Profanity

The term profanity refers to word choices or usages which many consider to be offensive. The original meaning of the term was restricted to blasphemy, sacrilege or taking God's name in vain, especially expressions such as "God damn it", "go to Hell", and "damn you".

However, the meaning has been extended to include scatological or sexual terms (in English, primarily shit, piss, fuck, cunt, cock, tits, fart, turd, twat, faggot, and, frequently, bitch). The list includes words that are merely vulgar as well as those thought obscene.

There has always been great difficulty in distinguishing these categories, but the U.S. Federal Communications Commission, in response to complaints about a comedy routine on "dirty words" by George Carlin, established its own list of seven words that could not be broadcast. These were: shit, piss, fuck, cunt, cocksucker, motherfucker and tits. Carlin's routine using these words has since been broadcast, however. In the early 1960s, Lenny Bruce was taken to court for using some of these same words in his own comedy routines.

On the other hand, some words originally considered profane, have become much less offensive with the increasing secularity of society, while others have become increasingly taboo. Nigger, for example, was accepted in some subcultures where it is far less so today.

Terms of profanity have historically been taboo words, though they are losing their taboo status. (The primary exception is the word cunt, which maintains much of its taboo status at least partly due to the influence of feminism, though other feminists are attempting to "reclaim" a neutral or complimentary status for this word). However, in modern times new words have become taboo to replace these, primarily racial or ethnic epthitets.

This especially applies to the English word nigger, which to many people today is much more offensive to the ears than sexual or scatalogical terms. (Although it depends on the context in which it is used -- people of African descent sometimes use the term among themselves.) This sensitivity to the word nigger has even extended to the point of attempting to ban the use of the word niggardly, which many mistakenly believe to be related to the word nigger.

Psycholinguistic studies have demonstrated that profanity and other taboo words produce physical effects in people who read or hear them, such as an elevated heart rate.

This fact is seen by some as evidence that reclaiming of words such as queer is a valid way to remove its power. See also the article on nigger, as well as Drum and Bass for the reclaiming of the word jungle.

The situation is rendered more complex when other languages enter the picture. In European Spanish, coño (cunt in English) is very common in spoken discourse, meaning no more than "Hey!" or "Christ!". Likewise, in French, merde (shit) is also quite common as an expletive. Some scholars have noted that while the French and Spanish are comfortable hearing native speakers use these words, they tend to hear the "stronger" meaning when the same words are spoken by non-native speakers. This may be similar to the differences in the acceptability of queer or nigger depending on who is saying the words.

Profanity took a very interesting form in Russia where there exists a language of sorts, most of its words based on four basic profane roots - nouns penis, whore, cunt and verb fuck. At least two hundred derivative words exist in this language, plus countless word combinations. It is possible to sensibly communicate using just these four basic roots. Due to countless very fine nuances (stress on a different syllable changes the meaning of certain words etc.) it is not easy to master that language which is very widely used in Russia, especially in rural areas. Before the 1990s these words never appeared in print (except special articles published in universities) and still are officially banned on TV and in the movies.

Likewise, Quebecois French can string a few basic terms from Roman Catholic liturgy into quite impressive strings of invective of up to a minute or more. This is known as sacre.

Reference

Lexicographer Jesse Sheidlower compiled The F Word (1999) ISBN: 0375706348, which presents hundreds of uses of fuck and related words.