Finnish profanity

Many Finns use profanity in everyday speech when compared to other nationalities. While not all Finns swear, frequent swearing is a mark of youth culture, sometimes the elderly, and usually not the middle-aged. However, it is commonly considered impolite to swear excessively in public and at official occasions, and particularly in front of children in all regions of the world. Use of swearwords may also imply familiarity as opposed to official distance. Swearwords are used as intensifiers, adjectives, adverbs, particles and to start or finish sentences. There is also an aggressive mood that involves omission of the negative verb ei while implying its meaning with a swear word.

The words often have old origins and some have Pagan roots that after Christian influence were turned from names of deities and spirits to profanity and used as such. Etymologies are a mixture of religious words and ancient Finnish words involving excretions or sexual organs or functions. Nowadays few Finns know of the origins and intended original use of the words. A book called Suuri kirosanakirja ("The great dictionary of profanities") has been compiled. The people in the neighbouring countries to Finland often consider Finnish swear words harsher than their own, and even use heavily mis-pronounced versions of them, most notably perkele. Native Finns tend to consider the harshness exaggerated, while others use it to their advantage. Finns swear more than their Nordic neighbors or Central Europeans, reaching the same level as Scots or Russians.

WDM

WDM may refer to:

People

Indian locomotive class WDM-2

The class WDM-2 is Indian Railways' workhorse diesel locomotive. The first units were imported fully built from the American Locomotive Company (Alco) in 1962. Since 1964, it has been manufactured in India by the Diesel Locomotive Works (DLW), Varanasi. The model name stands for broad gauge (W), diesel (D), mixed traffic (M) engine. The WDM-2 is the most common diesel locomotive of Indian Railways.

The WDM-2A is a variant of the original WDM-2. These units have been retro-fitted with air brakes, in addition to the original vacuum brakes. The WDM-2B is a more recent locomotive, built with air brakes as original equipment. The WDM-2 locos have a maximum speed of 120 km/h (75 mph), restricted to 100 km/h (62 mph) when run long hood forward - the gear ratio is 65:18.

History

In the early 1960s Indian Railways began conversion of its mainline from steam to diesel locomotives. For this conversion General Motors Electro-Motive Division (EMD) and the American Locomotive Company (ALCO) were asked to submit designs for new diesel locomotives. Each company submitted prototypes. Indian Railways designated these prototypes the WDM-4 class and the WDM-2 class respectively. Technologically the General Motors WDM-4 was superior to ALCO's WDM-2, but Indian Railways required a transfer of technology agreement that would allow these locomotives to be manufactured in India. General Motors did not agree to the transfer of technology agreement so the ALCO prototype was selected for production. The first few prototype WDM-2s were imported. After Diesel Locomotive Works (DLW) completed construction of its factory in Varanasi, production of the locomotives began in India. The first 12 locos were built using kits imported from ALCO in the United States. After that DLW started manufacturing the WDM-2 locomotives from their own components. Since then over 2,800 locomotives have been manufactured and the WDM-2 has become the most popular locomotive in India.