You must be a very secure individual. If somebody says “forget you” to me I am immediately thrown into panic reminiscent of my early abandonment in a snow drift in Northern Ontario. Wolves howl in the distance and even mooses wear evil masks.
You must be a very secure individual. If somebody says “forget you” to me I am immediately thrown into panic reminiscent of my early abandonment in a snow drift in Northern Ontario. Wolves howl in the distance and even mooses wear evil masks.[/quote]
Wow.
[quote=“bob”]OK I am still a little confused here actually.
The judge said that “forget it” is a valid construction but that “forget you” is not. On the basis of this she concludes that a native speaker would not say “forget you.” Wrong, but so far so good. The problem I’m having is that if she concludes this then it isn’t just a question of whether or not the person said “fuck” or “forget” it is also a question, in the judges mind, as to whether the person said “you” or “it.” “You” and “it” don’t sound much alike either, except in Chinese. Perhaps that is what is at the root of our dilema. Are we sure this happened in English?[/quote]
No bob. That doesn’t make sense. She admitted that somebody somewhere might say “forget you” but pointed out that the pronunciation of fuck and forget were too far apart. It’s all right here in the paragragh you posted earlier…
OK I give up. You guys are too smart for me.
No, her argument is:
Because no native speaker would ever say “forget you”, [wrong reasoning]
therefore the woman must have said “fuck you”.
(I infer from this that evidently someone clearly heard the “you” part and two possibilities for the first word, both starting with f, so the controversy was about fuck vs. forget.)
Interestingly, if the woman really did say “forget” instead of “fuck”, it would have meant she was trying to be polite® rather than say “fuck you”. As native speakers in the US, we realize that “forget you” is COMMON usage today, so it is certainly totally plausible that she was saying that.
Now, whether “fuck you” or “forget you” are insults is another question, and whether saying “a-toh-gah” to a foreigner is an insult is another question too, but an interesting one. I say we bring a class action suit against the national government, testifying as experts on the Taiwanese language who KNOW for sure what the Taiwanese mean when they say “a-toh-gah”.
If I thought satire would be recognizable, I’d write that one up. “Foreigners to bring class action suit for Taiwanese insults. You can’t pull the wool over the eyes of 45,000 foreign residents!” 
Far be from me to take issue with an esteemed umberage such as yourself Ironlady but strictly speaking I think what is at issue here is uck vs. orget.
Besides she did admit that somebody somewhere might say forget you but that the valid construction was forget it. Never mind that switching objects like that does a lot to change the meaning of such a phrase, no suprise there it’s only two words after all, with the fuck you expression actually being a truncated version of fuck yourself, a complicated and messy enterprise at the best of times and… no hang on.
At issue here is whether “forget you” is a valid construction to replace “fuck it” not whether “forget you” is a valid expression to replace fuck it. No, that’s not right either, or is it? Actually I think it is, the first part anyway. Look, what is at issue is whether forget you is a valid expression to replace fuck you. Anyway, essentially what we have here I think is a fucky situation all around. Lets begin with the understanding that F (foriegner) was angry at T (Taiwanese). In this situation certainly a “fuck you” type expression is certainly called for with the “forget you” option being the more polite option as you so correctly pointed out. The problem however is that while it is true that somebody somewhere might say “forget you” it is not likely in that “forget you” is the invalid form of the admittedly entirely different sentiment expressed of course in the phrase “forget it” which has no bearing on this conversation whatsoever and would not have been brought up were it not for the advanced degree and assiduos study, but that is of no consequence either. It is as though the universe herself said “forget it” and while not inspiring exactly is still comforting somehow unlike mooses in evil masks.
