Bloody ([ ˈ b l ʌ d i ] [1] , literally Russian bloody ) is an expletive word in British English [2] [3] , roughly corresponding to the Russian curses of the devil [4] , fucking [5] . There are similar swear words in German ( German blutig ) and French ( French sanglant ) languages. There are several versions of the origin of the invective meaning of this word - the reduction of divinely , borrowing from the Celtic , German or Russian languages, from the name of the golden youth in the XVII century - bloods , and also as a result of the taboo concept of blood.
The word is also used in the same meaning in Australian English, New Zealand English, and other Commonwealth countries. In American English, the word is not common [6] and is considered a stereotypical sign of British English .
Until the XIX century, this word was not a strong emotional exclamation, it was most strictly tabooed during the Victorian era , and in the first half of the XX century there was a decrease in the shocking power of this curse. At the end of the 20th and the beginning of the 21st century, its gradual interjection took place.
Syntactically, the word bloody is intermediate between the introductory words and sentence members and can function both as a definition and as a circumstance . Morphologically, the adverbial qualities are more characteristic than the adjective . Along with other exploders, bloody can act as an infix , that is, “wedged in” into other words. Semantically, it usually serves to express discontent, but this discontent is not always directed at the noun defined by it, and when transmitting someone else's speech, the speaker expresses discontent, not the one whose speech is conveyed.
Content
Origin
The origin of the brane meaning of the word bloody is not known reliably [7] , but there are several versions [8] .
- Origin from the gods of Our Our Lady ( Rus [I swear] by the Mother of God ) or God's blasphemy ( Russian Blood of the Lord ), which, according to American linguist Jeffrey Hughes, is unlikely [9] . Bozhba cannot take a bloody position in a sentence - you can say Shut your bloody mouth , but not Shut your By Our Lady mouth * [10] .
- There are also attempts to explain the origin of the invective meaning of the word bloody by borrowing from German, Celtic or Russian (from the consonant word fucking ) languages, which, however, does not explain its great shocking power [11] .
- Assumptions are made about the origin of bloody bloods - a 17th century noun meaning the golden youth of aristocratic origin, who was known for lecherous behavior [12] . However, they do not explain why bloody is more shocking than bloods that disappeared in the 17th century [13] . In addition, these versions do not explain the existence of similar curses in German and French [14] .
- V.I. Zelvis and Stephen Pinker independently suggested that bloody curse directly dates back to the word blood . At the same time, Pinker connects this assumption with the concept of blood impurity, especially menstrual blood [7] , and Zelvis with the concept of blood as the receptacle of the soul [13] .
History
Already in the 17th century, the word bloody is used in contexts suggesting both literal and expletive meanings, for example, the playwright Shadwell wrote about “bloody hands of critics” , which can be understood as “blooded hands of [writers] critics”, and as “bloody hands of critics” [4] . In the eighteenth and first half of the nineteenth centuries in England, the word bloody was not obscene, did not have sharply negative connotations, and had the character of a weak emotional exclamation. It was common in the bourgeois and educated environment. So, Jonathan Swift wrote to his friend: "It was a bloody hot walking today . " However, later the word became widespread among the common people, which led to a sharp drop in its status and a strong taboo among the middle and upper classes. The strongest taboo was in the Victorian era . At this time, the word bloody is spreading in a highly obscene way throughout the British Empire , especially in Australia and New Zealand. At the beginning of the 20th century, the taboo gradually softened [15] . Thus, in 1914, Bernard Shaw ’s play Pygmalion , in which Patrick Campbell, in the role of Eliza Dulittl, uttered the phrase “Not bloody likely!” [16] , caused a great stir in the press, but some directors later replaced this phrase with rougher versions. , for example, “Move your bloomin 'ass!” [17] The offensiveness of this word was especially weak after the Second World War. Thus, out of 56 people surveyed by the Guardian newspaper in 1991, 47 considered it permissible on television [13] .
In the USA, the word bloody was perceived less harshly than in England, but at the end of the 20th and the beginning of the 21st centuries it turns into an interjection , although the tinge of taboo remains [13] . For example, in 1937, the American journalist Henry Louis Mencken gave an example of a dialogue between two workers at an election poster, in which one of them answered the question “What does the slogan “ One man, one note ” means ” : “One bloody man, one bloody note” and noted that two meaningless words made the political slogan more understandable [18] .
