International House Of Sheepswallop

[dscott8]

One thing in the WoT that has always struck me as pretty lame is the phrases that are supposed to be vulgar/offensive. They don't seem to make any sense, except for Mat's refernce to sheepswallop (assuming "swallop" is colloquial for excrement) -- but then he tacks on "bloody buttered onions"?!?!?!? The "bloody" part might make sense, except that its linguistic roots in our world lie in references to "swearing" on the blood of Jesus of Nazareth.

 

Aside from a few Sheinaran references to "goat-kissing", there are no vulgar sexual references I recall. I attribute this to Randland not having sexually repressive religions like our world. Some characters object to sex outside marriage, but the attitude seems to be that it's a matter of not providing possible children with support. (Query - anyone recall unwed mothers or out-of-wedlock children in the thousands of characters?)

 

At least "burn me" or "the Light burn me" makes sense as the local equivalent of "I'll be damned".

 

And does anyone care to attempt a linguistic analysis of "mother's milk in a cup"?

[David Selig]

(Query - anyone recall unwed mothers or out-of-wedlock children in the thousands of characters?)

Rand al'Thor, of course. Tigraine didn't marry Janduin, she was still a Maiden of the Spear when Rand was born.

[Faolin]

I always thought "Mother's milk in a cup" was pretty gross!

[Darth Krewl]

Yes, I agree that Jordan's swear words and curses are pretty lame. Some people have described his style as "juvenile" and, while I don't agree, I do believe that he was aiming at a PG to PG-13 crowd and that may be the reason why he might have come up with milder curses and such.

 

That being said, I admire Jordan's inventiveness, not only to come up with curses unique to his universe (though some are really bad lol) but with different expressions that would be more common or exclusive to a certain peoples or region. And he had it down so well, that to me, the biggest difference between him and Sanderson has been the latter's use of the term "blast". I'm always thinking "hmm, would Jordan have used Flaming X or Z here? Or, bloody X or Z?" Either way, I don't remember him using "blasted X or Z" as often as Sanderson does, if at all.

[Feral]

I always thought "Mother's milk in a cup" was pretty gross!

 

Yeah, if you think about it, it's basically implying someone's been milking your mother. Which I would find pretty offensive...

 

As for the babies out of wedlock question...Elayne? Every child born to a Maiden?