Watch Your Mouth, Girl: 3 English Words You Shouldn't Say In Turkey

Well its no secret that I have a potty mouth -- At least for those of you who know me. I really do quite enjoy a good swear word. Plus, Mark Twain once said, "Let us swear while we may, for in Heaven it will not be allowed."  

Amen

I couldn't have said it better myself, Brother Twain. So naturally, since being here I've picked up a few swear words. (My favorite one is actually a Punjabi curse my roommate taught me -- Pudya Vinda). However, in my cultural cursing discoveries, I've found that there are three English words that are actually obscenities here in Turkey. So come and read along as I show you how our everyday words are dirty ones in Turkish. 

I. Pushed

I was teaching a grammar lesson on the simple past tense. Of course, when I came to the word "Push" I simply told my students to put an "ed" on the end of it to make "pushed." As soon as I said the word,  a few people in the class giggled and a couple others frowned up their faces in disapproval. One of my male students told me that it was a very bad word to say and warned me against using it in public because it could start a fight. So I asked him, well what does it mean -- cause the fact that the mere mention of the word in public would start a physical altercation peaked my interest even more. Unfortunately, he refused to tell me. I later found out that the closest translation for it in English is "Bastard Two Faced Person"  which doesn't sound all that crazy to me but I figure most of the meaning is lost in translation. 

II. Sick

If I ever ask my students how they are feeling and they happen to be feeling under the weather, they always will say, "I am ill." Being a native English speaker, we would probably say "I'm sick" so I always thought it was kind of funny but I just attributed that to the fact that English was their second language. Of course I found out the other day that there is a specific reason for them not using the word "sick." In Turkish, "sick"  means "dick." 

Yup, they even rhyme. How cute is that?

III. Um

Um is probably the king of all American filler parts of speech (Uh would probably be queen). Be that as it may, in Turkey um  is non existent as a particular speech disfluency -- Their version of um is ya'ani. But if you do find yourself here one day, its best to try to trade in your um's  for uh's because here it is the equivalent to our curse word "pussy."That's right, little did I know, I had been saying pussy more than the self proclaimed Pussy Monster himself, Lil' Wayne. 

You learn new shit everyday, right?