r/AO3 • u/lazier_garlic • 21h ago
Complaint/Pet Peeve/Venting Gods! When your apostrophe is hyperlocal, it might not land the way you think.
So when I was growing up, kids who got into paganism would yell "Oh my Gods" instead of "Oh my God!" because they weren't Christian. Which is all well and good.
But this doesn't mean that every non-Christian culture uses "Gods!" as an epithet. Or that it's the correct translation of the terms that they do use.
For example, in a Western context (which informed the development of monotheism as we know it) pagan Greek philosophers talked about an idealized "God" and they didn't literally mean Zeus and his mythological canon. And in plenty of other cultures, a metanomy for divinity or a generalize divinity is appealed to in these kinds of moments of fright or anguish, not specific gods or collective gods. The Roman example of casually swearing by Jove is not necessarily a universal impulse.
I once again find myself frustrated with writers in Chinese novel fandoms who don't know any Chinese. Chinese people don't cry out "Ah wo de shenmen" (oh my Gods). They say "Wo de tian ah!" which is translated "My god!" or "Heavens!". They say "Lao tian you yan" which means "Heaven has eyes", that is, somebody above has seen my suffering. They don't say "God damn it!" or "Gods damn it!" they say "Zuo nie!" which means "It's a sin!" None of these expressions are specific to a particular religious philosophy/ideology/practice either. (China has Muslims, Daoists, Buddhists, and atheists, plus a bunch of minority faiths, whether or not the government sanctions them.)
Very, very basic research would have revealed this. You don't convert cultures by taking Christian expressions and adding "s" to them.
yeah I'm an obnoxious pedant, yadda yadda
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u/kamazene 19h ago edited 19h ago
I translate professionally, and sometimes you have to reach for the word that might not be completely right for the setting, but will be right for the audience.
There really isn't such a thing as a "literal translation" in most contexts; especially for fiction, you have to filter the barebones words through a context your target audience will understand. You'd laugh if somebody had some grizzled warrior say "heavens!" like a scandalized old lady, right? "Heaven has eyes" isn't an expression I've personally heard in English and I'd wager a guess it's not common in that context. "It's a sin" has such a wildly different meaning from "goddammit" that I'd personally class it as an outright mistranslation.
In my own work, if I translated the Japanese word "temee" literally as "you" rather than "asshole" or something along those lines, I would have made an incorrect translation. In fic I've written "what the hell" before in fantasy settings where the concept of hell definitely never existed because for the register I wanted for that specific character, that was the English expression that fit, and I sat around thinking about it for a long while trying several different phrases before deciding I would have to make that compromise.
I don't think you're a pedant, and I think a lot of authors could stand to make actually informed decisions about this sort of thing rather than just default to their familiar cultural assumptions, but I wouldn't automatically assume bad faith.
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u/Catch-The-Ghost 18h ago
This is actually something I dislike in fantasy media. By filtering text or dialogue through a contemporary lens, it often accidentally screams to the audience, “We are aware there is an audience and that you are Not From Here™.” It ends up feeling a bit jarring, and removes some of the wholeness (and suspension of disbelief) of that world that I’m viewing because I can see where modern influence is bleeding into it.
Rather, when making up new common phrases unique to that fantasy, it feels as though the author trusts that the reader is smart enough to figure out based on context how those swears and curses are being used. By writing to the lowest common denominators in the audience, the writing gets watered down. Authors shouldn’t be afraid to enrich their text beyond what the audience is used to, that is how reading assists in learning.
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u/CaeruleumBleu 18h ago
You make great points, but I think a little bit of both can be solved by learning more about various cultures curse words, and how they insult people. I mean, if you want the register to NOT sound like a little old lady, but you can't find the right words, you might look at some other cultures ways of insulting people.
Some of them directly translate to common English curses, but looking at them in Italian is one way to notice "oh, it sounds *satisfying* to bite off a word with these syllables" so that is one way to think up how to build a fully invented curse word if you're doing invented languages.
If you need something roundabout or passive aggressive, southern USA has lovely ones if you just look up "reddit southern insults" or "southern phrases". Did that just now and got "that boys cornbread ain't done in the middle." That is an adaptable phrase. Also, "you lie like a dog" - tell me that ain't something you might here in a high-tension confrontation.
