Common phrases

With children .... and even with other adults (which mostly surpises them because many don't know those words or the actual meaning).

That's what I noticed within (some of) the generation of the below 35's, 40's, here in Germany.


Thinking about it: it might be different in what kind of job they are and/or what kind of education they got.

Summed up: it's not uncommon here.

Re: Common phrases


Not in my experience. I think I'd do a double-take if I heard a parent include words like 'freaking' in conversation with their children.

I do agree with Walter Hinterler though, and think that their education (which in turn determines their occupation) would have something to do with it.

Interesting. Right after making my post ^^, I read Boomerang's Garbage Man thread....



Felt like a bit of an inadvertant snob. Recanting last part of ^^ post.

I did indeed do a double take, Heatwave. I also said something about it to my daughter when we got into our car. She things I'm an old prude and should lighten up.

I don't think it's connected to education here. This was in a highly affluent area where education is expected to go at least through a college degree. I hear stuff like this all the time. I sense a general increase in what I think of as rude interactions. I sound like my mother.... maybe my daughter is right.

WhenI worked in youth clubs, after some (longer and serious) hesitations .... I spoke like the kids there.

There reaction was only positive: at least one adult who wasn't like their parents and grandparents.

Might be it is less an educational thing but more one related to each's socialisation? (Though both might be related in a certain age group, at least here.)

Don't have kids of course, but I'd prefer hear a parent say 'freaking' to their kids than the actual F word. Which I've heard and makes me cringe.

It would depend on the age of the child. I'd say if they are over 12 they're ready to hear their parent say freaking.

(I mean, if they're old enough to be having sex, they're old enough to hear the word freaking) :wink:

When you say adolescent, I assume they are over 12ish?

By that time, they realize there parents are humans that aren't always going to be the model of perfection for them.

I think that I will always watch my language with my children - no matter how old they are/get. I talk differently with my peers. And differently again with generation above me in my family and the Indian community as a whole.

I too sound like my mother when it comes to my daughter, JPB - and I quite embrace it. It's one of the things I've always respected/admired about my own mum - that she always uses 'proper' language, maintains that dignity. I thought she was a bit of a prude too, as a kid, and tested her many, many times with off-color jokes & whatnot (still do She always first laughs a little, then mutters about the 'naughtiness') - but quickly learned to appreciate it as soon as some maturity set in.

I'm guessing the girl was somewhere around 11 - 13. I think if mom(?) had used the actual "F" word I would have done more than a double-take. I probably would have challenged her on the spot (much to my own daughter's chagrin).

Walter, I think you're right about not having the same connotation to a younger group than what it means to me. My kids don't see much difference between saying "wicked cool" and "freaking cool". I don't use it myself unless I'm really agitated about something because it has a stronger meaning for me.

I admit that words can take on different meanings than what I'm familiar with. I once referred to a much-despised teacher as an 'old bag'. She was furious and my mother went off the deep end and told me that I'd called her a prostitute! Huh? Not as far as I knew, I hadn't.

Kids around here also call each other 'sluts' and don't mean what I take it to mean. They don't say it around me anymore and my kids don't say freaking around me either.

In German, the best example is "geil":

- when I was young, it just and only meant ... ehem, sorry .... h*orny,
- now, it's in every dictionary with the meaning "cool" (in such use since ~20 years).
You can imagine that people from my generation (minus 10, 15 years) still don't use that word easily.

I'm remembering when I was 11 or 13, right in that age group, I called my brother a "jerk off" Now, I had absolutely no idea of the sexual meaning of that, it was just something I thought you called anyone, male or female, meaning you thought they were being, well, a jerk, a fool. I'm sure I'd said it dozens of times, and didn't think a think of it. Just a brother/sister fight.

My mother heard me and went BALLESTIC. She had the old parenting style of take no prisoners (that's another story) and screamed at me "WHAT DID YOU JUST CALL HIM?!" That was the first it every entered my mind that something was wrong with that term, had no idea why. So, of course I said something non-commital like "huh?"

She (this whole conversation was being shouted by her from here out) asked "Did you just call him a jerko"?

I thought that word sounded really stupid, and anyway, that's not what I called him, so I said "No"

Yes you did, I HEARD you! Do you know what that means?

Me, being the master of the wrong answer said "yeah" meaning I knew it meant a dumb person.

I got yelled at awhile longer, never did figure out exactly what jerk off meant for a few more years.

Point is, JPB, your kids don't know that freaking if really just a milder form of something they really shouldn't be saying. Or do they?

In your initial post, it really took me back in time. Today, I would be dismayed at a parent saying the actual F word.

My parents never said that word, I never heard it come out of my mothers mouth until I was at least 20, and that was only because she was repeating what someone else said.

However, my parents Constantly said God damn. Something I rarely say.

Growing up I was called a "God damn kid" or we were referred to as a group as "you God damn kids"....I thought every parent called their children that, and when I finally had the ephinany in my 30's that they didn't, well, it kinda rocked my world.

I would much rather have heard her say "that's a freakin' good deal"



When my step daughter was, oh...15 or so, I never used bad language in front of her, and her father the same way. She came to visit us when she was about that age, and when the 2 of of "girls" were together alone, she dropped in conversation something like "so I told her that was bullshit" I could tell kinda feeling me out to see if I'd have a reaction.

