Why I Know So Many Rude Finnish Words...

Swearing is not big and it's not clever. However, it can be both therapeutic and amusing in any language.

As it happens, rude words are one of my specialist subjects in Finnish! I'm not proud if it, but it is.

Rude words are often the first words one learns in a foreign language. Indeed, in the early days of my Finnish learning career, such words probably accounted for over 50% of my vocabulary!

And yet, in any language, if a foreigner uses rude words or slang, it's at best comical and more often just wrong. So why is it that we end up learning such words if we can't use them?

Firstly, I would postulate that swear words are easily identifiable in a conversation because they are emphasised and often repeated. For example I learned the Finnish swearing trinity of "vittu, saatana, perkele" on football pitches in Helsinki. At first, I thought those words meant something like "oh dear, I somehow failed to score despite being in front of the empty goal" or "I say old chap, that tackle was rather vigorous". Of course it was soon clear those words were in fact RUDE. The v-word (one of the rudest and most common Finnish swear words) refers to the female genitalia and is used pretty much in the same way as the f-word in English. The slightly less offensive s- and p-words both refer to the devil. Thus predictably, the VSP combination expresses a real irritation or frustration. Hence the football connection.

The second reason why foreigners learn rude words quickly is because the natives find it funny to teach them those words. I remember quite clearly having a nice lunch at a terrace in Helsinki on a warm summer's day with some (male) colleagues when the subject of whether to have eggs in our salads came up. I already knew the word for egg (muna), but one of my colleagues could not resist teaching me that it also referred to the male genitalia. Cue Finnish sniggers about whether I wanted muna in my salaatti. Hohoho!

On an other occasion, I was having dinner with colleagues in Vienna of all places, when the bottled water I had ordered was placed in front of me. The water was "Acqua Panna" from Italy. The Finns around me could began to snigger. It turns out "panna" means not only "to put, to insert, to stick", but also an action of a sexual nature. Cue: "Dying for panna?" Hohoho!

And this brings me to the 3rd reason: people the world over find it hilarious when foreign names or brands are actually rude sounding in their own language. There were many Finnish sniggers when I mentioned that one of the best schools in the UK was the Perse School in Cambridge. Perse is Finnish for "arse/ass". Cue: "So what do they learn in the Perse School then?". Hohoho!

Another fine example that was doing the rounds in Finnish emails and social media about a year ago was that of a lovely boutique hotel in Vietnam founded by an Australo-Khmer couple. Rather sweetly, they named the hotel after their two children, Pippa and Eli. Thus, the hotel is called "Pippeli Pensione". How were that couple to know that, on the other side of the planet, in a country far, far to the North, pippeli means... willy? Cue Finnish sniggers! And it gets even funnier for Finns, as they notice that Pippeli Pensione offers 3 packages (snigger!): Pippeli Independent, Pippeli Explorer and Pippeli Romance. HOHOHO!

I am sure readers of this blog can contribute further examples of amusing names and brands, thus possibly enhancing my (and other students') vocabulary.

But remember: we already know quite few rude words in Finnish and swearing is neither big nor clever!