I think everyone is missing the huge, main point here in this story - the Taiwanese law is idiotic. Don’t they have freedom of speech in Taiwan? And you thought American society was overly litigious. So I can basically sue anyone I want for damages if I’m ever cursed at or insulted? Why do they have such a law on the books when it’s beyond obvious that for every case where someone is money-grubbing, litigious little weenie that their delicate sensibilities are mortified by “fuck you!” that they just have to go to court to rectify their honor, there are literally a million times when a hearty “fuck you!” (gan ni, ta ma de, whatever they say in the local dialect) is exchanged and no one even thinks of going to court. Maybe flip each other the bird or exchange fisticuffs, but taking it to court is ridiculously over the top. You can even hear little kids shouting, “Fuck your mother!” to each other on the playground. They can’t prosecute every single of the millions of cases on this island, so to be fair they shouldn’t prosecute any. Telling someone to fuck off is a basic human right.
well i am surprised actually that someone actually got fined for saying such a thing (reminds me of the movie with whats her name and whats his face where the cops dont know what to do when faced with real criminals and where you get fined for “violating the verbal parameters” haha, that was funny! in this utopian society that was later proven to be run by a gang of despots).
but on the other hand, maybe society as a whole is getting tired of being too loose with the tongue and tired of being tolerant of insults. Look at IMUS?? hes fired now from his job of over 30 years and a 8 million dollar per year salary for saying one phrase (albeit he sure packed a whole bunch of insults into a few words). Now American society has booted him off the air for saying the Rutgers basketball ladies were blankety blank! And even tho its common to call people hos in todays rap music. Society as a whole is saying “wait a minute, enough is enough, we dont want this type of language and we dont want to tolerate intolerance and stupidity and insults”.
so maybe its a step in the right direction. Although bummer for those made an example of tho.
but maybe we DO need to watch our mouths and maybe we SHOULDNT insult each other so easily and wantonly? Yes maybe its NOT OK??
Fuck off! 
HG
Hey! You obviously don’t understand Taiwanese culture!
i dont think freedom of speech was ever intended by those who hold that right to be dear as the freedom to use speech to denegrate or insult or coerce or intimidate others. Instead the freedom of speech implies that the use of speech should honor the speaker and be true to those values that we as humans hold dear and hold to be noble and honorable !!
the Freedom of Speech is a right that citizens of the United States holds as one of the inalienable rights. Its to allow the progation of ideas and ideals for which we can be proud of.
Therefore to use the freedom of speech as a right to say fuck you, is not what its originators believed in.
now simply saying Fuck you can be held to be noble . It depends on the circumstances. Say a bully is about to hurt your friend in front of you and believes that you wont fight for him/her. Its ok to say Fuck you! And fight for your friend. That can be held to be noble.
so its not just the words but how they are used and in what context should they be judged.
if you are being an Ahole and you are saying Fuck you just because, then? I would not hold that to be an expression of freedom of speech ! And I would probably use my “freedom of fist” to answer that .
No, it’s indefensible. This thread should be made a sticky so when Taiwan newbies ask ‘should I come to Taiwan?’, they can see what sub-moronic, racist, shameful twats SOME people in Taiwan are.
Whatever she said, the conviction was for humiliating, not for insulting. The actual words used whouldn’t really matter as much as the ‘intent’, or effect those words had.
To dismiss someone and their opinions, even by simply saying ‘forget you’ could be deemed humiliating. Imagine some cop is giving you a hard time and you just laugh and walk off. You going to get prosecuted for laughing? Of course not, but you could presumably get into a lot of trouble for humiliating the cop by not showing proper respect.
On the other hand, if Almas John stated that I was of the Cambrian persuasion in a conversation in the pub and I responded “Oh fuck you, you overweight yeti,” to a chorus of chortles from the assembled forumosans then we all had another drink I sincerely doubt that he would be able to bring a case.
A dinosaur? That’s kewl, not humiliating.
