Swe@ring

The class was divided into two groups. Mr Tomalin was in charge of my group. At the beginning of the lesson some classmates were late, and obviously he got upset because of this. As soon as they came in the classroom, Mr Tomalin swore in front of the whole class. Everyone was dumbfounded, not a word was said, a complete silence took over the class. Suddenly, Mr Tomalin started laughing and asked why everyone had that reaction, if that was not the first time we saw someone swore.

Hands went up and opinions such as “ because you are expected to be role model to us” or “because in school property swearing is prohibited” were heard, opinions which I completely agree since my reaction was the same. Afterwards, he told us that was the topic for the day, swearing.

Throughout the class we read an extract of the book “Mother Tongue” by Bill Bryson which brought a new perspective on the topic. It described insults form all over the world as well as the most commonly used swear words and how they differ in every country. We discussed how every person fells swear words are harsher when they are in their mother tongue, in contrast on how they feel when they hear them in languages learned later on in their lives. In addition, how the same word had different connotations depending on the cultural background of the person. For example, in China being called a turtle is the worst possible taunt, however, in Colombia it means that you are performing your actions really slowly. Insignificant details for some that make the same word have completely different meanings. 

The extract also described the origin of some words and how they changed its meaning over time. This really got me thinking about the swear words I hear the most in a daily basis, and where they come from; the origin of the majority of them is still unknown to me. However, this lesson made us all laugh and discuss why we use certain words that do not even have a particular meaning. A discussion we have never had since we do not really analyze why we use this type of words, which in my opinion, was a really interesting and entertained lesson.