Many Taboo Words

Introduction
What is this all about?

What is a taboo word?  And what can we use instead?

Many Taboo Words
Is there more than one kind? Where did they come from?

New Words
The beginning of new taboo words. 

Using Taboo Terms
How, when and why taboos are used in everyday language.

To Sum It Up
What was this site on?

Terms & Explanations

Now, aside from all the different taboos themselves, we can see that there are two kinds of taboo themes and taboo words. First the ones which exist a priori. Those taboos are permanent and are based in tradition, culture, and the psychological disposition of individuals or speaker groups. Second, there are those that are based in society and follow its development. They are temporary, relative to time, geographical areas, social status and cultural traditions. Over time changes in society result in an adjusted standard variety and adapted replacements for taboo terms.

The first kind of taboo terms have long traditions. They are a fixed and permanent part of the society in which they occur. The latter kind may change within years. Sudden events can change the perception of words and their usage, which might lead up to the banning of those terms.
This historical evolution of taboo terms can be caused by single events as well as gradual developments without a single trigger event. Single events may be wars, for example there are many terms in the German language after the Nazi Regime during the Second World War which changed their connotations and the way they are used and perceived. Although there is no change in the actual meaning of the word Jude, the term has a certain connotation assigned with the fate of this minority during the Second World War. It is not a taboo term, but it is used more carefully and received with more attention than other words. The event and the time following have made German people sensitive towards the subject matter and the words related to it, which is a distinctive example for to the way how taboo terms can develop.

One can speculate about the future impact of other sudden events, such as the terrorist attack in New York City on September 11^th 2001. This started a linguistic development and has a certain impact on the language. The events already resulted in a numerical euphemism. Nine eleven designates more than September 11^th. Had the attack occurred one day before or one day after the 11^th, it is unlikely that nine ten or nine twelve would have become common usage, since nine eleven is the standard emergency telephone number all across the United States. Also the terms terrorism, the terms good and bad or the term rogue may in future times be used in a different way because they now have different connotations assigned.

Also, ongoing changes in the social structure can alter the way taboo connotations of  words change. The official end of segregation in the US in the late 1960s and the civil rights movement created a sensitivity in the language concerning ethnicity and the situation of African Americans. The historic situation at the time of Mark Twain allowed everybody to use the word nigger as an acceptable term in English. Both African Americans and Caucasian Americans used it, but the character of the word depended on how it was pronounced. Depending on the intonation, it may indicate that the speaker is addressing an inferior, often times the Caucasian American being in the superior position. Using the same word today is considered highly inappropriate in all situations. The word has changed from the term describing a person of African descent living in, or coming out of slavery. It has evolved from a commonly used term of the 19^th century to a word which not only refers to the now forbidden practice of slavery, but which itself has taken on a taboo status in the 20^th century. It is a drastic insult to the whole African American ethnic minority or a single member of this group, showing – on the side of the speaker – lack of good taste, a possible racist mindset and ignorance thus a deficiency of diplomacy in dealing with the unfortunate history of this minority. The Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary calls it “[…] perhaps the most offensive and inflammatory racial slur in English. Its use by and among blacks is not always intended or taken as offensive, but […] it is otherwise a word expressive of racial hatred and bigotry.”[1]  

But not only the end of slavery and the civil rights movement has changed yesterday's vocuabulary into the word stock we use today. A person with whom one had a steady extramarital sexual relationship in the 19^th century was called a paramour. In the 20^th century, the euphemism of to make love for to copulate became predominant and thus the term paramour has been replaced with the term lover. The younger term derives from the euphemistic expression to make love to describe copulation, which, just as the French term did, associates sex with love (French: par amour meaning by the way of love[2]).[3] 

 Also the scarcity of women during the early days of the US gave them the power to influence the language of the men courting them and through them the language of society.[4] The prudery of this time had an effect on the language. The word leg was considered of vulgar and sexual in nature. The euphemistic term limb had to be used instead. This was generalized to the degree that even the legs of a table were to be talked about as limbs. This taboo of using the word leg extended the sexual connotation of the term leg to the point where interior design began covering the limbs of tables with cloth.  

We can see now that we are able to draw conclusions about comparable social structures or changes and situations within societies when we looks at the language in those cultures. Changes are evident if euphemisms jump geographical or political borders and exist in more than one country at the same time, cease to exist in two countries at the same time or are included in the national varieties of one country but are abandoned in another.[5]  

In the United States the main influences on language morals are still marked by residual characteristics of the Puritan settlers, which – from the 17^th century on – developed considerable caution regarding their choice of words, resulting in the development of euphemisms. For this group, religion was of the highest priority and sexuality was a strong taboo. So it evolved that a vast number of euphemisms replaced sexual terms.[6] Sexuality itself has been suppressed as a topic in English texts until fairly recently. The term itself appears 1800 for the first time in written form.[7] So we can perceive that up to about the nineteenth century, sexuality might have been talked about, but seldom appeared as a topic in print. The Puritan’s strong concern for propriety and most of all for language created many taboos still influencing America's society today. From those moral principles come the above-mentioned replacements with a change in spelling (Gee whiz, etc.). Those are good examples for adjustments in language to social pressure. The pressure was created by one speaker group with social power (the Puritans) and forced other groups of speakers to alter their language to accommodate the religious beliefs and taboos of the influential group. Here, the Puritan morals strictly forbade the blasphemous use of the word Jesus. So the variation of the word into Gee whiz was a way to adjust one’s own language and use this term instead of using blasphemy.