I’ve almost fallen foul of this oddball law about public insulting myself… it seems the ever face obsessed yokels don’t fancy their ability to hold their own should they get involved a verbal fracas in the public eye… evidently coming off as a right dunce for being on the loosing end of a public argument and the resulting loss of face is a fear so deeply entrenched in the Taiwanese psyche that they feel they require legislative protection to prevent this from happening…
So I’m riding home on the scoot with the missus on the back when I notice the loud exhaust sound and extra bright blinding HID lights of a typical “tough guy scooter racer/warrior/dickhead” coming up from behind… we were just coming into a sharp right hand S bend in the road and there was already an SUV immediately to my left in the car lane, so there wasn’t much I could do when the rabid scooter jockey shoots up alongside me on the outside, unable to brake fast enough for the corner and with no space to overtake, he swerves into us, forcing me and my wife into the SUV, my scooter and my wife’s leg making contact with the SUV all at about 45km/h… narrowly avoiding crashing and being crushed under the car, I proceeded to follow this little punk who had by this stage legged it to the next set of lights where I got off my scoot, took his keys out his ignition and proceeded to politely enquire, admittedly with flourishes of rather colourful language, as to his reasoning for thinking he had the right to threaten the life of my wife and I just to get to the next red light 3 seconds before me… me being 6’4" and rather angry and him being 5’nuthin and rather inbred quickly led to him feeling it necessary to have police backup, who arrived at the scene and immediately went into “make it go away” mode alternately placating and/or threatening whichever side of the argument seemed to be gaining the upper hand in a heartfelt and dedicated attempt to avoid paperwork and get back to drinking tea and watching news re-runs…
I’ll spare you the boring details but it all ended over 3 hours later in the nearest police station where the cops had arrived at the conclusion that the interests of a nice game of mahjong and trip down to the 牛肉麵 stand would be best served by making the foreigner give in to the scooter yob who was brimming with Napoleonic fury that he could be scared shitless and publicly humiliated (admittedly there were bystanders chuckling and pointing at the scene) in his own land and by a big nose no less… so the long and the short of it was that the cops were saying we could both press charges against each other, but his would be a NT$600 traffic infringement, whereas I’d be up against this far more “serious” charge of public humiliation or whatever it is and the associated fines and jail time, oooh aaah… I called his bluff and told him to call the company lawyer and left… nothing came of it but I guess the “forget you” lady was not as lucky… just goes to show…
As for that know it all “judge”… forget her…
A rollicking tale well told!
Cheers, but what a bummer!
HG
[quote=“plasmatron”]I’ve almost fallen foul of this oddball law about public insulting myself… it seems the ever face obsessed yokels don’t fancy their ability to hold their own should they get involved a verbal fracas in the public eye… evidently coming off as a right dunce for being on the losing end of a public argument and the resulting loss of face is a fear so deeply entrenched in the Taiwanese psyche that they feel they require legislative protection to prevent this from happening…
So I’m riding home on the scoot with the missus on the back when I notice the loud exhaust sound and extra bright blinding HID lights of a typical “tough guy scooter racer/warrior/dickhead” coming up from behind… we were just coming into a sharp right hand S bend in the road and there was already an SUV immediately to my left in the car lane, so there wasn’t much I could do when the rabid scooter jockey shoots up alongside me on the outside, unable to brake fast enough for the corner and with no space to overtake, he swerves into us, forcing me and my wife into the SUV, my scooter and my wife’s leg making contact with the SUV all at about 45km/h… narrowly avoiding crashing and being crushed under the car, I proceeded to follow this little punk who had by this stage legged it to the next set of lights where I got off my scoot, took his keys out his ignition and proceeded to politely enquire, admittedly with flourishes of rather colourful language, as to his reasoning for thinking he had the right to threaten the life of my wife and I just to get to the next red light 3 seconds before me… me being 6’4" and rather angry and him being 5’nuthin and rather inbred quickly led to him feeling it necessary to have police backup, who arrived at the scene and immediately went into “make it go away” mode alternately placating and/or threatening whichever side of the argument seemed to be gaining the upper hand in a heartfelt and dedicated attempt to avoid paperwork and get back to drinking tea and watching news re-runs…