I didn't, and I could sense a relaxing about her, like I wasn't going to treat her like a baby for saying a word.....I think she dropped the word **** in front of her father maybe twice from the age of 15 to 20.
When she turned 20, she again was visiting, and I walked in the room when she was telling her dad something really serious in her private life that had angered her, her anger was justified....As I walked in she was saying something like "I was so f***ing angry..." I looked at Mr. Tea, and he just kept a stone face.
When she left the room, I asked "Did you hear Miss Tea say F***"?

He was quiet, and said, "yeah....never heard that before...."

Now she's 27, and I can count on one hand the number of times I've heard her curse.

Miss Tea always knew what words meant. Maybe the kids who hear their mother say freaking think it just means "very"

I first heard "the F word" because my brother was attempting to extort something from me with threats, and it wasn't working for him, so he told my grandmother that i had said "f--- you." I still didn't know what it meant, but having my mouth washed out with soap was sufficiently impressive to convince me that it wasn't something to be used in polite conversation.

Many, many years later, more than 30 years, i got in trouble because my very young nephew went around the yard and house saying "goddamn," and laughing--when challenged said he had learned it from me. In that case, i was painting my grandmother's house, and had been careful to avoid the heavy metal awnings which shaded all the windows on the south side. Then my grandmother stuck her head out the back door to say that lunch would soon be ready, and asked how i wanted my eggs cooked. I turned suddently and the edge of one of those awnings dug right into the top of my head. I danced around saying "goddamngoddamngoddamn"--and as i later realized, my nephew was standing behind me, and i didn't know it.

Little kids like that have this infallible tape recorder in their heads which allows to record and replay, word-perfect, any obscenity you may inadvertently say in their presence.

People actually say "freaking?"

I think of it as a fake substitute word, created for network cop shows or something.

I don't think I would get that mad at its use per se but I'd think it was weird to utter it aloud.

I remember when I used the word "sucks" in a college essay and my professor chastised me for using a vulgarity -- I swear that I hadn't really thought about what that word/ phrase as usually used ("bad") actually meant until then.

Yeah, they know what it means and I think it currently does mean the equivalent of "very". I don't think I'd had been nearly as surprised if it was the girl saying it to her mom, but it was the mom who said it to the girl. It was simply part of the conversation.

Soz, I think that kids today use anything in casual conversation that they hear on TV. I think you're right, whatever the origins of the word, if they hear it on TV they use it in normal conversation. And, yes, they use it in every sentence they can fit it in to.

Set -- heheheh, speaking of getting in trouble for your choice of words.... I don't think I ever used the "F" word in front of my parents, I'm sure I knew better than to push the envelope that far. When I was, oh I don't know maybe six or seven, I referred to an adult neighbor by her first name. My mother had said, "Goodnight, Mary" and I said it too. Mom spun around and gave me THE LOOK and let me know in no uncertain terms that our neighbor's name was Mrs. Casey and that was how I should refer to her. If I saw her again today I'd probably still call her Mrs. Casey.

"freaking"

I hear it in the office every day. Probably say it a few times a week myself.

Doesn't Napolean Dynamite say "What the freak?"

Re: Common phrases

My impression from listening to Americans is that it's not just parents-to-children. I hear American grown-ups use "freaking" casually all the time, no matter who they're talking to. Not so much from American adolescents and children that often. As far as I can tell, they either don't use expletives or use the real ones.

A CONVERSATION WITH YOUR MOTHER (aka F-WORD)
by Lou & Peter Berryman (chorus sung after each verse)

There are pirates in their fetid galleons
Daggers in their skivvies
With infected tattooed fingers
On a blunderbuss or two
Signs of scurvy in their eyes
And only mermaids on their minds
It's from them I would expect to hear
The F-word, not from you

CHORUS:
We sit down to have a chat
It's F-word this and F-word that
I can't control how you young people
Talk to one another
But I don't want to hear you use
That F-word with your mother

And the lumberjacks from Kodiak
Vacationing in Anchorage
Enchanted with their pine tar soup
And Caribou shampoo
With seven weeks of back pay
In their aromatic woolens
It's from them I would expect to hear
The F-word, not from you

There's the militant survivalists
With Gucci bandileros
Taking tacky khaki walkie talkies
To the rendezvous
Trading all the latest armor
Piercing ammo information
It's from them I would expect to hear
The F-word, not from you

There are jocks who think that God himself
Is drooling in the bleachers
In a cold November downpour
With a bellyful of brew
Whose entire grasp of heaven
Has a lot to do with football
It's from them I would expect to hear
The F-word, not from you

There's unsavory musicians
With their filthy pinko lyrics
Who destroy the social fabric
And enjoy it when they do
With their groupies and addictions
And poor broken-hearted parents
It's from them I would expect to hear
The F-word, not from you

Copyright Lou and Peter Berryman

Actual people also say "shoot". I suspect there are substitutes for all forbidden words on TV, and they all have made their way into everyday language. Apparently they appeal to people who want it both ways: who want the effect of expletives without appearing to be the kind of person who uses expletives. (I have little respect for them.)

My dad always said "Judas Priest". I'm still not sure what it was supposed to substitute for. As a kid I always thought it was a pretty bad swear. Not sure when I learned it wasn't anything. Probably not til I was 30 or so.