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Comment by lbebber | Hacker News Reader

> There is just an ugliness in [...] the harsh consonants that intrinsically reflect the ugliness of the words

I won't comment on the rest of the post, but come on.

What is the ugliness in, say, "shit", that is not present in "shot" or "sheet"?

the logic here is "if curse then harsh", not "if harsh then curse", which raises an interesting question is there a soft curse word?

Come to think of it, it's like an emotional mapping to auditory expression, similar to this concept I heard about many years ago https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bouba/kiki_effect

> the logic here is "if curse then harsh", not "if harsh then curse", which raises an interesting question is there a soft curse word?

I don't mean this to be insulting but rather to answer your question. I think the word "asshole" has relatively soft sounds.

hilarious, good find! Just a few minutes ago, I tried an experiment to make a softword spoken as a curse word. It was kind of hard, at first I imagined screaming "banana" as a curse, but it just came off silly. Then I wondered if the silliness was because banana's are kind of silly and I was blurring the mental concept into the attempt, then I said "monana" to try to make gibberish so I couldn't lean on existing concepts. Fun exercise.

I'd say soft curse words are the "clean" variants we've developed, like shoot, or fart. My Spanish roommate used to say miercoles, instead of the poop alternative.

> is there a soft curse word?

i believe the common parlance is "alternative curse words"

I was speaking of phonetically soft, but I see what you're getting at with the interpretation that dwesr2648 shares with the "clean variants". Come to think of it this actually brings to memory all those safe for TV dubs they'd substitute for curse words. Those must surely be a direct application of "alternative curse words". After work I'mma try to see if anyone made a YouTube mashup for dubbed curse substitutions. I always got a kick out of those as a teenager.

hilarious, a search suggestion for "alternative curse words" was this "alternative curse words for moms who swear". I love it :-p

Well, certainly not the phonetics.

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