>
> Say that "gaijin" sounds familiar! In secret Asian speak, let's see, doesn't that mean "white foreign devil"? Or is it "round eyes"? "Big nose"? "Yellow-hair"? And all sorts of rude epithets for those up-to-no-good, pale-skinned greedy imperialistic snobs who bring bad joss into the house of the venerable ancestors! Aiya!

That'd be it :P

>
> Oh wait. I forgot. In Japanese, I was once told it's a highly civilized language where in fact it's *impossible* to swear at, or directly insult somebody. So instead you can be extremely rude to a person by using the incorrect verb addresses (like using the military imperative address to a buddhist monk, and vice versa). Has this convention (the lack of insult words) changed in the last 20 years?
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> Wolfspirit

Errr, I don't know if it's recent or not, but there are certainly direct ways to swear at or insult people. Watch any decent anime and it won't be long before you hear someone being called "baka!" which is a neat word that means everything from "idiot" to "jerk." And there are what you'd consider swear words and whatnot. Of course, you can always use the more "polite" insults that you mentioned, mainly by addressing people wrong. Status is a big thing and it is most assuredly reflected in the language. Which means that having to know roughly five billion levels of formaility is needed. I seriously don't know how anyone ever becomes fluent...

Stephen