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Wikipedia: Mandarin Slang - In some ways, Mandarin Chinese slang terms and insults resemble their English counterparts. While many insults and expletives involve someone's mother, one may also insult someone by insulting their ancestors. Other Mandarin insults accuse people of not being human. Another difference is that Mandarin words for excrement or feces are much less commonly used in slang and insults, and there are few counterparts to Christian or Islamic blasphemy (most Chinese do not believe in gods nowadays). Finally, some terms can be written in different ways, because the Chinese language has so many homonyms, and also because Internet users sometimes use alternate characters to avoid censorship. Sometimes this means naive speakers use expressions that are much coarser than they realize. |
