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I spent two years of high school learning Russian. I can't remember much of it, except the section of the alphabet that sounds like swearing: р, с, т, у, ф, х (pronounced, approximately, and with feeling: "er ess teh, oo eff HAH").


Oh, Russian is exceptionally well built for swearing. It provides possibilities barely imaginable from the perspective of languages such as English because of how mutable and composable word structure is. With roughly the same base set of 3-4 swear words the actual number of different forms that could be used goes to thousands and is hard to count, each word having its own shade of meaning and sometimes many more than one.


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For example, one word which is a form derived from one of the basic swear words can be used to describe/express: 1) disastrous circumstances, 2) extreme surprise, 3) an end-game event making very negative prospects for the future.

An adjective from the same stem would make another word with the meaning on the other side of the spectrum, which is basically "really cool, highly approved". An adjective similar but constructed in a little different way would mean "weird, crazy".

From the same stem you can make three most common verbs, one with meanings "beat up", "steal", another quite similar with meaning "lie" and a third one meaning "talk". Light modifications of the latter form allow some fine-tuning of the meaning, giving words describing more complex behaviour: 1) suddenly say something unexpected, that will attract the attention of others, causing amazement and approval, 2) unintentionally give up a secret, blurt out too much, 3) get yourself in trouble by talking too much, or even 4) fall down from a certain height or bump into an object receiving a light injury.

and so on, and so forth..




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