SSIW and bad days at work

My lovely Japanese sister-in-law is quite proper and nicely spoken. So one year when she described a bowl she and my brother had brought us back from Japan as ‘bloody useful’, it seemed so out of place. (And I know exactly where she got that from - my brother has no such limitations on his language.) It’s now known in our house as the ‘bloody useful bowl’.

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I’m now searching online for ‘bloody useful bowls’ - I must have one as soon as is theoretically possible.

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I used to have a friend from Argentina who only ever used “bed linen” on her beds instead of a rather more common word. She struggled with the difference between the long and short “i” sound in English, and was paranoid she would get it wrong and cause offence.

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I know this thread is old but I just saw this response and wasn’t sure if I should create a completely new thread, but have to confirm what the worse word is: “bloody” or “c…p”

Ages ago I did a British children’s play and we all had to learn the accents perfectly. A British friend of the director sat in rehersal to see if we passed muster and was shocked that one of the characters used the word “bloody”; he said that in the UK it was equivalent to saying, er “f…k…g”

Not in my experience. “Bloody” is less harsh than “c…p”, and not even in the same ball park as “f…k…g”, although, I suspect there is a generational difference too. “C…p” is definitely not as harsh to my ear as “bed linen”…sorry I mean “s…t”.

All depends on context! Bloody can replace very, I don’t really see it as swearing. (hence not editing it)

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As the kids in our street used to say (late 1950s I think, or early 1960s):

“Bloody in the bible
Bloody in the book
If you bloody don’t believe me
'ave a bloody look!”

I would occasionally hear much worse than that in the streets and playground, even in those days, but never in remotely polite company.

And sometimes, it’s not what you say, but the way that you say it that makes all the difference.

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In 1952, in York, I met stable lads exercising racehorses and the Trainer’s son who had a pony! So, of course I got to know him/them, to get rides. Later, when the races were on I went with my mother & suggested we go to watch one start. From the jockies, every other word was “Bloody”! M mother was very, very shocked! Innocently, I told her (I was 10 - 11) “Oh, they all talk like that!” I did not realise for years that the immediate loosening of purse strings to let me have ‘proper’ riding lessons was due to this! So 65 years ago, it was a very bad word in the eyes of ’respectable aspiring middle class (born working class) ladies, but meant ‘very’ in racing stables!

I agree with the others here. For example, when I was a young teenager I would use ‘bloody’ in front of my mother, but never either of the other two words.

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I have just remembered walking past kids (boys) of about 7 playing on a bomb site near the Elephant and Castle in about 1962. I would have been 20 going on 21 and not easily shocked.
(I had an unfortunate friend whose parents managed to escape Hungary just before the Nazis arrived and settled in Hull. I think I have mentioned his elsewhere. They spoke highly accented and very correct English. He had a strong Hull accent and used all the words which respectable British parents forbade their boys from using!)
Back to the little boys… the words they used were much more shocking to me than those of my friend from Hull, perhaps because they were so young. I never dared let my Hull friend meet my mother!

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Dreadful child that you were.

:wink:

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Well. I have definitely learnt something new about questionable words: Just as in English, context is everything.

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