Frack or Rut

POSTED BY: Sneck
UPDATED: Sunday, July 2, 2006 03:05
VIEWED: 4888
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RMMC

Sunday, July 2, 2006 3:05 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by msckaren:

Frack, Frell and even gorram are so obviously variations on current English swearwords that they just sound stupid to me. I understand that the language will evolve but it won't just be the swear words...

YMMV

Actually, I can see how it would be more of the swear words that other words. At the rate that society is regulating things, including speach (yep, it is actually against the law to use 'profanity' in public in many places in the US. We had some guy who went to court about it a few years back in our state. ) The definition of what is profane is constantly changing, but I can see the current 'g-dd*mn it' being included. So what happens? Folks who still use it, say it under their breath and faster. Speed it up enough, the harder consonants getting softer and rolling as it gets said faster. Eventually it changes enough that it can actually be spoken a bit louder and is not readily recognized for what it was. Heck, it may even be, that the kids got it from their parents and so on that by then nobody knows what it once was

Why wouldn't this be happening to regular words? Two reasons. One is the dictionary. It tends to fix the pronunciation to a set way. The other is formal education. I'm going to assume that education in the Firefly 'verse is much like it is in the US now...there is a 'public' education, which means that everyone goes to school up to a certain age, regardless of their social status. This means that you are taught the "correct" way to pronunciate (droppin the 'g' not withstanding...that happens now as the dropping of the lead 'h' happens in certain dialects in England) the language(s)...but this would only be for acceptable words, not profanity. Hence, most of the everyday speech would be not too off from what it is now, but the non-standard words would likely not be.

And now to answer the title question...rut. I always thought frack was dumb, even as a kid with the original Galactica.

******
RMMC

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