Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Romanian profanity

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The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was No consensus. CitiCat ♫ 00:50, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Romanian profanity

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Being a native romanian speaker, and with good knowledge of english, i can assure you that the words shown here are very accurate, and, thou not always common for most of the romanian native speakers, they are real. Of course it needs a little clean up, that's why i took the liberty of adding a few changes. You have to understand, that, even if the words do not appear offensive in english translation, they sound a lot different in romanian. Try for example using "fornication under consent of the king" as a profanity in romanian(the origin of "fuck" in english), and notice the inexistent consequences. Of course, "fuck" has a lot more sense, the same as "floci" has in romanian as a profanity, than "pubic hair" would have in english. I also read a lot of materials that try to explain and translate romanian profanities in english. Most of them are wrong or have a very simplistic approach, and almost under 10% truthfulness. You have to understand, new profanities are invented almost daily in romanian, and no one really knows them all. What you can read in this article are just basic words that compose every day profanities. Try upsetting a taxi driver in Bucharest, and he will curse you for minutes without repeating the same profanity. It is a method for releasing anger that other languages do not have. I personally find it frustrating to do the same thing in english, as most of the english profanities tend to be repeated, cannot be multiplied by making different combinations between them, as in romanian, and..most of all, tend to be pathetic (for a romanian) and do not reflect the real level of anger you experience. Trust me, i have heard most horripilating profanities in romanian, that in english cannot even be imagined. I consider the article should be kept, but with a proper cleaning. It's a good starting point for such a subject.

Oh, and "draco" ("dragon") in latin, IS the origin for "dracu" in romanian, wich means "devil". Due to christian mysticism, "draco"-"dragon" became "the beast" slaughtered by St. Michael aka "devil". Please try to avoid giving wrong explanations for a language that you do not know, or it's linquistic origins.

Romanian profanity (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) – (View log)

There are a number of reasons for proposing this. Firstly, this is completely unverifiable. Secondly, who decides the criteria for inclusion. For example: "floci = pubic hairs". Since when has "pubic hairs" been a profanity? I know kids tend to underline rude words in dictionaries - this appears to be nothing more than an online equivalent and should be deleted. B1atv 14:36, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

It is not at all unverifiable, you dumb fuck (see? now you could translate that in Romanian), as there are many Romanian speakers on English Wikipedia. "Floci" is a profanity, trust me (although you don't have in English any equivalent word (that I know of)). If you want to translate pubic hair in Romanian that would be "păr pubian". That's what a gynecologist might use. Never "floci". You may object that there are many rarely used curses there, but "floci" in not one of them. Deleting the whole article is stupid. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.120.236.174 (talk) 15:30, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

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"draco" does not mean devil in latin. It means dragon. But all in all it presents many real Romanian curse words, although I'm sure some of them are never used and the translations are not perfect either, which means that the author doesn't master the Romanian language very well. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 144.36.119.100 (talk) 13:22, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

"floci = pubic hairs" actually qualifies as a profanity, at least in Romanian, the same way "Fuck" is a profanity in English as opposed to "having sexual intercourse". Although they mean the same thing, "Fuck" is a profanity. There is no word in English that would mean pubic hairs and be a profanity at the same time, that's why this entry sounds weird to you. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 141.85.252.100 (talk • contribs) 10:46, September 20, 2007

  • Delete just seems like it's unmanagable, there's going to always be new words and phrases to swear with... Yngvarr (t) (c) 14:59, 20 September 2007 (UTC)
  • Strong keep + rewrite: As was mentioned above by our IP friend, we might also be failing to realize that just because a word doesn't necessarily mean something horrible in English that it doesn't in another language. Completely unverifiable is a bit of a leap. There are dictionaries of Romanian slang (and here's one of them.) Note also: Category:Profanity by language& Category:Slang by language —Preceding unsigned comment added by Opiaterein (talk • contribs) 15:43, 20 September 2007 (UTC)
  • Delete Although a book subtitled "A Course in Modern Romanian" is cited as a source, and that book is in college and public libraries, something doesn't ring true. I seriously doubt that its author, University of Washington linguist Professor James E. Augerot, devoted that much of a reference book to the lengthy string of profanities that make up this article. More likely, this is original research. Of course, maybe Romanians do swear out long sentences like "Dute in pizda matii, cu curu inainte, sati dau si o muie cand o fut pe mata!" which describes a rather complex incestuous menage a trois. Or maybe it's the answer to "What's the dirtiest thing you can say in Romanian?" Mandsford 01:09, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
    • Comment: If you take a quick look at the history, you'll see that anonymous users have been taking a great deal of interest in the article. It requires cleanup and probably a protect, but that doesn't mean that it has any less value than the articles on Spanish or Latin profanity. (Latin especially, and I don't think it takes a great deal of thought to tell why.) Deleting articles instead of making them better is not what makes a good encyclopedia. — [ ric | opiaterein ] — 01:30, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
  • Only on Wikipedia can an article on profanity get a "cleanup" Mandsford 01:34, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
  • You say that like it's a bad thing. --Kizor 02:16, 29 September 2007 (UTC)
  • Delete, dictionary material to the extent that it is accurate. Gazpacho 02:33, 22 September 2007 (UTC)
  • Delete per nom. as it has already been Transwiki'd Exit2DOS2000•T•C• 17:58, 22 September 2007 (UTC)
  • Strong keep: Hello I am the article's author. I strongly oppose any deletion. Swearing and cursing is a part of every day life both in Romania and everywhere else. I encourage any constructive criticism and any modifications but I must say that the modifications made so far have in my opinion made this article worse. If there are articles on spanish, portughese and italian profanities why can't there be one for romanian profanities as well? This looks a lot like censorship to me. I would be very disappointed should this article be removed and I would start to question the nature of wikipedia as a whole. Note also: I AM A NATIVE ROMANIAN SPEAKER comment added by para15000 (talk • contribs) 15:43, 20 September 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep | It's reality, it's part of us and it's a bridge between the daily spoken romanian language and the rest of the (english speakin) world. It should stay! AlinCiortea 21:51, 26 September 2007 (UTC) — AlinCiortea (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
  • Delete: unverifiable, although I'll change to keep if we get sources for the words. Chase me ladies, I'm the Cavalry 22:12, 26 September 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep notable concept and no less relevant/encyclopedic than profanity in other languages. It can be sourced even if it isn't: see WP:DELETE for that concept. Carlossuarez46 21:05, 28 September 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep. Quite verifiable, or at the least worth the benefit of the doubt - I know of profanity compendiums in other languages, and have consulted them for Wikipedia before, so we can't dismiss the possibility of there being one for Romanian out of hand. The place of profanity in a culture goes beyond simple dictionary definitions, and it is feasible to restrict a list of examples to the most prominent ones (for instance, one of said compendiums had a list ranked by significance, well usable as a basis for inclusion). Lastly, I happen to speak a non-English language and what's profane in it need not be profane in English, and vice versa. --Kizor 02:16, 29 September 2007 (UTC)
  • Delete - Wikipedia is not a dictionary. This is absolutely dictionary material, and should be transwikified if anything. A list of words? Enough with these "list of profanity words in X language" articles. The Evil Spartan 00:42, 30 September 2007 (UTC)


The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.