Fro the translators' Why are the epithets they fling around always in the opposite gender from the way we use them- Inu is always calling some male youkai bitches, and occasionally females are called bastards? this has been disoncerting me from the beginning. What is it in the original which causes this?

Urmm...

Well, the language is generally the same...the problem is those of us who don't curse very well ; The way I learned to curse, there really wasn't a big distinction between those two...I'm just as likely (in fact, more likely) to call male friends "little bitches" as "bastards". The more general problem is that there are only so many ways to be insulting in English. Unlike English, Japanese doesn't have as many set "bad" words...it's not a one-to-one thing. Most of the time, Inuyasha and/or Kouga (the ones who 'curse' the most) are speaking with verb forms that are insulting or "speaking down" to their opponent, and the insults they use are rude, direct forms of the pronoun "you". Unfortunately, that sort of thing just doesn't exist in English. You can't conjugate the verb "give" impolitely, nor do we have verbs that exist solely to show contempt for someone else. Thus, it falls to the writing to get across exactly how rude or angry they are being. Sometimes we will just go for an aggravated-sounding sentence--it's not appropriate to translate *every* instance of 'teme' as "bastard", for example. Likewise, sometimes it's not appropriate to dumb down the translation using softer insults like "jerk". (I highly doubt Inuyasha would call Naraku a "big meanie" ) The only word we try to stay away from is "f*ck", because that epithet would feel VERY strong in most situations...at the very least, it would be a BIG jump from the "softer" curse words like "bitch" and "bastard". If we use that word, rest assured that it only would be for a very good reason. The "shock" factor works better then, which is the main reason you use curse words in the first place. If they weren't good, crude intesifiers we really wouldn't use them. Even so, the overall policy is that the writing needs to convey just as much of the meaning as the curse does: if you use curses as a crutch all the time, you won't end up with decent writing in ANY language ^_~

But yeah, it seriously hadn't struck us as that weird to use "bitch" at guys...we'll be more careful about that in the future.

aw, heck. I didn't mean for you to change anything.

Well, it's not like it's that big of thing. I'm just saying we could pay more attention to the genders. If it confused one person, it's probably confused about three million more and none of them are ever gonna say a word

However, rest assured that you won't get us to budge on the "big" issues. Like, I would definitely not start translating "Sesshoumaru-sama" into "The Grand High Poobah of the Dogs" just because someone asked us why we don't ^_~

(And yes, someone did ask. And yes, I am unfortunately related to him )

i actually find it quite amusing when inu yasha calls kouga a bitch, even if it is technically wrong...ive got a question about the word "teme." really, how versatile can this word be?! ive heard it in regular dialogue, insulting dialogue, used as a single-word insult and translated every which way. just what does this word mean?

It's actually a rough, direct pronoun meaning "you". Like many things, the intensity depends on the inflection and your situation. So it can be a variety things from "you" to "you bastard/bitch!" ^_~ All depends on the context and who's doing the translation.

[Edit: As a side note, there are a very few instances where "bitch" was used over "bastard" (or something similar) for a *reason*. Any situation where Inuyasha is yelling at Shippou for using his fox powers to morph into Kagome, for one...that's obviously gotta be: "Wait, what the--Shippou! You little bitch!" *BOP*

]

From what I've seen, 'bitch' is being used for less formal swearing. You don't see 'bastard' getting used unless the character is truthfully angry at someone.

I agree with aurora in that it's great when Inuyasha calls Kouga a bitch. It's like an added bonus (not intentional tho) that bitch is a female dog. I also find it pretty funny with Kouga's retort of 'dog crap.'

Kind of off topic, but while we're on the topic of curse words, in the 2nd episode of Sonic X, Sonic says: "Shit, <let's get out of here>" I just found it cute that the Japanease were picking up some of our swearing :]

um, I like that...that there's a bit of a sneer when calling a camela btich...very cute.