run, is reliably reported to have given a tour de force demonstration of the F-bomb's versatility. I paraphrase: "The effing effer's effing effed; eff it! Thus, we see it employed, in a single sentence, as an adjective, a noun, an adverb and an interjection.

I would further observe that both my uncle George, who landed administratively on the Continent on D+1 and served with Patton in the Navy's little known Boat Two schlepping LCMs to rivers, then hauling troops and gear in the LCM across them as a MoMM3c (Motorman Machinist's Mate), and my father, in his teens at the time, had rich and purple vocabularies. Much of it clearly was homespun (both hailed from Arkansas), i.e., "Does a bear s@#$ in the woods?" to "slicker'n greased owl s%^&*." A@#hole and s@%&head were also popular, the latter being the Americanization of a choice German formation (Dad was 100% German by blood). If Mom was lucky, Dad would catch himself and substitute manure for the four letter scatological term. Hell, damn and similar were frequent, to include the deity. He also used the baffling to me for years acronym RCH. When Dad and his brother got together with the booze flowing, the result would've made the proverbial trooper's horse blush. Though both were ex-Navy, I'd bet both learned little on the swearing front after entering the service. My uncle worked all manner of demanding physical jobs, and my dad did stints on pouring concrete mats for levees and harvesting cypress from the swamps for telephone poles and railroad ties before heading off to the Korean War

and upon returning, started a family and went to engineering school.

Granted, it's not a large sample size, but I saw and heard much the same from the crack F-4 crews

who came to the house in the early 1970s. These career guys were the best the Air Force had and were senior captains or majors to the man, thus, close to Dad's age then. Could they ever put it down, both in language and alcohol consumption!

Mind, I'm not claiming that everyone talked like this, and certainly, there were adjustments made based on social setting and such, but to assert

a broad claim the GIs of WW II didn't swear much strikes me as doubtful at best. I've read plenty of accounts indicating the exact opposite, and they aren't sourced from uptight 50s movies. Also, the famous FMJ DI diatribe is a fusion derived from several of the people who made the film's own direct encounters with DIs. In closing, I'd add that my younger brother Ed spent some time at the Air Force Academy, during which he learned a remarkably profane set of actually used in training Jody songs. These songs would likely get you into deep trouble today. His sojourn was in 1980 or so. LiveLeak and similar indicate the troops these days to be exceedingly colorful, especially when it comes to interjections, often combined with curious references to porosity.

Regards,

John Kettler

[LongLeftFlank]

Good anecdotes, John.

And I now recall fairly liberal use of the f-bomb as verb (less so as adjective) in one of my favourite wartime biographies: Spike Milligan's "Adolph Hitler: My Part In His Downfall" and its sequels (Rommel? Gunner Who? and Monty; My Part In His Victory)

Of course, it's always possible that GIs -- even rough dockyard boys from Philly and Back Bay -- picked up a fair amount of new profanity from the Tommies, particularly the Londoners whose turns of phrase, (like that of New Yorkers) is always colourful to say the least. Heavy Yiddish influence on colloquialisms in both cities. And I should know, my dad (born 1930) was a Londoner.

My personal fave: "And if me aunt 'ad nuts she'd 'ave been my uncle."

[LongLeftFlank]

Also seem to a verse of the famous WWI drinking song Mademoiselle From Armentieres, which goes

...Mademoiselle from Armentieres, we'll **** the girls and drink the beer, inky dinky parlay voo!

Speaking of which, my Mum still has some old Great War photos of my grandfather, who was a mechanic in the RFC (lucky for him because all his mates died in the trenches), including with some VERY cute little French girls in swimsuits. Oo la la! Must scan them sometime for posterity.

[MeatEtr]

What? The OP mentioned the movie and nobody posted a link to a clip from YouTube. And this thread is going on 3 yrs old too. You guys are getting slow, it's SOP to post a link to this movie when mentioned.

Now choke yourself!

[LongLeftFlank]

And of course there's the word dear old Anthony C. McAuliffe REALLY used when he got the German surrender demand....

[the Fighting Seabee]

Don't be so naive. Those old WW2 grunts were as dirty and foul-mouthed as anyone now. The reason you think that is because they never used to show these guys cussing. It would have not been allowed in theatres and radios. My grandpa was a WW2 Marine who fought the Japanese. That son of a bitch (I don't think he'd mind me saying that) was one cussing bastard. Great guy... just like the rest of us.

