Samuel L. Jackson is the patron saint of swearing. He’s famous in part because he is one of Hollywood’s busiest (and most bankable) actors, so he’s in everything, but also for his legendary delivery of words that might make your grandma blush.
So the man who has made cussing an art form decided to harness his gift for a good cause: getting out the vote.
On September 14th Jackson tweeted, “Listen up – If 2500 of you click a voting action below to make sure you’re #GoodToVote, I will teach you to swear in 15 different languages. Go to http://headcount.org/samjackson now!”
It’s not hard to guess what happened next—everyone went for it because who could resist, right? So, in response, Jackson tweeted this the next day.
“You guys showed up and blasted through our Voter Action Goal for #GoodToVote,” Jackson tweeted, “So as promised, here’s some Cussin’ 15 ways to go! Thanks for getting involved and make sure to #vote on Nov.3rd! #votemask…”
Attached to the tweet is a video of Jackson swearing in Basque, Vietnamese, Ukranian, Swahili, Nepali, Icelandic, Maori, Jamaican Patois, Haitian, Czech, Esperanto, Bemba, Catalan, Brazilian Portuguese, and Thai. It’s almost two minutes long and worth the watch.
But be careful if you decided to try any of these out—Jackson didn’t get into their definitions or etymology so would be easy to use a swear in another language around the wrong person and end up in a very confusing conflict with someone from another country.
Enjoy, and let’s see if we can get Mr. Jackson to donate this lesson to language apps like Babbel or Duolingo. Language education isn’t complete until you can drop an effective f-bomb in Icelandic or Esperanto.