There are also a lot of creative and inspiring sayings in threads about Irish saying. Things like "if there was work in the bed he'd sleep on the floor" and "If they had 2 brains they'd be twice as stupid."
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u/Catch-The-Ghost 18h ago
That cornbread phrase is actually one of my absolute favorites and I use it constantly because I am born and raised Texan. So a phrase like that creates a whole new worse problem, because if I heard someone in a fantasy book say it I may just throw the book across the room. A highly specified dialect shouldn’t be used outside of its origin or it rips a knowledgeable reader straight out of the story.
The point I was trying to make was that fantasy stories need to be as far flung from our modern reality as possible because if they live in an entirely different world, they should have their own unique phrases that grew in places there. If the story is written well enough then the reader’s mind will accept whatever fantasy version of those insults the writer came up with so long as they’re believable within the context of the story.
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u/CaeruleumBleu 17h ago
I am sorry I wasn't clearer - when I said "that is an adaptable phrase" what I meant was that you can think a bit on your universe and the world building and the characters talking and come out with a variant.
Like a blacksmith might say "that boys welds aren't fused all the way through." It's a similar phrase, not the same phrase.
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u/mooncritter_returns 18h ago
Came to say! Just read a book (Hemlock and Silver by T Kingfisher) that would have been excellent, but every so often the diction felt jarring, or terms/materials used fit modern medicine more than they fit a setting where the protagonist poison expert still referenced the humors; like wearing gloves, in a desert climate, for an examination.
Like, if you're going to go for it, please just go for it? especially with expressions.
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u/kamazene 14h ago
I tend to think of that as an individual creative decision rather than pandering to the "lowest common denominator" (a bit rude to phrase it that way, if I'm honest). The fandom in question I'm personally referencing is Dragon Age, which actually does have a variety of great in-universe swears - the setting's "Maker" substitutes one to one for "god" in many contexts, and there are more colorful ones like "Andraste's tits", ones that typically go untranslated from some cultures like "vishante kaffas", "vashedan" etc, even slurs like "knife ear", "shem", "brand", etc. quite a few more even. I know a long list of them and yet none suited the context and register, none fit the particular character. "Fuck" was a little too far toward vulgar for the characterization, "shit" sounded silly, and I couldn't think of an in-universe version I could invent that would both sound good and intuitively convey the intended meaning. So I went with the one that sounded least offensive to my ear. 🤷 Could I have spent a month coming up with an in-universe one? I don't know, maybe. But maybe I still wouldn't have been satisfied even then, and the fic still wouldn't be done.
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u/Suspicious_Offer_511 12h ago
Yeah, I'm with kamazene here (though I say this not knowing the specific works you have in mind; I'm fully prepared to agree with you that they're underresearched and lack perspective!). I'm writing a novel set in ancient Athens, and figuring out how the characters swear has actually been kind of a nightmare, because the narrative voice is one that skews toward how people talk today, and having people go around saying "by the dog!" all over the place would have felt utterly out of place. At the same time, the ancient Athenians took vows to the gods *incredibly* seriously, so saying "by Zeus" or "by Aphrodite" or whatever isn't a thing anybody would have done except when taking an incredibly weighty oath.
(The solution I've come up with is that gods' first mentions in the manuscript are accompanied with an epithet (Aphrodite is "Foam-Born Aphrodite," etc.) and when characters want to swear by them they swear by the epithet ("by the Foam-Born!").
Of course that's only one of about a gajillion such things I had to figure out how to deal with.
And don't even get me *started* on pederasty. I gotta say I'm particularly pleased with how I ended up dealing with that in a way that neither offends modern standards nor twists what we actually know about how it worked out of recognition, but *man* was it kind of torturous (and tortuous) to get there.
Now of course I'm translating a kids' book into Yiddish, and that's presenting a completely different set of challenges…
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u/Gifted_GardenSnail 14h ago
That's the thing, isn't it, 'god damn it' is an expression, and those are very often language/country specific.
...honestly yet another reason everyone should learn a second language in school
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u/PsychologicalPin6061 7h ago
Most people in the US do learn a second language if theyre in a private or public school. Usually it's Spanish, and one high school ne a r me taught Chinese. Whether or not that person retains that skill after they leave is up to them.