The relatively recent evolution of a more liberal mindset concerning sexuality in general and a more open dialogue about it (which gained a boost after the social changes that occurred in many western countries in the second half of the 20^th century) led to communication about sexuality and a discussion on a more direct basis. Directness started to be the norm where before elaborate euphemisms and various complicated replacements had been used - if there was any discussion of those taboo topics at all that is. If a speaker group usually avoids talking about a touchy subject, but sees a need to change that, new terms will be created and a new vocabulary will develop because of that necessity. Since the late 1980s the immune illness AIDS made it necessary to develop a vocabulary to express oneself concerning sexuality without changing to a slang, colloquial or even vulgar level of language which would not be appropriate in all situations and not suitable to all speakers. Hence certain words and terms had to be created to develop this special vocabulary and along with it a special etiquette to deal with a strongly emotional topic, often interwoven with psychological factors, traditions, superstitions, strong biases, social conventions, etc. Of course, this open and more liberal handling of such a subject made it possible for speakers of varieties lower in social reputation, often used to express vulgar topics or feelings of the same nature, to expand and proliferate their vocabulary as well. 

The situation we find here is only an example for the way changes in society change the language of society. Still today each year hundreds of publications listing new words are printed to try and keep up with the linguistic development, not only relating to sexuality,  but rather to any topic. The steady evolution of the media also create new terms each year. Some words are dropped, some are accepted into the standard variety, some are not accepted but are used anyway until they are common enough to be accepted.

The word fuck can be seen as an example of expansion of meaning and a steady familiarization with a taboo word represented in many new terms containing the taboo word.  “For centuries, and still by the greater majority, regarded as a taboo-word; until recent times not often recorded in print but frequent in coarse speech.”[8] Not only is it a rather old taboo word (the OED gives 1535 as the earliest record), but it also has a wide variety of usages. It is, as a verb (transitive and intransitive), first of all referring to the act of copulation. As an exclamation it is a coarse equivalent for damn. As a construction with various adverbs, it drastically expands it’s meaning beyond the purely sexual. To fuck off means `to go away´, to fuck up means `to ruin, spoil or mess up´. Fucking is also used as a mere intensive. It is referring to a person in a sexual context (a fuck) and, in the form of fucker, can describe either a specific individual or be used as a general term of abuse. There is also a big difference as to the dates the word in its many meanings first appears. They vary from 1535 (fuck as a verb) to 1960 (fuck-all, meaning nothing).[9] Here it is evident that fuck has not only expanded its meaning, but also created new derivatives. It has become more common and it has lost the element of the exceptional. The word enjoys a simultaneous status as a common descriptive or intenisve while still effective as a taboo expletive. Still it is considered one of the strongest taboo words, a curse word, which shows that the taboo of sexuality is still prominent. Otherwise there would be no reason to keep up the word’s status as a taboo term, and according to the fact that taboo words change their character in various ways, it could have been accepted into the standard variety.

Euphemisms indeed change in various ways. They can stay the same but change in the context in which they are applied. To take something can stand for `drinking an intoxicant´ or for `using a narcotic´.[10] Though the term itself has remained unchanged, the indicated substance and the situationin which it is consumed have changed over time. Another example here would be the term tramp, originally naming a female prostitute.[11] Today, however, in American English, it has broadened into a disapproving name for any promiscuous or slovenly woman, including a far larger group of persons than it originally did.  

The word gay also has a very diverse history. In the 19^th century, the gay life meant `prostitution´, to gay it was to `go with a prostitute´, a gay house was a `brothel´, where the prostitutes, the gay ladies would work. In the 20<sup>th</sup> century, the use of gay transferred from the heterosexual to the homosexual community. For previous centuries the now very long and complicated seeming expression love that dare not speak its name had been the euphemistic term for `male homosexuality´.[12] There are also changes of euphemisms without a change of the meaning. The term lesbian, applying to a female homosexual, replaced the most widely used term, namely Sappho who lived on the island of Lesbos. The two terms Sappho and lesbian appeared around the same time in the late 1920s. But now, instead of associating the sexual preference with the person Sappho, it is associated with the island she lived on and specifically its inhabitants, the Lesbians.[13]