LINGUIST List 4.311

Mon 26 Apr 1993

Disc: Rude Negation: Last Posting

Editor for this issue: <>

Directory

1. Celso Alvarez-Caccamo, Rude Counter-Assessers - Correction
2. David Stampe, Rude tags
3. "Sze-wing Tang", rude negation in Cantonese
4. , Re: 4.297 Rude Negation

There was a mix-up in example (6) of a previous posting
of mine should read. It should read:
In Galician-Portuguese:
 (6) A: --Que gente mais agradavel [What nice people]
 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
 B: --Que gente mais agradavel uma merda!
 [lit., "What nice people", a shit = my ass]

Celso Alvarez-Caccamo
lxalvarzudc.es

Related to rude negation, if only because it's rude, is the tag in
exchanges like this, typically between complete strangers:

- Would you care to move to the other end of the bar?
- Why?
- Well, you're standin' at my favorite place, aren't you?

The tag has a falling, not a rising intonation. It is applied to a
proposition that the speaker knows full well the addressee is not
aware of, and he's unhappy about that. Its rudeness is immediately
apparent even to someone who's never heard it before. It's often used
in Britain, though it may have class associations there. I'm not sure
about Oz, but I've never heard it in Canada, and never in the US. Has
anyone written on this use of tags?

David Stampe <stampeuhunix.uhcc.hawaii.edu>, <stampeuhunix.bitnet>
Dept. of Linguistics, Univ. of Hawaii/Manoa, Honolulu HI 96822

In Cantonese there's a phrase often heard: 'jong2 gwai2' (lit: meet with
a ghost) which means 'down on one's luck'. We say it when something goes
wrong or when we get into trouble. It's also a swear-word which has a
similar meaning 'it's sheer fantasy'.

Sze-wing Tang
The Chinese University of Hong Kong

Message 4: Re: 4.297 Rude Negation

Terry Odlin and other connoisseur(e)s of devil-type negation may like
to know that Cantonese has a productive rule of devil-infixation,
as in:
 matyeh `what' -> mat-gwai-yeh `what-the-devil'
This morpheme is primarily expletive-emphatic (not exactly rude, just
slang) but may also have an implicit negative force, for example in
rhetorical questions (ngoh dim gwai ji `I how devil know?') and
ironic statements (Heunggong gaauyuhk seuipihn gam gwai sei gou
ironic statements (Heunggong gaauyuhk seuipihn gam gwai sei gou
 Hongkong education level so devil dead high)
Such rhetorical use of devil-expletives could be one diachronic source
for devil-negation.
Steve Matthews