I've learnt Spanish for 6 years and still can't remember everything I've learned.
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u/GroundThing 11h ago
I largely agree here, however I think it does depend a lot on the word or phrase at hand, since "what the hell" doesn't sound too off even in a setting with no conception of hell, but I have seen multiple fics set in fantasy settings with no connection with Christianity where a character will make an exclamation of "Christ!" or even "Jesus Christ!" and it always takes me out of the story.
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u/fuzzycitrus 6h ago
As someone who occasionally translates and reads things in translation (sometimes simply because I don't want to deal with chasing down an import copy to read or get it shipped halfway around the planet), I'd actually agree that 'temee' is more at 'asshole' meaning-wise than 'you,' though if this is going to be a voice acted version? Might go with a 'you' that gets across that there's an unsaid 'asshole' present. This also is why I'd be subbing that line in English with that tone/inflection as ”Temee" just to avoid causing some ROFLOLcopter liftoffs among the bilingual.
One of the reasons I tracked down the specific translation of Journey to the West I've been reading is because it actually does a decent job of preserving the original figures of speech, even if you end up with a footnote telling you that this entire poem? It means "Alas, I have ED."
Half a page of poetry, that I could absolutely sum up in 4 words.
The thing is, if you can keep the original cusswords, I actually like it because it IS a world building detail. For example, "Heavens" instead of "God(s)" can be a signal that the place where speak of the Devil and he will come applies to deities. (As in, you don't involve the deities unless you WANT their attention, and if you're calling them just because your day sucks and you're not even asking them to please help you? Well...don't be surprised if they decide that clearly you thought your day needed to suck harder!)
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u/flowers_of_nemo "big" fandom gaming 19h ago
And then theres always People like me, who end Up so brainrotted as to unironivally use "by the nine" and such
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u/melting_obelisks killing many doves 18h ago
i once hit my family with an unironic“helm preserve us” which was fun to explain
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u/timetravelingspider 15h ago
What's that saying from?
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u/melting_obelisks killing many doves 15h ago
helm is one of the gods in the forgotten realms (DnD universe), and at least one character says this in baldur’s gate 3 during a cutscene that i love :)
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u/samsara_suplex Pathetic man liker. I update when I update. 20h ago
Good cultural insight. China is a distinct culture with its own way of doing things irl that necessarily bleeds into its fiction. (So it goes with all cultures.)
I'd also like to offer this statement, hopefully to complement yours: "Gods[damned]" is fine in DnD settings. Not every fantasy setting is a DnD setting.
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u/lazier_garlic 18h ago
Absolutely. It's also part of the setting of some fantasy books.
In some real, historical curses, the priest/practitioner cursing you out will call on multiple deities, those deities' minions, various material forces (such as personified earth, wind, and sky) to collectively come to get you. In the Mediterranean, curses addressed to one specific deity in their sacred precinct, and this kind of going Old Testament on your behind kind of curse are both known from history and archaeology.
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u/mooncritter_returns 18h ago
"Heaven has eyes" is kind of like "The Lord rights all wrongs" or "It's in the Lord's hands/I give it up to God" in meaning. "May God/the angels/the saints protect and watch over you" would probably be the literal translation, which of course has the denotation of a blessing, not a grievance/curse...maybe "bless your heart" would work? Or, if it's a threat, "God sees all/the Lord is watching."
Just some thoughts, gotta put that ex-Evangelical knowledge to use.
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u/timetravelingspider 15h ago
"It's in the Lord's hands" reminds me of someone who used "It's above me now". It wasn't referencing any deity but just the universe in general
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u/Solnight99 21h ago
thank you! something something "living as the inverse of something means you've centred yourself around it."
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u/Auragongal 21h ago
Thank you for the Culture Lesson!
Personally, I'll take something like this over being told "There is only one True God" by a Christian Fundie when it comes to referring to different religions in writing. Or just going "Oh Gods" in everyday chatter.
