Some things are best left …
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Our messages just crossed I think - was just editing my last post
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I once saw someone get very irrate about the implication of what people believed cont meant. He argued that it came from the Roman name for the settlement. Now, this is no reflection on the people of Caernarfon, that is way to high brow for any nickname! Plus, anyone I know from Caernarfon has explained it as Geraint has. So…best left haha
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To be honest - the other word that I’m sure we’re thinking of, was in my everyday usage until the time I went to University in England and it never occurred to me that it could offend anyone - I wouldn’t have hesitated saying it at school - to my mother, grandmother or a prude aunt. It seems strange now, but that’s the honest truth.
Once it got explained to me, why it was offensive - in no uncertain terms, by a friend in England who took offence by it, then I stopped using it, but before that it was really a very nice greeting to good mates and friends and if I bumped into old friends now it would seem natural to want to use it - whether I would or not, I don’t know.
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My partner’s dad doesn’t know any Welsh, but is a corpus linguist, and he was telling me that they’re putting together a National Corpus of Contemporary Welsh – essentially a big, searchable database of how people actually use Welsh today. The thing is, they want it to be usable for everyone with a relevant interest, incuding, say, schoolchildren; and they want it to be accurate, so they don’t want to censor it. And they’re having a big headache trying to figure out how to deal with the fact that ‘cont’ is basically not that rude for Cofi speakers, but is potentially highly offensive elsewhere in Wales. (“Mam! Guess what I learned in school today!” followed by irate letters to the Western Mail…)
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Interesting. It would seem strange to censor a Welsh corpus, because of how things are viewed from an anglicised perspective or an English language lens. There are many words in English that have been made toxic, by the way in which they have been used historically - some of these may sound the same or similar to Welsh words, but have no linguistic links - if we extend this idea, we would not have a word for first or dogs in Welsh either.
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I take your point, but in this case I don’t think it is coincidental, or being viewed through an English lens: according to the GPC the word is directly borrowed from English and unambiguous in its basic meaning, and I understand that it is offensive in Welsh, in many parts of Wales (although we should possibly check that with any mamiaith speakers). I suspect that it’s not really a matter of censorship, though (so possibly I mis-spoke earlier) so much as usage labels – if you mark something with the lexicographer’s equivalent of a skull and crossbones (Taboo! Highly offensive! Do not use!) and some speakers are looking at it and thinking “But that’s just how I say Hi to my mates” then there’s a problem; but if you don’t label it as ‘Taboo’, what might the rest of Wales think?
I was also idly wondering about the tone, even for Cofi speakers – it has a feel of blokey banter about it, to me, but I could be quite wrong. So if they weren’t worrying about the watershed and the audience for Rownd a Rownd I can imagine Meical or Iolo using it, or Jason, but not Mr Llwyd, and probably not Philip; maybe Michelle, depending how gendered it is, but probably not Iris…
On the other hand, for some Spanish speakers it’s really quite ungendered and innocent: I can remember a colleague being a bit shocked at her Spanish mother-in-law, who was visiting, cheerfully pinching her 4-year-old grandchild’s cheek and exclaiming “E, Coño!” as if it were just “You little scamp!” or something 
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I take all your points and I’m not really positioned to know how to comment or think about these things, but it is very interesting territory - perhaps more about the Cymreig than the Cymraeg.
It’s a difficult one that you also find in Spanish where the equivalent word has differing strength dependent on the native country of the speaker and in that case it’s the same word in (theoretically) the same language. I would never use it with an Iberian Spanish speaker where it is as offensive as in English but I wouldn’t bat an eyelid if a Colombian used it in conversation with me. But if I was translating Colombian I would probably translate it as damn even though it obviously literally means the other due to the relative severity.
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A friend of my is from Ynys Môn and she doesnt like Cofis because “they swear too much”.
Interestingly, the word in question is in my on-line geiriadur in both languages, as is ‘gast’ which I was warned off years back!
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Haha - it is better as “dydd da mêt” 
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I saw a sign today that said:
More than you can imagine
Rhywbeth at ddant pawb
Is that kinda “something to everyone’s taste”?
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yep, exactly
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I really like it when human translation is used to get across meaning rather than word for word replication. So I love signs like that one.
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Alun Williams says something similar at the start of every “dal ati : bore da”.
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notws ? quick question what does it mean
context from “ar ben waun Tredegar”
fy nghariad a notws i wylad y nos
Possibly Gwenwhyseg (SE Wales dialect) for “Notice(s)”?
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definitely gwenhwysig - i was thinking “is noted for” but just from the sense of it and not much else
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I haven’t asked a question on here for ages!
I’ve come to understand that ‘gallu bod’ is used very much like ‘could be’ in English and I’m now using it. But I never use gallu for anything else, having done the Northern course. I’m just wondering if ‘medru bod’ is the same thing, it just feels more like ‘able to be’. Am I going mad, are they the same or have I picked up a difference? Or rather if I do distinguish them like this, will anyone get the difference when I speak?
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