Insults

[Tresco]

Is this the sort of thing, you, me KathyC and Perhaps Possumgirl meant?

Referring to a sending off for insulting the linesmans mother (Beckham, this time).

" ....of a Latin culture that would venerate motherhood so highly as to take particular offence at a misogynistic insult about the target's mother. Or so the argument goes. In some cultures if one man spoke ill of another's mother it would fully warrant him getting a face full of bald Frenchman's bonce - or worse. In Britain, such an insult would not be quite so offensive. Such cultural differences, one might well think, come from the fact that Britain got rid of any traces of mariolatry - the worship of the virgin mother of Christ - during the Reformation; only Catholic countries like those of southern Europe are encumbered with such mother worship"

Taken from this mostly amusing but also informative Guardian article.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,,1818202,00.html

[Just Katie]

Kathy C I am very sorry if you think I ignored you.  I was merely agreeing

Hoddy, I am very sorry if the thread was about language.  I did not get it.  Maybe we speak different languages.[:)]

[chris pp]

That's a big sorry from me as well Hoddy, I wasn't paying attention enough.

Chris

[Hoddy]

Thanks for the link, Tresco. That was the sort of thing I was thinking of.

I'm not sure that I totally agree with the mariolatry idea, but it does have a certain logic to it. I was once told that "Your mother's knees" was a bad insult in Swahili and I guess there wasn't much of a marion influence there.

As the article suggests perhaps in society's where men expect to be in control, insulting their women's honour suggests that they have no control and are therefore not 'proper' men.

And, of course, as Dick said there are so many more insulting names which are specific to women.

Hoddy

[KathyC]

Thanks for the Grauniad reference; it's an brilliant article. The last paragraph expresses what I was trying to say about insulting someone's male relative on grounds of promiscuity. Not possible.

[Tresco]

I have to say I think that is still very true KathyC, but I think the key to this particular element is this

The underlying idea is you're attacking what your rival came out of," says Cameron. "That's why it's mothers rather than fathers who feature in the more potent insult. Everybody comes from their mother".

I suppose we would need to know what amateur league on pitch insults consist of, to get an idea/notion of what is going on in the English Premiership, or perhaps they are so far removed from each other in terms of the quality/focus of insults, it just isn't worth it.

Then there's the spectators. Most of you will not have heard the 'Posh Spice' song which I sat and listened to more than once at Old Trafford: one time, memorably seated next to a 8ish year old girl, who asked her mother what it meant...[8-)]

I doubt they sing it at Real Madrid.

I had a quick root around Swahili insults, Hoddy. They seem to be mainly focussed on (male) body parts, animals (sex with) and 'gayness'. Fascinating stuff.

[KathyC]

[quote user="Tresco"]

 

 

I doubt they sing it at Real Madrid.

 

[/quote]

 

And if they did he wouldn't understand it.

 

(By the way, what did her mother say, or were you too embarrassed to listen?)

[Tresco]

Ah please KathyC,  I like Becks, and as the article demonstrated, he had 'learnt' enough Spanish to repeat certain things with fluency, enough to get sent off, anyway[:(]

The mum brushed it off with something like 'oh I don't know.....oooh look at Giggsy, see how he runs!'. [:)]

This was a dinky girl. What would most parents do? I was mortified. It went on for the whole of the match.

 

[PossumGirl]

[quote user="Hoddy"]KKK wrote,

Hoddy, you are quite right, the insult thing does not usually go on between women.  "

That is not at all what I was saying.

I intended this thread to be a discussion about language and not about sport. It's now just a continuation of the Justice thread.

Good job I put it in the Lounge.

Hoddy[/quote]

Hoddy, you see?  Another difference between men and women!  We wouldn't normally change the subject to sports!  We would probably be more likely to go off topic about food or our mothers-in-law!

PG

[Missy]

[quote user="Dick Smith"]Kids will fight over 'Your Mum'...
[/quote]

I remember long ago a fight in the school grounds between a few boys.

It went sort of : ' ...and you are nothing! My dad is the policeman!' as indeed this particular boy's father was the gendarme in our little town.

The other boy retorted : 'Your dad is the boulanger!...'

I remember the cold silence in the school playground because if this boy's dad was the gendarme.... so how did his father suddenly come to be the boulanger?... was quite a mystery to us kids...

A few months later this kid was no longer with us at the school and we heard on the gossip phone that his mother had gone away with his siblings to some other town and that the local gendarme had been posted somewhere else.... 

What is the saying 'Out of the mouths of babes comes the truth'.....

 

 

[Cerise]

Hoddy - I think it is because men are not rational beings[:)]  If someone said my dad/brother/husband was a pimp (or the town stud?) I'd probably burst out laughing, whereas my (Catholic raised) husband would probably have a fit if someone said his wife/mother/sister was a tart.  Women are much more deadly, personal and unkinder when they do get round to doing some insulting - men just shout out daft accusations.  I think - most - women can't really be bothered with that sort of thing unless it is deadly serious whereas men do seem to delight in taunting each other like small children.  Anyway sexual promiscuity in men is seen as OK and in women appalling (there is not a smiley for appalled!) so we would need to be much more inventive in our insults if we wanted to insult other women's men.  Perhaps stinging retorts about their lack of virility or their impotencey would do the trick?? 

[Just Katie]

[quote user="Cerise"]

  Perhaps stinging retorts about their lack of virility or their impotencey would do the trick?? 

[/quote]

I find a simple "FOR GOODNESS SAKE GROW UP!" also shuts them up.

[Richard-R]

I think you must remember that in pro sport , there's lots of money involved, getting an head butt, most likely earned him €100,000 plus. A few well placed insults= big money.

[Missy]

[quote user="Richard-R"] .... you must remember that in pro sport , there's lots of money involved, getting an head butt, most likely earned him €100,000 plus. A few well placed insults= big money.[/quote]

Does it go under the heading of 'danger money' ?....

[Cassis]

This seems to be such big news it even made it to the other side of the Pond.  A video online featuring a bloke head-butting another in a fight over a hamburger in a parking lot is described using the words '... until one of them pulls a Zidane and ends the argument'.

[Owens88]

[quote user="Hoddy"]Something occurred to me while reading the “Justice” thread. My last faint illusions about sport have now been dashed – I’m more of the Chris pp school of thought myself – or I was. Then I wondered why is it that when people have insulted me they have done it straightforwardly. They have never sought to insult my father, husband, brother or son. Come to think of it they’ve never insulted my female relatives either. Is other women’s experience the same as mine ? Is it a certain sort of man who goes in for this sort of thing ? Is it confined to the football pitch and rap music ? What do you think ? Hoddy[/quote]

My initial reaction was to say that you cannot insult that which is not held in 'high regard', as mothers everywhere are.

However that may be insulting your  father, husband, brother or son and your female relatives, please do not head butt me.

 

[Cassis]

Is it because men are there to be ridiculed and women to be worshipped?

[Iceni]

Did ZZ act as he did because the comments were true or false ? Or that whatever M said was common knowledge ?

I think we should be told.

John

not