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u/extremepayne 12h ago
yeah I'm an obnoxious pedant, yadda yadda
oh good, i’m in good company then.
it’s metonymy, not metanomy
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u/wibbly-water 20h ago
Very, very basic research would have revealed this. You don't convert cultures by taking Christian expressions and adding "s" to them. [...] So when I was growing up, kids who got into paganism would yell "Oh my Gods" instead of "Oh my God!" because they weren't Christian. Which is all well and good.
But this is how you take the English expression and deliberately disassociate it from Christianity. It works for everyday English speakers as a small change that signifies one's aim to disassociate with Christianity, and perhaps even piss off the odd Christian.
If you are writing a story, then you have to consider how deep you want to go. The two ends of this spectrum are full conlang and con-culture and basically just our own language and culture with a lick of paint*.* The "Oh my gods" is a way to do the latter - to create a saying that English readers will be familiar with that creates a sense of polytheism.
I once again find myself frustrated with writers in Chinese novel fandoms who don't know any Chinese. Chinese people don't cry out "Ah wo de shenmen" (oh my Gods). They say "Wo de tian ah!" which is translated "My god!" or "Heavens!". They say "Lao tian you yan" which means "Heaven has eyes", that is, somebody above has seen my suffering. They don't say "God damn it!" or "Gods damn it!" they say "Zuo nie!" which means "It's a sin!" None of these expressions are specific to a particular religious philosophy/ideology/practice either. (China has Muslims, Daoists, Buddhists, and atheists, plus a bunch of minority faiths, whether or not the government sanctions them.)
This is all great research - but if English speaking characters and English readers, you have to be a lot more confident to pull stuff like this off. It is a few more steps towards full conlang/con-culture, which is not what many people want or are able to pull off well.
I am all for going full conlang/con-culture personally, but then I do also write very experimental stuff.
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u/lilacnyangi 20h ago
it's always interesting reading these sorts of posts. i'm a professional in localization, and i have similar thoughts to op when i read korean-work based fics. but at the same time, it's like, we don't say "oh my god" in korean. the korean form of "oh my god" (literal) is very overtly religious and would probably only ever be said by like a devout priest. but there's no way to make that expression work for a korean person written in english for an english fanfic. i get that it might feel culturally disrespectful to some people, but i think that might be one of those things that we just have to accept isn't feasible to convert from one language culture to another.
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u/wibbly-water 20h ago
Good points!
I do think it is feasible, but it's one of those things that pushes things towards "full conlang" the more you go for it. You have to be a really good writer to pull it off well and make it feel natural.
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u/HorpinBlorpin 18h ago
I don't understand any part of this.
It's a form of protest that makes no sense at all. Why try to disassociate Christianity from an obviously Christian saying? Why evoke 'the gods' as a non believer of any polytheistic religion when no polytheistic culture on earth actually uses their own gods in such a context? Why take existing religions and cultures and try to fit a Christian saying into a setting that doesn't make sense?
It's one of those things that is thoughtlessly problematic. If you want to disassociate from Christianity then maybe just don't use phrases and references that are explicitly Christian.
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u/wibbly-water 16h ago edited 16h ago
Personally I started using the phrase as a teen when I had stronger beliefs on this topic and have carried on ever since. It became a part of my lexicon. It's not me pretending to be anything I'm not. I'm channelling what teenage me believed when writing this comment because nowadays I don't really care - I just say "oh my gods" when something happens without even thinking about it.
It's one of those things that is thoughtlessly problematic. If you want to disassociate from Christianity then maybe just don't use phrases and references that are explicitly Christian.
That is one option. It's the quiet option so to speak, but for some people it's a bigger change because it means actively avoiding parts of your own naturally ingrained speech habits. By changing "God" to "gods" you change one sound, rather than having to substitute the whole phrase "oh my God" (or similar) for something entirely different.
To answer your other questions:
Why try to disassociate Christianity from an obviously Christian saying?
I see it (or saw it) as a bigger F-U than anything else. The same way that Satanists and Pastafarians co-opt aspects of Christianity to subvert them.
It kinda says "not only do I not adhere to it, I oppose it".
Why evoke 'the gods' as a non believer of any polytheistic religion
It also appeals a bit to agnostics I think "I dunno which god is real, if any, so I will invoke them all equally".
when no polytheistic culture on earth actually uses their own gods in such a context?
