For want of a better phrase I have coined ‘‘verbal shock ‘to mean any expression that exists in a language for use only at specific occasions or at specific times. The use of these expressions shocks even the natives who have not heard them before. I give two examples in, Ewe, my mother tongue. In Ewe, when a woman has given birth to a twin and a person wants to find out how the twins are doing, that person would use the expression, keseawo kua? This literally means, ‘‘are the apes dead?’’. For a mother of a twin who does not know this expression, when it is uttered, she is shocked, annoyed and sometimes accuses the person who has uttered this. Another example is when a woman has done her best possible to ensure that his sick husband recovers but the husband dies, she is greeted, “Woe wͻ yaka dͻ!’’, meaning, ‘‘you have done a worthless job!’’ A woman who is not aware of the use of this expression for an occasion such as that one thinks the speakers has a hand in the husband’s death. When she is not educated on this expression, it may lead to strife between them. Have you noticed similar expressions in your language? If so, share with us?
Language and culture, sociolinguistics, sociology, anthropology, education
Well, we have this practice in Sabah that whenever we see new born babies we will say "Bida'nya anak ngko!" (What an ugly child!). The belief was that the gods were always after pretty babies for their own, so by saying these, we ensured that the child will live long. The funny thing is that we still practice this today and unfortunately offend a lot of modern mothers who had modern prenatal training on the confidence level of their infants.
Sabah is North Borneo. It is not a language but rather the northern part of East Malaysia. We have very diverse ethnic groups here but our medium of interaction is Malay or rather a variety of it. In the phrase "Bida'nya anak ngko!" the word "bida'" means ugly in our local tongue but it is not known in West Malaysia. "Anak" means child in the archipelago (Phillipines, Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore) while "ngko" is a verbalise "engkau" which means you in the Malay language.
Hope this helps.
In American English we have a number of phrases that may be understood differently by different generations or people from different regions. For instance, one of my friends who is nearly 90 years old, refers to when her late husband "bought the farm", which to many other people means "died". She means, of course, literally, bought the farm on which she still lives. I believe that in the UK and/or formerly British colonies ''You're having me on"means "you are mocking me", so it is a jolt when people who call in to a talk show on radio say "thanks for having me on".
In parts of South America, people will say "Qué Bestia" to praise a cute baby. In South Africa, many people say "Ag Shame!" for the same purpose. I agree that it is a form of deterring the "evil eye", which pervades many cultures.