Swearing

Unsure if you've noticed, but I've got a terrible mouth. Much to my mothers dismay, I swear an unnecessary amount. But I've actually curtailed my sailor mouth while being here, because naturally everyone knows my favorite expletive, "fuck." I've been super proud of my lack of audible cursing! It means I'm capable of being a decent sounding member of society still, and not only a smarmy, snarky, sarcastic human being. I even have made it a point to not learn Georgian swear words just to completely remove the temptation of using them.

So far, so good!

Oh, except not. 

In Georgian, the possessive first person (my and mine) is ჩემი. You use these possessives the same way you do in English - that is, before whatever it is that you're possessing. My table is ჩემი მაგიდა, my dog is ჩემი ძაღლი, and so on and so forth. 

I thought this was a pretty universal rule. And then I borrowed the Peace Corps language workbook, and found an interesting paragraph discussing possessive pronouns and family related vocabulary. With elder generations from you, you add the ჩემი to the end of the word. ბებიაჩემი (my grandmother), დედაჩემი (my mother), and so on and so forth. So I read this and said, "huh. Interesting! I should fix the way I talk about my mother, then!" (Since I was using the aforementioned ჩემი in front of mother). 

And then I read the following: 

NOTE!! Using ჩემი დედა instead of დედაჩემი is strongly discouraged since it is used in blasphemies! 

Well great. My stupid sailor mouth rears it's head no matter what! I've been essentially swearing at my poor family and anyone who will listen to me speak about mine for the past four months. 

Whoopsies!