Laura in New Bedford, Massachusetts, asks how offensive bloody is when her mother uses it as a swearish adjective, as in this bloody car won’t start. The force depends heavily on where you are: Jeffrey Hughes’s Encyclopedia of Swearing describes bloody as “common in British English, essential in Australian English, but rare in American English.” To most American ears it lands closer to darn than damn, while in Britain it can still sound sharper, though somewhat old-fashioned. Older, safer substitutes include ruddy, blinking, bleeding, and blooming. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Is “Bloody” Offensive? It Depends on the English-Speaking Country”
Hello, you have A Way with Words.
Hi, how are you? This is Laura Morales, and I am from New Bedford, Massachusetts.
Welcome, Laura. What’s going on?
Well, my mother uses this word quite often, bloody. And I know it’s a British expression, and I always thought that it was not a very nice word, like a swear word. But I don’t know, so I wanted to clarify and see what it really means.
-huh. And how would she use it in a sentence? And she would use it probably in a negative way, I want to say. But would she say, this bloody car won’t start again, something like that?
Yes, something to that nature, yes. And your sense is that it’s some kind of swear leg?
Yes, I always thought it was, but I’m not sure. So I hope you can help me out.
Yeah, we surely can. There’s a line I like in a book about swearing. It’s Jeffrey Hughes in the Encyclopedia of Swearing. And he talks about bloody and he says it is common in British English, essential in Australian English, but rare in American English. It’s really unusual for Americans to use this repeatedly and habitually. Usually when we use it, it’s because we’re imitating an Australian or a British person or we’re just being ironic or trying it on for size. But as far as everyday usage, bloody isn’t really an American thing. So your mother is an outlier.
Whether or not it’s offensive, I’ll tell you this. In Australia, it’s so common that it’s been called the great Australian adjective, although usually it’s an adjective. And you will even hear it in Australia in Parliament. People have been known to say it and not have suffered any kind of censure or any kind of reprimand from the people in charge. So in the UK, it’s a little more, how should I put this, has a little more negative force to it. But you still will hear it, even though now it’s considered a little passé and old-fashioned and isn’t the kind of thing that the everyday person is likely to say without recognizing that it’s more of their parents’ generation or their grandparents’ generation.
Is it negative? It is negative. It’s like darn. It has just about the offensive weight of the word darn. Not the word damn, but the word darn, D-A-R-N.
Oh, then she’ll be happy to use it. But, you know, there’s a lot of asterisks on that. There’s a lot of footnotes to that, which is I’m talking about the American usage. Most Americans wouldn’t even blink to hear it or to say it. It just doesn’t have any kind of impact here because it’s just not ours.
Right. So if she travels to England, probably she should refrain. I know. It’s kind of interesting because she doesn’t know where she picked it up from. But I’ve noticed, like, recently within the last year or so, she says it quite a lot.
So darn, well, that’s really good. I thought it was always a very bad word. So I’m glad we’ve slain that out. Again, there’s a lot of caveating and hedging on that. But at least to the American ear, it’s just like, darn.
How about that? I will say, if you’re still bothered by it, you don’t have to give in to her. There are a lot of other euphemisms. When bloody used to be more offensive, let’s say 80 years ago, because it was more offensive back then. A lot of other euphemisms came up to replace it, such as ruddy or blithering or blinking or bleeding or blooming. So you could say, this ruddy car won’t start again.
But none of those sound very American either, do they? No, not at all. This blinking car won’t start again. I’ve heard that before, though.
Yeah. What do you use, Laura? Well, you know, I’ve heard of a lot of people using the S word for sugar. They’ll say, oh, sugar.
Right. -huh. The sugary car.
All right. Well, Laura, I’m glad we were able to help. And if your mom would like to, you know, if she wants to come back to us and tell us exactly what she thinks about bloody, we would welcome that call. All right?
Oh, that would be great. Yeah, tell her to call that bloody show. Thanks, Laura. Call the bloody show. That’s great.
All right. Take care. Give our best to your mom. Oh, it was very nice speaking with you, and you have a great day now.
You too. Bye-bye. Thanks, Laura. You too. Thank you. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.
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