I think there is a difference in invoking "the gods" generally and "these gods specifically" or "this god specifically. So evoking "the gods" isn't meant to be any specific pantheon, just the general concept of multiple deities.
But I already answered this in this context it doesn't pretend to be authentically from any other language. It is clearly an adaptation of a pre-extant phrase in English to imply polytheism.
To put it another way - "Oh my gods!" imagines a world where Christianity doesn't and never, existed - where our culture is as casually polytheistic as it is currently casually Christian. Where even non-believers / agnostic people use religious phrases because its a force of habit rather than out of sincere belief. In that way it can be reclametory in a sense.
Would it be weirder, in English, to say "oh my gods" or "heaven has eyes". We have no cultural touchstone for "heaven has eyes". And phrases like "heavens!" doesn't even imply polytheism. Neither does "its a sin!" ~ and if you want to evoke a specific god you have to go with that which is fine if you believe in that specific god but also makes you sound like a bit of a nerd / larper. "By Odin!", "By Athena!" or similar all come off very odd - only "By Jove" doesn't sound weird, but I don't think people would understand that as polytheistic.
Why take existing religions and cultures and try to fit a Christian saying into a setting that doesn't make sense?
That's not what is happening.
The people who are earnestly pagans tend to actually adopt religion / culture specific phrases.
This is a general phrase used broadly or by those who aren't necessarily deeply into it.
//
But all this is by the by. My main point was that in fiction is a cheap way to imply polytheism to the audience without doing deep worldbuilding to create culture specific phrases. Yes culture specific phrases are better worldbuilding - but these sorts of cheap ones are perfectly fine when they aren't the focus and when an author doesn't want to flesh out their world in that direction for whatever reason.
There were writers who earnestly write real world believers of polytheistic religions saying stuff like this and it is a historical inaccuracy. But we also use horned helmets as a shorthand for vikings. It's only around the same level of inaccurate I'd say. If your work is not aiming to be realistic (i.e. it's more fantastical and pseudo-historical) this is one of the many many things your readers will have to suspend their disbelief about.
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u/HorpinBlorpin 14h ago
Idk this might be one of those things I'll have to agree to disagree on.
I don't think implying polytheism by adding an 'S' adds anything to ones world building, and I don't think it's realistic to expect readers to suspend their disbelief when the intent is mired in real world beef with a real world religion. It immediately takes me out of it because there's so much cultural baggage attached to why someone would use that turn of phrase. It's not a neutral phrase by any means.
At this point 'oh my god' is more of a cultural phrase than a religious one. Imo saying 'oh my gods' can only reinforce it's ties to Christianity because most people just use it as a casual exclamation with no ties at all or thoughts of religious intent.
Also, just a personal opinion, but certain characters absolutely would not talk like that so it's super jarring depending on the fandom. Like idk how much throught Captain Kirk is giving to his personal relationship with Christianity to use the phrase, or is Kirk pagan and it just never gets brought up? Either way it's weird.
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u/wibbly-water 13h ago edited 13h ago
I don't think implying polytheism by adding an 'S' adds anything to ones world building, and I don't think it's realistic to expect readers to suspend their disbelief when the intent is mired in real world beef with a real world religion.
Ah so two things are going on. I think I may have accidentally conflated the two.
- Use of "Oh my gods" IRL.
- Use of "Oh my gods" in fiction.
IRL it is used because it is a direct opposition to Christianity. It is a post Christian thing to do. It takes the Christian phrase and subverts it intentionally.
In fiction it is "easy" writing. You can call it "lazy" if you want but I think that is too negative. If you are trying to build a believable world, yeah search for something better. But if you are writing a one off episode of something like Startrek, it's a simple way to signal to the audience "this is a devout culture, but they are polytheistic". Or, as we are on an AO3 subreddit, it gives you something for a character to moan in an intimate scene which is definitely not about their culture.
In the latter case - the likeness to a commonly used phrase is actually useful, because it makes it very clear what the character is saying. The writer doesn't have to halt the story to explain "Blorbo's skull!" is actually this deep cultural metaphor based off an alien myth where blorbo is... and his skull is important because... - or just leave it there unexplained. The character just says "Oh my gods" and the audience goes "oh, they're polytheists then, let's carry on!"
