I think that the period we're in right now is also a very similar watershed. What used to be quite 'powerful' swear words such as 'fuck' and shit' are now just a normal part of informal speech, that don't carry any actual taboo. We have now developed a new set of very real actually culturally taboo "curse words".
These new curse words are in fact so taboo that the most powerful of them cannot even be uttered in a context of explaining that someone else said them, and can only be referenced in an oblique manner such as 'he said the N-word' or 'they uttered a homophobic slur'
> I think that the period we're in right now is also a very similar watershed.
I think you’re right.
In the article, they mentioned that words denigrating the holy or sacred were the most offensive while in more recent times the most offensive words became words referring bodily functions, sex, etc. But now as you suggest, the most taboo words in the English language are slurs denigrating entire groups like various ethnic groups, religious groups, women and the elderly.
Even when Alan Pardew (and I take great pleasure in being the first to mention his name in this forum) called opposing soccer manager Manuel Pellegrini "a fucking old cunt" it wasn't perceived as a slur on his elderlyness. It was the cunt bit that got him in trouble - and, even then, not that much.
Depends on the context and social circle, like lots of post-slang terms for a class. It can be endearing (or endearing and patronizing), a general insult, a common adjective…
Those aren't curse words, they are slurs. Curse words are just verbal punctuation marks used for emphasis. 'Fuck' and 'shit' never carried the element of hate that slur words do.
I think the fact that you feel that way shows how much our culture has lost its taboos around its traditional curse words.
I think maybe an easier example to consider would to be to put 'fuck' and 'shit' aside (since its even harder to understand how these were ever really taboo), and instead consider the older more religiously inspired curses like 'damn it', 'blood the mary', etc.
These curses (in certain circles) were hugely taboo because in the worldview of the times, they were deeply harmful to use on a metaphysical / spiritual level. You were doing real harm in the world by exclaiming "damn it to hell!" or telling someone "go to hell!".
This is perhaps hard for us in our current culture where even even amongst people who claim to be religious, almost everyone would just view those as empty words, but I do think there's a real case to be made that our ancestors would have understood such curses in a very similar way to the way we understand and treat slurs today.
The worst one I’m seeing, even on here, is what I will just call “JFC.”
That’s actually blasphemy, full stop. You had better be 100% absolutely sure that Christ is not real to use that one. I have also yet to see anyone use the name of Mohammed or Buddha as a substitute.
I mean stuff like "Bud fucking dha" wouldn't exactly roll of the tongue but I get what you generally mean about e.g. Muslims still taking a much more strict view of blasphemy in current times. My understanding of Buddhism (which could be wrong) is it's more that blasphemy isn't an "extreme" type of thing to exclaim in the first place.
That's not blasphemy in the biblical sense. JFC said so himself. It's sin or slander at most. You're just too caught up in parading around what you think is your religion to know what your religion actually claims. Beware the sin of pride.
> “And so I tell you, every kind of sin and slander can be forgiven, but blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven. Anyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but anyone who speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come” (Matthew 12:31-32).
“Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain; for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain.” - Exodus 20:7 and Deuteronomy 5:11
“Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.” - Matthew 5:17
“But I tell you that for every careless word that people speak, they will give an account of it on the day of judgment.” - Matthew 12:36
Also, you seem to completely fail to understand blasphemy against the spirit, which both Catholics and Lutherans believe refers to refusal to repent. Christ is saying that those who abuse his name with repentance will not be condemned; but those who blaspheme against the spirit by permanently refusing repentance will never be forgiven.
This is ironically rather self fulfilling. Repentance is necessary for both mercy and forgiveness. Absolute refusal to repent (a sin against the Holy Spirit, which gives the grace to repent), means absolutely no mercy or forgiveness. Very simple.
> It's sin or slander at most
This makes zero sense, even as a “win,” as both of those things can lead to damnation. It’s even more stupid when you are saying “beware the sin of pride” while simultaneously saying this only “sin at most.”
“If anyone causes one of these little ones—those who believe in me—to stumble, it would be better for them to have a large millstone hung around their neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.” - Matthew 18:6
“Don't you know that when you offer yourselves to someone to obey him as slaves, you are slaves to the one whom you obey--whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness?” - Romans 6:16
“The Son of Man will send out his angels, and they will weed out of his kingdom everything that causes sin and all who do evil. They will throw them into the blazing furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” - Matthew 13:41-42
As for you, for your ludicrously ignorant suggestion that swearing with the name of Christ cannot be a sin in Christian theology:
“For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths.” - 2 Timothy 4:3-4
“There are some things in them that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures.” - 2 Peter 3:16
“I appeal to you, brothers, to watch out for those who cause divisions and create obstacles contrary to the doctrine that you have been taught; avoid them. For such persons do not serve our Lord Christ, but their own appetites, and by smooth talk and flattery they deceive the hearts of the naive. For your obedience is known to all, so that I rejoice over you, but I want you to be wise as to what is good and innocent as to what is evil.” - Romans 16:17-19
> As for you, for your ludicrously ignorant suggestion that swearing with the name of Christ cannot be a sin in Christian theology
You clearly didn't read. I explicitly listed it as a sin rather than blasphemy.
