Italian Swear Words

When I was a teacher and heard a student swear, say in the playground or in the hallway I would always remind them that swearing lacks imagination. I would drone on to explain that using swear words to cope with an pleasant or difficult circumstance is an easy way out and finding the right words that express one's true emotions may even change the circumstance for the better. Alas, that was what I was supposed to say, but I know that deep down swearing alleviates some of the tension. Also, swear words sound so much better in Italian. My parents taught me to swear, unintentionally of course! They are Italians who immigrated to Canada and for many years their second language was a melange of various English words transformed with Italian alliteration. For example a truck would be "the truck-oh" or the garbage would be the "gar-beach-oh". As a young child I would sometimes bring these morphed words to school, only to be corrected by my English teachers. After a while, and probably at the prodding of my teachers, my parents decided to speak to me and my sisters only in English. Yet for my parents, the stub of a toe, an unexpected slip, or a heated conversation would bring about a fervor of these great Italian swear words. These heated intonations would get elevated to the status of a song. Voices would get louder, faces would get hotter, hand's would move with a conductor's precision. They would swear to themselves or in many cases to each other in Italian, thinking we would not understand and that our gentle English ears could not absorb their meaning. The opposite happened and I was enchanted and mesmerized by the heat of those words. I was hooked. Schooled by my friends, I got to know what all of those words meant. (My parents were certainly not going to divulge that information.) Even to this day,  I swear in Italian. These words are filled with passion and must only be used with a clear and direct voice, and with enough practice, directed gesticulation.

Linda