C U Next Tuesday

"Linguists have traditionally been coy about the subject of swearing; so much so that two of the most frequently used four-letter words in the English language have only recently found their way into standard dictionaries. But Ruth Wajnryb approaches the subject head on, challenging her reader to set shock and sniggers aside and to examine it like any other kind of communication. The result is a fascinating, and often very funny, book that will quickly persuade her readers that bad language is possibly even more interesting than good." "Ruth Wajnryb shows us that swearing is common to every time and every language - even those, like Japanese, which officially have no lexicon of bad language. It is, however, notoriously difficult to translate; foreign oaths often appear more risible than offensive when rendered into English. By the same token, as she points out, non-native speakers are well advised to keep their language clean until they fully understand the subtle social conventions and complex, but unwritten, grammatical rules that govern our use of swear words."--BOOK JACKET.