I’ll spare you the boring details but it all ended over 3 hours later in the nearest police station where the cops had arrived at the conclusion that the interests of a nice game of mahjong and trip down to the 牛肉麵 stand would be best served by making the foreigner give in to the scooter yob who was brimming with Napoleonic fury that he could be scared shitless and publicly humiliated (admittedly there were bystanders chuckling and pointing at the scene) in his own land and by a big nose no less… so the long and the short of it was that the cops were saying we could both press charges against each other, but his would be a NT$600 traffic infringement, whereas I’d be up against this far more “serious” charge of public humiliation or whatever it is and the associated fines and jail time, oooh aaah… I called his bluff and told him to call the company lawyer and left… nothing came of it but I guess the “forget you” lady was not as lucky… just goes to show…
As for that know it all “judge”… forget her…[/quote]
glad u and missus are ok. its dangerous out there. too many aholes doing tooooooo many stupid things!! Should not have given way to him by swerving into the suv tho, you should have made sure he got knocked over from his bike instead and then you could get into a punch out and be in the right for being crashed into . Taiwanese gangster style.
all the police want is for you guys to go away and stop bothering them !! All the taiwan police want is for people to stop buggin em with problems !! 
Most Taiwanese guys would hve just said Pai say and you probably wont thrash them after that and it would all have blown over. Was your misfortune to run into the rather inbred as you said fellow
its all about who you run into or runs into you.
[quote=“tommy525”]i dont think freedom of speech was ever intended by those who hold that right to be dear as the freedom to use speech to denegrate or insult or coerce or intimidate others. Instead the freedom of speech implies that the use of speech should honor the speaker and be true to those values that we as humans hold dear and hold to be noble and honorable !!
the Freedom of Speech is a right that citizens of the United States holds as one of the inalienable rights. Its to allow the progation of ideas and ideals for which we can be proud of.
Therefore to use the freedom of speech as a right to say fuck you, is not what its originators believed in.
now simply saying Fuck you can be held to be noble . It depends on the circumstances. Say a bully is about to hurt your friend in front of you and believes that you wont fight for him/her. Its ok to say Fuck you! And fight for your friend. That can be held to be noble.
so its not just the words but how they are used and in what context should they be judged.
if you are being an Ahole and you are saying Fuck you just because, then? I would not hold that to be an expression of freedom of speech ! And I would probably use my “freedom of fist” to answer that .[/quote]
If you start limiting free speech to “just the kind of free speech I personally approve of” you’re eliminating free speech. Look at that nutball Fred Phelps and his inbred troglodyte family. All of the BS that they spew is some of the worst, most hateful speech possible, but it’s protected because it’s free speech. And, as someone I forget said, “Your right to swing your fist ends where my face begins.”
You should have simplified the matter – taken his scooter keys and just ridden away. Don’t say a word.
[quote=“Ian_Alexander”]‘Forget you!’ is VERY VERY VERY common in the US. I’ve heard it on TV, Movies, and conversation. Its not an insult, just means you are tired of talking to that person.
‘Fuck you!’ Is not an insult. It doesn’t really mean anything. If you replace fuck with ‘sex’ you can see it makes no sense ‘sex you’ who is doing the sex? me? you? Eh???
Actually forget you and fuck you are both grammatically weird so I don’t think this issue makes any sense in court. An American judge who took Japanese in high school would call in a Japanese expert in a case like this in the US I’d hope, not just use his crappy skills.[/quote]
“Fuck you” IS offensive because if you use the analogy of “sex” being replaced by “fuck”,& most would agree that “fucking” someone is crude & simply having sex with someone doesn’t have the same rude impetus.This word “fuck”,is an expletive & is associated with crudeness & disrespect.So I don’t know how the fuck you can think it’s not insulting.