#tabooavoidance — Public Fediverse posts

Listening to a podcast this morning, I noticed the phrase mature language used in a content warning. It’s one of many phrases in the form X language, some of them similarly euphemistic, for what we might more plainly call swearing.

In several of these phrases, the modifier identifies the type of content: abusive language contains abuse, obscene language obscenity, profane language profanity, vulgar language vulgarity. But these categories are tricky to define and tend to overlap in usage; the phrases are often used interchangeably.1

Mature language points to the language’s purported unsuitability for minors, as does adult language. Here the modifiers refer more to the speakers or listeners than to the language itself – if anything, the use of ‘mature’ language is commonly (mis)perceived as immature.

While these last two terms signal clearly that swearing is on the way, they also seem at odds with the facts that (1) children are generally familiar with swear words, and (2) arguably more adults than children are bothered by swear words. But those are separate cans of worms.

Still other synonyms, like bad language, coarse language, indecent language, and offensive language, are laced with moral judgement.2 A few convey this through a metaphor of physical hygiene: dirty language, filthy language, foul language. Geoffrey Hughes, in his Encyclopedia of Swearing (2006), writes:

The use of terms like foul, filth, dirt, and dirty to categorize offensive or abusive language is profound and ancient. Anglo-Saxon ful (“foul”) was used to gloss “obscene” as well as “dirty.” “Shit worde,” dating from 1250, is historically the earliest categorization of coarse speech, followed by “foul speech,” recorded from about 1455.

Bad language and foul language in particular are so common as to be used routinely by people who see nothing ‘bad’ or ‘foul’ about it. Swearing’s bad reputation is thus paradoxically spread by people who may enjoy the activity.

It’s hard not to notice the negative valence of these adjectives. Abusive, bad, coarse, dirty, filthy, foul, indecent, obscene, offensive, profane, vulgar – it’s not a flattering list. That’s to be expected, given the social status of swearing and the stereotypes and misunderstanding that accompany it.

Adult and mature buck that trend, though at the cost of accuracy. Explicit is a relatively neutral descriptor, but it’s also pretty broad. Explicit language could mean plain language – which, as it happens, occasionally means coarse or vulgar language, though nowadays it usually refers to intelligibility.

Taboo language is similarly vague. It often denotes swearing, but it can encompass insults as well as forms of word magic that manifest, for example, as name avoidance – be it the name of something sacred or feared, or both, like a bear or a god.

All of which makes strong language a serious outlier.

When I proposed Strong Language as the name for this blog, back in 2014, I felt it had several things in its favour. For one thing, it’s the rare case of X language where the connotations of X are unequivocally positive. And we’re swear-positive here at Strong Language. It’s also search- and preview-friendly – not a given for a sweary blog about swearing.

And it’s a good pragmatic fit: more than any other register of verbal expression, when you swear, you likely feel strong emotion or desire strong effects, or both. Swearing is powerful, potent, forceful language. It is the idiom of strong feeling. It wears this adjective well.

1 Michael Adams’s book In Praise of Profanity has insightful discussion of these categories and their blurry boundaries.

2 One sensible alteration is to recast offensive language as ‘language that some viewers/listeners may find offensive’.

https://stronglang.wordpress.com/2023/07/13/strong-bad-mature-filthy-language/

#comics #euphemisms #language #linguistics #metaphor #naming #phrases #pragmatics #semantics #StrongLanguage #swearing #taboo #tabooAvoidance #tabooLanguage #tabooWords #taboos

Listening to a podcast this morning, I noticed the phrase mature language used in a content warning. It’s one of many phrases in the form X language, some of them similarly euphemistic, for what we might more plainly call swearing.

In several of these phrases, the modifier identifies the type of content: abusive language contains abuse, obscene language obscenity, profane language profanity, vulgar language vulgarity. But these categories are tricky to define and tend to overlap in usage; the phrases are often used interchangeably.1

Mature language points to the language’s purported unsuitability for minors, as does adult language. Here the modifiers refer more to the speakers or listeners than to the language itself – if anything, the use of ‘mature’ language is commonly (mis)perceived as immature.

While these last two terms signal clearly that swearing is on the way, they also seem at odds with the facts that (1) children are generally familiar with swear words, and (2) arguably more adults than children are bothered by swear words. But those are separate cans of worms.

Still other synonyms, like bad language, coarse language, indecent language, and offensive language, are laced with moral judgement.2 A few convey this through a metaphor of physical hygiene: dirty language, filthy language, foul language. Geoffrey Hughes, in his Encyclopedia of Swearing (2006), writes:

The use of terms like foul, filth, dirt, and dirty to categorize offensive or abusive language is profound and ancient. Anglo-Saxon ful (“foul”) was used to gloss “obscene” as well as “dirty.” “Shit worde,” dating from 1250, is historically the earliest categorization of coarse speech, followed by “foul speech,” recorded from about 1455.

Bad language and foul language in particular are so common as to be used routinely by people who see nothing ‘bad’ or ‘foul’ about it. Swearing’s bad reputation is thus paradoxically spread by people who may enjoy the activity.

It’s hard not to notice the negative valence of these adjectives. Abusive, bad, coarse, dirty, filthy, foul, indecent, obscene, offensive, profane, vulgar – it’s not a flattering list. That’s to be expected, given the social status of swearing and the stereotypes and misunderstanding that accompany it.

Adult and mature buck that trend, though at the cost of accuracy. Explicit is a relatively neutral descriptor, but it’s also pretty broad. Explicit language could mean plain language – which, as it happens, occasionally means coarse or vulgar language, though nowadays it usually refers to intelligibility.

Taboo language is similarly vague. It often denotes swearing, but it can encompass insults as well as forms of word magic that manifest, for example, as name avoidance – be it the name of something sacred or feared, or both, like a bear or a god.

All of which makes strong language a serious outlier.

When I proposed Strong Language as the name for this blog, back in 2014, I felt it had several things in its favour. For one thing, it’s the rare case of X language where the connotations of X are unequivocally positive. And we’re swear-positive here at Strong Language. It’s also search- and preview-friendly – not a given for a sweary blog about swearing.

And it’s a good pragmatic fit: more than any other register of verbal expression, when you swear, you likely feel strong emotion or desire strong effects, or both. Swearing is powerful, potent, forceful language. It is the idiom of strong feeling. It wears this adjective well.

1 Michael Adams’s book In Praise of Profanity has insightful discussion of these categories and their blurry boundaries.

2 One sensible alteration is to recast offensive language as ‘language that some viewers/listeners may find offensive’.

https://stronglang.wordpress.com/2023/07/13/strong-bad-mature-filthy-language/

#comics #euphemisms #language #linguistics #metaphor #naming #phrases #pragmatics #semantics #StrongLanguage #swearing #taboo #tabooAvoidance #tabooLanguage #tabooWords #taboos