Taboo Shaboo

by Scott Montague-Murdoch

 

Are we still uncomfortable with the usage of taboo language?

 

“How strangely will the Tools of a Tyrant pervert the plain Meaning of Words!” - Samuel Adams.

Swearing... Well, f*ck, where to begin? A swear word: “An offensive word, used especially as an expression of anger” (Oxforddictionaries.com) Now although this rather basic definition gives us an idea of the concept of swearing it's not actually entirely true. To describe a swear word as “An offensive word” would simply mean to me, that you accepted the idea that whatever derogatory meaning this (however many lettered) word possesses, is offensive to you. Please understand, I am fully aware that this is the complete natural response to have; we are taught from a young age that name calling is wrong, and even punishable. However, I would propose that by accepting these words have meanings, used only for swearing, we are giving them their effect, in turn accepting these assembly of noises actually offend us- though this hard-to-accept concept, requires a broader, slightly more lenient mind, in regards to swearing.

 

So, swearing: Who swears? Well, Mellisa Mohr, a medieval literature expert, stated in her book: Holy Shit: A Brief History of Swearing, that the average person actually swears quite a lot. Supposedly, according to Mohr's research 0.7% of a persons words, in the course of a day, are swearwords. This percentage may seem insignificant to our own language, but Mohr notes we use first person plural pronouns, at almost the same rate. An interesting statistic if we consider how many people actually oppose the usage of swearing completely.

 

Otto Jespersen claimed, “Women have an instinctive shrinking from coarse and gross expressions.”A study which supported this was, Isabel Gomm's. Gomm found in her research that men swore more than women. She conducted study groups: 2 single sex and 1 mix. She found that men swore than 4 times the amount than women in the single sex groups and more than women in the mixed sex group as well, however by a significantly less amount the single sex group.

 

With all these studies into taboo language and swear words, I feel I'm missing one fundamental question: What is the worst swear word? I searched the net for hours trying to find a study or a poll that would give me, even a rough idea as to how we perceive the severity of swearwords as a collective. I eventually came across a site known as the www.theregister.co.uk, in which the “Rudest words in Britain” were polled between 1998-2000. No1. Was predictably “C*nt” (C U Next Tuesday), followed, to my surprise, by the Hollywood-action-blockbuster of all swearwords: “Mother F*cker”, and than inevitably: “Fuck”. Organisations such as BBFC (British Board of Film Classification) and Ofcom, have to revise the severity of these words to establish appropriate censorships, this process however, I'd suggest this is potentially one the main reasons that people attach such strong meanings to these words, if we are taught that they are so bad they require restrictions or even censorships.

 

Conclusively, in this rather brief ensemble of secondary research and opinionated dictations of how I perceive swearing, one would propose that although we live in a culture where these words are detested by most, they are certainly (linguistically) a reoccurring item, to which we are not socially comfortable with.