[John Kettler]

Here's an interview with a WW II veteran. Note the repeated use of colorful language, to include quoting what was said during the war.

http://www.tankbooks.com/interviews/miele2.htm

On page 2 here, we learn an Army Air Corps man learned to swear like a sailor during the war.

http://tinyurl.com/23pc58

East Ender's direct experience

http://arealeastender.blog.co.uk/2007/07/22/cursing_and_swearing_east_end_style~2682179

Period dialogue issue in "The War" by Ken Burns

http://www.boston.com/ae/tv/articles/2006/06/17/pbs_toughens_policy_on_cursing_in_its_shows/

baywax says his dad (WW II Tanker) couldn't and why

http://www.physicsforums.com/archive/index.php/t-172913.html

Paragraph 5 explicitly says there was much swearing and cursing

http://www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar/stories/70/a6716270.shtml

A scholarly theological analysis, together with some surprising WW II examples.

http://maracorp.com/crta/swearing.html

Scholarly analysis of influences

http://www.unm.edu/~abqteach/linguistics/02-08-08.htm

WW II: See comment two here. "low" should be "lot."

http://www.venturacountystar.com/news/2008/feb/29/swearing-off-choice-words/

Entire thread on U.S WW II cursing and swearing.

Most enlightening!

http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=44278

Believe I'll stop now.

Regards,

John Kettler

[John Kettler]

To pick up on the Arabic side of things, I understand that utterances swearing by the beard of either the Prophet or Allah are fairly common. That said, what flies in normal Arabic culture may not fly at all in jihadist circles.

Curses and Insults in Iraqi Arabic (anyone have a JSS subscription?)

http://jss.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/citation/XLVI/2/267

Rich vein of imprecation here.

http://alhafeez.org/rashid/baghaya.html

Biting stuff here (some antiSemitic!)

http://alhafeez.org/rashid/fatwa4.htm

On a Slavic note, ISTR one of our Russophone colleagues talked about how some of the CMBB Russian sound files made his Ukrainian wife blush. Since the list of what was said is available, this should be easy enough to check.

Regards,

John Kettler

[John Kettler]

Here's a horrendous account with authentic Syrian curses.

http://www.nala.com/Human%20Rights/testimony_of_a_lebanese_prisonerIN%20SYRIA.htm

Curses from Afghanistan

http://iwpr.net/?p=rca&s=f&o=253048&apc_state=henirca2001

Regards,

John Kettler

[Splinty]

I don't know about WWII soldiers, but modern American ones DO curse like, well...sailors. I'd like to see the current CMx2 soundtrack updated to reflect that.

[Other Means]

This mod contains:

"F*ing look at that!"

"Enemy F*ing vehicle spotted!"

"F*ing keep it down ya F*ing F*s!"

We could rate them on tone, intensity, real-life quality and obscenity.

[Cpl Steiner]

Just to add some anecdotal evidence to support Mr. Dorosh's case, a friend of the family (now dead) used to drive Sherman tanks in WWII. He had to bail out of his tank three times, so he definitely saw lots of action and presumably had good reason to swear on occasion. One Christmas/New Year we were all watching Full Metal Jacket and at the end he said it was absolute rubbish and that no soldier he ever met behaved like that. He was quite offended by the language in the film.

I'm only into my 40s and even I can remember people swearing a lot less when I was a kid. When I was at school we tended to substitute words for the F word, like saying piss off rather than F off etc. You wouldn't see that these days.

Another thing you used to see were men not swearing in front of women. That might sound highly sexist now but that's what was expected. I personally feel uncomfortable when there is lots of swearing and there are women in the room - it's just the way I was brought up. Yet it doesn't bother the younger generation one bit. Perhaps they're right and the modern ways are more egalitarian etc. but there sure are differences.

[Patrocles]

Originally posted by Sir 37mm:

Oh dear we are under attack

I advise keeping our heads down in this present situation

What a good idea Sir & I thank you for your relevant advice

No problem soldier…oh & let us consider returning fire

A splendid idea Sir we & the lads will get right onto it

LOL Reminds of a response from comic strip character of Politenessman (iirc, the first panels would show someone behaving rudely and then Politeness man would show up and teach them to be polite)

[MikeyD]

I used to work with a coworker from Mexico City. She laughed at American English's extremely limited selection of profanity compared to her mother country. Americans just have the standard boring assortment of cuss words, most often simply inserting the word f**k at random into a sentence. Other cultures can go on in great detail about the mating habits of your grandmother's pet donkey! The Romance languages in particular have the benefit of having masculine and feminine ending for words so can emasulate you verbally in a dozen of different ways.

[jhmorneau]

Very interesting thread so far.

But there is something more that always makes me wonder. Why are so many english speakers (US?) so reluctant about typing swear words?

Here are some examples I found in the posts :

f**k

F word

F*ing

f-bomb

s%^&*

s@%&head

A@#hole

s@#$

Very telling, isn't it?

AFAIK there is no such thing in french.

Why on earth is it so hard to type **** and **** ?

I'd say it has to do with puritanism, but maybe I'm wrong. No offence meant BTW.

[Sequoia]

It's because it's against the forum rules and could get you banned, though I have only seen that happen when directed against another person.