Swear words... I use them, you use them, your mum uses them when she thinks you're not listening.
I think most of us realise that, on some level, profanities are based on widespread taboos. Have
a society with an entrenched fear of eternal damnation? Swear about hell and the devil.
One that values cleanliness? Well, we've got some words about excrement
for you! Are the people around you prudish? Then swear about sex.
But here's the thing - "sh*t" is offensive to say. But "poo" isn't. Nor is "faeces". See,
I can say those all I like without being demonetised! So how do you get a bad word?
The origins of "sh*t" can be traced back to Proto-Germanic,
simply meaning "excrement", but it doesn't seem to have been vulgar at this time,
supposedly becoming taboo in England in around 1600.
According to some scholars, it made the full transition into obscenity in the Victorian age,
when people were embarrassed by words like "p*ss", "sh*t" and old words for outhouse,
increasingly using euphemisms like "defecate" and "places of easement".
Dr Melissa Mohr sees this transition in the context of a rising middle class,
who wanted to culturally distinguish themselves from the lower classes.
It is possible, then, that the rudeness of these words was created or strengthened
by the simple fact that they were the words used by the "common man",
whereas the distinguished and educated would use euphemisms.
There are many instances where innocuous terms go bad, and a new euphemism is coined. This
is known as a "euphemism cycle", and a good example of this... is with slurs.
Slurs are, widely, words with a disrespectful and negative implication, but in colloquial use,
we generally use the word to refer to swear words which have
a disrespect or hatred towards a certain demographic group built into them. Hence:
"racial or ethnic slurs" or "slurs for gay or trans people".
Sometimes, words for marginalised groups undergo a process called "pejoration", where a non-offensive
word for something gains negative connotations. Take this word, which for you, YouTube, is just
a German word for "subscription", but also happens to mean "Aboriginal person" in Australian English.
Back in the day, this was just an informal word that
then became considered offensive in the 1950s.
This word, which for you, YouTube, is just French for "lateness", was originally a progressive
word - that's right! It was a euphemism which then spread to become the standard word for people
with intellectual disabilities, meant to replace the then slurs "imbecile", "moron" and "idiot".
After all, rather than being an intrinsic property of the person,
as being an "idiot" would be, this word suggests that the person in question is
only belated or slowed down in development - but now it's bad, don't... don't use that word.
One final example would be how this, which for you, YouTube,
is just Spanish for "black", once again began as a progressive word to replace
descriptors seen as outdated and pejorative such as "coloured".
In this case, what I said to YouTube there is actually relevant, since it was a direct
borrowing from Spanish and Portuguese - this is known as "euphemism by foreign language".
And since the Proto-Germanic ancestor of "sh*t" comes from Proto-Indo-European for "to split",
it's conceivable that this was a euphemism too! Instead of saying some other word for "defecate",
maybe they instead talked about things "splitting from one's body".
Now, all that's very well and good. But we've made
a little mistake here. A little oversight. And it's about sh*t.
In this video, we've been a little too Anglocentric. Several of that word's
Germanic counterparts, its relatives, so to speak, have vulgar connotations as well.
And we said this word only became rude in English
in the 1600s - which is long after these languages split.
I can't find any sources which explain this, or put forward an alternative perspective - please
tell me if you can - but there really only are three solutions to this question.
The first is that it's just a coincidence, I mean, they happen.
The second is that these developments informed each other. This is called a semantic loan,
where a word is given additional meanings by association with the translation of that
word in a different language. For example, the French word for "mouse" is "souris",
and this became the word for "computer mouse" as well by association with the English word.
In this example, the theory would be that since both mean "dung" already, when one of
these became rude, the rude connotation was loaned over to the other language.
The third is that actually "sh*t" was rude all along, all the way back to
its Proto-Germanic roots. Some words are just made to be vulgar, and that's that.
Let's take a a step back and ask ourselves: why have swear words in a language at all?
They're taboo, they're unacceptable at most workplaces, according to some studies,
merely using them makes you seem like a less credible person. Why would anyone ever use them?
Profanities must be in some ways useful, or else we wouldn't have words like
"f*ck". "F*ck" has, as far back as we've confidently traced it, never been polite.
It's a word which largely replaced equivalents such as "swive" and "sard" from the 1500s - not
because of a euphemism cycle, but seemingly just because people... preferred using it?
There are some things that swear words can accomplish that other
words just can't... and this is by the very nature of their taboo status.
They can be used to show the intensity of the speaker's emotion,
that they are willing to break social taboo because of how flustered or offended or angry
they are - this is a use which is especially potent with rarer swear words, or in contexts
where you wouldn't expect swearing because the shock value is part of the communication here.
Similarly, you can show how much you dislike or disregard someone by swearing at them,
indicating that they aren't even worth following social rules for.
Swearing is also greatly informed by social environment - things which
are taboo in some environments are actively encouraged in others. Often,
I find this is used to actually create a comfortable environment.
This is why you find this among friends, where swear words are
used to show that everyone in the group is emotionally close together. Breaking
social taboo in front of someone without offending them is a way to indicate that
they are in some level of in-group, where these taboos can be ignored.
Whether or not swearing is acceptable also creates a barrier between formal and informal contexts -
for example, in a pub you want to let everyone know you're being informal and relaxed, whilst in
a workplace you want to ensure that everyone knows to be professional and well behaved.
Finally, people swear... just because they're used to it! Like when you stub
your toe and say "f*ck", because your brain's become accustomed to
this being a word to use when in pain, overriding the taboo.
In fact, swearing can increase your pain tolerance,
so this is a biologically functional use.
I would refer to these usages as "emotive", "normative" and "expletive",
but I'm sure an actual linguist has come up with terms for these too.
Now, this must have been an annoying video to listen to. I get it. It feels like I just had
to edit a beep in for every other word - and I still don't know if this will get restricted ads!
Because YouTube... well they've gone full 1984 on us and swearing
is now punishable by summary execution...
So if you want to know more about how to get around these swiving new rules,
go over to this video which I kind of helped make a little bit or whatever, so check it out!
Or don't. Sard you, I don't care what you do.