conuly

This particular example of a Christian applies "Do not take the Lord's name in vain" to things like "Oh my god", but not to taboo words more generally; I still avoid other taboo words (and even euphemisms for them), but I have never been able to come up with any rationally coherent reason why saying something like "shit" is universally wrong, and any attempted justifications I've been given have never made sense.

You know how it's usually said that people have a stronger taboo reaction to swear words in their native language than in a foreign language, so tend to swear more freely in a foreign language because the swear words there have less of an emotional impact? I actually had an experience once that was pretty much opposite of that, and I think there was an explainable reason for it.

I was in a class on Modern Greek Linguistics. The prof was explaining a couple exclamations, one of which was basically "oh my god" in Greek, word-for-word. Now, while in English I don't use the expression, I don't have a strong reaction to it. But I had a fairly strong shocked/jarred reaction to the Greek expression. (Note that I will quote the English expression but feel uncomfortable even quoting the Greek one.) My guess at the reason for this is that because the English expression is culturally treated as fairly mild, I find it problematic on principled grounds, but don't have a strong taboo reaction to it, and am accustomed to not taking a lot of notice when other people say it even if I wouldn't say it myself. But the Greek expression has the freshness of something never heard before, and so what it literally says is more obvious, and therefore shocking.