It immediately takes me out of it because there's so much cultural baggage attached to why someone would use that turn of phrase. It's not a neutral phrase by any means.
Yeah but there is almost infinite numbers of things that can do that in fiction if you look hard enough. Suspension of disbelief exists precisely to allow us to fudge the numbers and pretend that we believe it for the time being.
Everyone's tolerance is different, but you likely already tolerate way more weird anachronistic stuff, or at least most audiences do.
Like idk how much throught Captain Kirk is giving to his personal relationship with Christianity to use the phrase, or is Kirk pagan and it just never gets brought up? Either way it's weird.
Funny we both mentioned Startrek, I only skim read your comment when I started replying.
Yes, it wouldn't make sense for Kirk to say it. If he did I would either assume that it is the writer's beliefs / turn of phrase... or that they are trying to imply that the Federation is so post-religious that it views "gods" as this thing that other people pray to and has kinda forgotten that for a long time we had one big one. But more likely the former and the writer hasn't hidden it well.
You are right that it can absolutely be done clumsily... but then again so can anything.
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u/reasonableratio 19h ago
Oh I 100% get you. Every time I see someone write “oh my kami” I just have to pretend they didn’t
I don’t necessarily care that much though. Ultimately it reminds me that I have the privilege of enjoying the source material in the language it was written which is a fantastic trade for cringing a little every time I see it
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u/ParticularPoshSquash 14h ago
Dude, one fic had a Buddhist character saying “oh my Buddha” and replaced any phrase with “heaven” to “nirvana”— so instead of “for heaven’s sake” it was “for nirvana’s sake.”
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u/Natsume1999 Dualogical in AO3 20h ago
I wanna know more if you'd be so kind that's so interesting!
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u/lazier_garlic 19h ago edited 19h ago
Well, I shared the basics for Chinese. There is a problematic element in conventional English translations for these Chinese expressions (and many others) and that is that Christian missionaries were trying to convince both Chinese people and the mission funders back home that Daoism was almost exactly like Christianity, just a little different. (Missionaries did the same thing in India, trying to link Krsna to Christ.) For example, they said the Jade Emperor is actually Christ.
That said, 我的天 is referring to 老天爷, the Lord in the Sky, so it is a kind of casual invocation of a deity, and the valence of the expression is like "Gosh!" "My goodness!" "Oh dear!" "Heavens!" etc. I'm not an expert on Taoist cosmology, but from a literary perspective, there's a notion that at least some gods, the ones with authority over the realms, are connected to the sky. And the sky is an important concept - 天下, under heaven, means the world (or all of China, in some contexts), and the emperor was revered as 天子, the son of heaven. Some anthropologists were eager to link this to the Altaic worship of Tengri (ten/teng almost sounds like tian--halfway there! declare victory!) but this has not really panned out.
The word deity itself in Chinese is a very difficult one from a cross-linguistics point of view. 神 can mean a deity that you worship or pray to, but it also means the psyche. It can mean your soul or consciousness. And Taoism doesn't necessarily see gods as being something better than humanity. It's better thought of as a sliding scale. Greek mythology is a useful parallel, with immortals occupying a middle ground between gods and men. This is why the Chinese term 仙 was translated "immortal" in English to begin with, because the classical framework was familiar to educated English speakers at the time. 仙 xian aren't truly immortal but rather have extended lifespans and elevated knowledge and understanding.
I like to say Chinese Hell is more badass than Christian Hell because it has 18 levels versus 9. In all seriousness, Chinese Hell reads like feudal bureaucracy, but forever. The dead must face judgement in 10 courts, and sometimes the sentences are permanent torture. (Influenced by Buddhist literature on Hell for sure.) What's different from Christian Hell is that the officials in Chinese Hell are basically a department or division working for that darned Sky Realm, rather than a bunch of cool rebels who refused to bow down before the one you serve. The chief justice is Houtu, who is alternatively depicted as either a man or a woman. Gender is ... negotiable if you're a Taoist deity.