Grammatical and Semantic Features
The word bloody is effective , that is, it occupies an intermediate position between the introductory words and the members of the sentence and is intended to express emotions. Its affective content prevails over the subject-logical meaning, therefore, it is a logically redundant component of the utterance. However, it often functions as a definition ( bloody fool ) or a circumstance- intensifier ( bloody well ). Unlike the introductory words, the explosives, in particular bloody , are not distinguished either by intonational pronunciation or by punctuation when writing [19] . Unlike real adjectives, the ekspliva in English do not allow replacing the phrase “iksovy igrik” with the phrase semantically equivalent to it “igk that has the x property” . Thus, the phrase Drown the lazy cat ( Russian. Drowning a lazy cat ) can be replaced with an equivalent phrase Drown the cat which is lazy ( Russian. Drowning a cat that is lazy ). However, when replacing Drown the bloody cat with Drown the cat which is bloody *, it distorts the meaning of the statement [20] . Similarly, the meaning is distorted in phrases The cat seemed bloody * ( Russian. The cat seemed bloody * ). How bloody was the cat? * ( Rus. How bloody is the cat? * ). Impossible and combination of explosives (including bloody ) with adverbs like very ( Russian. Very ). This allows Stephen Pinker to assume that the English language language has the properties of adverbs rather than adjectives [21] .
Along with other explosives, the word bloody can act as an infix , wedging in the middle of a word or an inseparable phrase, for example abso-bloody-lutely ( Russian abs . , Fucking lute ), fan-bloody-tastic ( Russian fan, fucking, tastic ) [22] .
Semantically, bloody usually expresses disapproval, but this disapproval often does not refer to the noun that it defines, but to the situation. For example, in response to the question “Why is English food so unpalatable?” - “Because we had a bloody empire to run, you see?” ( Rus. Because we have to manage a fucking empire, you know? ) The interviewee expresses irritation not with the empire, but correspondent question. When transmitting someone else's speech, it is the speaker who expresses discontent, and not the one whose speech he conveys. In the phrase, Sam says that his landlord is a bloody scoutmaster ( Rus. Sam says that his landlord is the damn scout leader ) dissatisfaction with the scout leaders is expressed by the speaker, not Sam. This is explained by the fact that bloody has become an explosive, replacing another taboo word, for example, blasphemy damned and God-damned [23] .
Notes
- ↑ bloody . Oxford Dictionaries. The appeal date is March 9, 2015.
- ↑ bloody | Definition of bloody in English by Oxford Dictionaries
- ↑ BLOODY | meaning in the Cambridge English Dictionary
- ↑ 1 2 Zelvis, 2001 , p. 314.
- ↑ Pinker, 2013 , p. 342.
- ↑ BBC - Culture - Why do brits and Americans swear so differently?
- ↑ 1 2 Pinker, 2013 , p. 412.
- ↑ Zhelvis, 2001 , p. 310-314.
- ↑ Hughes, 1998 , p. 12.
- ↑ Whittington, 1930 , p. 29-35.
- ↑ Zhelvis, 2001 , p. 311.
- ↑ Spears, 1982 , p. 36
- ↑ 1 2 3 4 Zelvis, 2001 , p. 313.
- ↑ Zhelvis, 2001 , p. 310, 313.
- ↑ Zhelvis, 2001 , p. 312.
- ↑ Hughes, 1998 , p. 186.
- ↑ Selth, 1982 , p. 40
- ↑ Menken, 1937 , p. 315.
- ↑ Lisenkova, 2010 .
- ↑ Quang Fuc Dong, 1971 .
- ↑ Pinker, 2013 , p. 432.
- ↑ Zwicky, 1987 , p. 311.
- ↑ Pinker, 2013 , p. 432-433.
Literature
- V.I. Zelvis . The battlefield: Foul language as a social problem in the languages and cultures of the world. - Second edition, revised and enlarged. - M .: Ladomir, 2001. - 349 p. - (Russian secret literature). - 2000 copies - ISBN 5-86218-090-7 .
- Lisenkova N.N. Effective elements in the language system (on the material of modern English) // Bulletin of the South Ural State University. Series: Linguistics. - 2010. - Vol. No. 1 (177) . - ISSN 1991-9751 .
- S. Pinker . Substance of Thinking: Language as a window into human nature = The Stuff of Thought. Language as a Window into Human Nature / Per. from English V.P. Murat, I.D. Ulyanova. - M .: Book House "Librokom", 2013. - 560 p. - (Philosophy of knowledge). - ISBN 978-5-397-03891-1 .
- Hughes G. Swearing: A Social History of Foul Language, Oaths and Profanity in English . - New York: Penguin, 1998. - 304 p. - ISBN 0141954329 .
- Menken HL The American Language: An Inquary into the United States. - N. Y .: A. Knopf, 1937.
- Quang Fuc Dong. English sentences without grammatical subject // AM Zwicky, PH Salus, RI Binnick et al. Studies in the field on the left: D. McCowley on the occasion of his 33rd or 34th burthday. - Philadelfia: John Benjamins, 1971.
- Australian English for the Wary Traveler // Maledicta. - 1982. - T. Vol. 1 , № № 1/2 .
- Spears RA Slang and Euphemism: A Dictionary of oaths, curses, insults, sexual slang and metaphor, racial slurs, drug talk, homosexual lingo, and related matters. - N. Y .: New American Library, 1982.
- Whittington R. A Note on "Bloody" // American Speech. - 1930. - № № 1 .
- Zwicky AM, Pullum GK Plain Morphology and Expressive Morphology . - Berkeley Linguistics Society, 1987.