"La Vulgaridad"

Question

Tengo comprobado que una de las cosas que más les disgusta a mis hijas es que yo sea vulgar. «¡Por favor, papá, no seas vulgar!», me reprochan en cuanto que me descuido. O sea, cuando digo: «¡Todas las mujeres sois iguales!».

I have come to the conclusion that one of the things that most displeases my daughters is when I seem ***. "Please, dad, don’t be so ***!", they reproach me whenever I'm careless. For instance, when I say: "Women are all the same!".

Perhaps "La Vulgaridad" here is South American Spanish or it has a literary context?

My Dictionary gives me "Vulgarity, rudeness ..to be trite or banal.." None of these fit the context well, In English at least.

I must be missing some subtlety here. Any suggestions?

Thanks in advance

Answer 1

Vulgar means that something is said using language that is a lower level used by the common people - not a very sophisticated level of speach and may not be appropriate for cultured, sophisticated people. It's ordinary, common language or laymans' language. It is not necessarily nasty or rude as we often think of the word vulgar in English. I hope that helps

Answer 2

Based of the example:

Women are all the same

I'd say the girls are trying to tell their father to not be so sexist or male chauvinist all the time...

I thought about that but in the overall context of the piece it's more the "lowbrow" opition. Thanks for the input though. - lagartijaverde, Feb 22, 2010

Answer 3

Our opinion as to "what is vulgar" changes not only over time but across cultures . All things are impermanent and subject to change , you may say "he should change his sexist statements", or, qualify the statement by adding, "You see one beautiful woman and so are they all ". Therefore "All women are the same". Beautiful !

Answer 4

Don´t be so common may work in this context.

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common : just satisfying accustomed criteria; falling below ordinary standards; lacking refinement.

Yes, that's good, fits into the lowbrow/uncultured category nicely - lagartijaverde, Feb 22, 2010

Answer 5

It's in a text I've been looking at, the narrator is trying to be funny about the women in his life, in this case his daughters.

Tengo comprobado que una de las cosas que más les disgusta a mis hijas es que yo sea vulgar. «¡Por favor, papá, no seas vulgar!», me reprochan en cuanto que me descuido. O sea, cuando digo: «¡Todas las mujeres sois iguales!».

So I think you suggestion works. "Please dad don't be such a plebian/philistine" or some other word denoting that his attitude is common or lowbrow.

Thanks for your help

Answer 6

I'm glad my previous post helped to clarify the meaning of the word. In your context, perhaps they do mean rude, or perhaps you are making a gramatical error or using street slang. Can you thing of an example of something you said to which they responded by calling it vulgar? Context always helps.

Answer 7

Yes I see, unsophisticated, commonplace. That's very helpful. Have a vote.

I'll leave this unaccepted just in case there are other comments. I now have to think about synonyms. In the text it could therefore be seen as "Don't be so common, dad" but there has to be a better word than that. Thanks again.