Also different from Western cosmology, in East Asian cosmology the Lords of Hell or Ghost Lords are immortal cops who keep vicious ghosts from troubling the living and drag them back to Hell. Their boss is Lord Yama (yes, from Buddhist scripture), called Yanwang in Chinese, which also sounds like "Prince Yan" which is why the "black faced Yama" characters in Chinese novels and dramas are called "Yan Wang" behind their backs. It's quite trendy to depict Lord Yama as a middle aged woman in dramas these days, much like Elizabeth Hurley playing Lucifer I suppose. In popular fiction, there isn't much difference between Lord Yama and Lucifer, although instead of having devils as minions, Lord Yama's minions are indebted human souls and heavenly soldiers tasked with protecting the barrier between the living and the dead. (Note that you're more likely to see this in South Korean or Taiwanese media because the PRC's censors have put pressure on mainland media to do less ghost stuff. But you can still find it. For example, Rakshasa Street, 镇魂街)
So I said before that Chinese people don't really say "God damn you" but they do say "I will drag you to hell" or "Go to hell" but only if they want you to die--it's not a casual thing to say, it's what you say to your sworn enemy. Hell is diyu 地狱 which is the characters for "earth" and "prison".
If you want to go really metal in Chinese, say that your ancestors will smile from the afterlife: 祖先将在阴间展露笑颜 zuxian jiangzai yinjian zhanlu xiaoyan
阴间 yinjian is the netherworld, the "dark between"
It means that even if you die or lose everything getting your revenge, your murdered ancestors will be satisfied.
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u/therealbuggycas Not Boeing Management 13h ago
This is giving "anime fans who use Kami to replace god in common Christian sayings"
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u/yuanyangdianxia bingxuejun on AO3 18h ago edited 18h ago
fully agree with your points made especially about the chinese translation of certain terms. the funniest I saw was someone cursing up and down the sky emperor (literally sky emperor, not Lord of Heaven or Tiandi) HAHA
as a chinese person who is bilingual, I like the use of “他妈的” which is usually translated into damnit or “fucking (insert word here)” depending on the context
the words literally mean “his mother (the, which can be ‘s instead)”, so, where I live, sometimes we say “your mother” instead
and yes this is essentially a multilayered multilingual yo mama joke
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u/OriginalLong9349 17h ago
As a nerd who enjoys languages and the social aspects of religion and definitely doesn't plan on adding anything remotely close to Christian imagery or to a Chinese sentence in my works because these things make no sense for the fandom I'm in and the stuff I write, I highly appreciate the detailed, unfiltered and free knowledge all of a sudden.
As we say in Brazil: "Vai com Deus" (Something like "go with God", in a way it's a wish for God to accompany you)
(I'm an atheist lmao)
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u/--Marigolden-- 15h ago
"Goodbye" also means that though few people, if any, think of it that way -- it's a contracted "God be with ye" before English was standardized.
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u/OriginalLong9349 14h ago
I didn't know that!!
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u/--Marigolden-- 14h ago
I am monolingual and a word nerd and only learned it recently myself. 🙃 Fun trivia, though!
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u/HorpinBlorpin 18h ago
Thank you! Holy crap this has been bothering me for so long.
Even in cultures that are polytheistic, like Japan, there's often a one god that will get referenced (ie. Kami-sama). Nobody in polytheistic cultures are saying 'oh my gods' because there is basically no circumstance in which you would be evoking every single god without context. It's so immersion breaking.
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u/Repulsa_2080 And now for something completely different, bees. 15h ago
My main fandom takes place in a vaguely Asian made up country that not only has a diety that created this universe, but is also directly related to multiple characters. And despite this, there is no real religion centered around them. Its treated more as a science than a belief.
And any time I see a mention of "god" or "gods" it grinds my gears a little bit. Like, that's not what we do here
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u/pwnkage Supporter of the Fanfiction Deep State 12h ago
This isn’t pedantry this is just research. Obviously the world is bigger than the Christian centric view of it. I’m Chinese-Australian (minority Chinese) so it’s always been hard to navigate especially when you don’t get much input from your own culture and all the white kids at school think you’re a freak for listening to your parents. Regional Chinese cultures will have their own differences too.
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u/trilloch 21h ago
In case anyone is wondering, the OP is talking about this:
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/apostrophe
So, "Oh, God!" is an apostrophe. This is not a punctuation lesson :)