In regard to the Holy Spirit you bring up, I am much closer to channeling an aspect of it than you are:
John 16:8-9, JFC words in regard to the Holy Spirit:
> “When he comes, he will prove the world to be in the wrong about sin and righteousness and judgment: about sin, because people do not believe in me.”
You are clearly in the wrong here. Feel free to ignore your savior's words about whether it is blasphemy to take his name in vain.
But to continue to ignore the fact you're doing it now that it's pointed out is not just a sin against your savior, it's actual blasphemy against the holy spirit.
Matthew 12:31-32:
> “There’s nothing done or said that can’t be forgiven. But if you deliberately persist in your slanders against God’s Spirit, you are repudiating the very One who forgives. If you reject the Son of Man out of some misunderstanding, the Holy Spirit can forgive you, but when you reject the Holy Spirit, you’re sawing off the branch on which you’re sitting, severing by your own perversity all connection with the One who forgives.”
If you would judge others souls' as past any redemption for the words they speak about your savior, you are slandering God's Spirit. Continuing THIS behavior knowingly after it's pointed out to you is what your own religion says will damn you forever.
Please, sir, I worry for your soul here.
Unless, of course, what you actually care about here is your own sense of righteousness. In which case you're not truly religious, you're just conceited and use religion to inflate your sense of superiority.
The development of phrases like "g-- damn it" is interesting to me. I think its recent increase in use (especially in the media) and seemingly social acceptance is normal as cultures become increasingly secular. However, slurs against religious groups, especially certain monotheistic ones, seem even more taboo now than in the past. Perhaps a result of giving more power to identity in the current culture.
To your point, I know groups who would find the slur less offensive than "g-- damn it."
A curiosity about GDI - what if the thing already sucks because 'god' has in fact damned it? That is, if someone believes it to be a statement of fact (spin on the phrase) rather than somehow compelling a mystical spirit to curse something.
A curse word is a word used to curse somebody. Cursing, as in wishing ill upon someone, or delivering ill fate through magic. Hate is pretty much required for it to be an effective curse, I would think.
> What used to be quite 'powerful' swear words such as 'fuck' and shit' are now just a normal part of informal speech, that don't carry any actual taboo.
Maybe in some social circles, but in most circles I run in, saying "fuck" is still considered quite offensive.
Is it considered to be offensive though, or is it just a breach of protocol? I don't doubt that there are social circles where it's truly a noxiously offensive word, but in much much more circles, it's just improper or inappropriate to say, which is very different.
I am not aware of social circles nowadays where words like "fuck" and "shit" are worse than racial slurs. Even when racial slurs are accepted they are still usually considered stronger words than "fuck".
There are absolutely racist evangelical christian circles where saying "fuck" will you get you a stern reproach but using the "hard R" when talking about black people is not worthy of note.
Mainly due to anonymity and lack of consequences. As the public becomes less and less tolerant of these words, pressure to moderate such behaviour has increased.
That stuff has been scrubbed out of text communication in multiplayer games for ages now, and I think it'll be forcibly removed from voice communication with increasing frequency soon.
It is right now, in a few games you can report people for using slurs in voice chat at which point it's saved for review. In some cases the reporter gets some kind of reward for actioned reports.
However, this is only in the largest games. Gaming is now one of if not the most valuable media industries out there and only growing, however there are still a lot of niche games where either for cultural or demand reasons there's zero interest in censorship. Go check Wargame Red Dragon global chat for instance.
Sure. But there's always been dark alleys where people freely said things that respectable memebers of society would lose their jobs for saying.
That doesn't mean that those words aren't curse words. In fact, it's a sign that they are curse words. It wouldn't be so edgy to say them if they weren't so heavily frowned upon by "polite society"
Oh to be clear I'm not arguing that they're not curse words at all, in fact the increased censorship in high profile spaces like popular video games is evidence they are curse words.
Fully agree. As a non-native English speaker, I always thought English doesn't have "real" curse words, and the only actual (taboo) curse words I know are so-called "n-word" and similar.
It's hard for me to explain the difference, but (as an educated and relatively eloquent person) I would really hesitate (as in, physically struggle with my throat) to curse in my language aloud in a public place. Saying them among my friends or family would be seen as between mildly offensive and absolutely unacceptable. When hearing someone curse in public, I instinctively assume they're uneducated or intoxicated.
Meanwhile, i can freely swear in English among the same people (and online, and in most situations abroad). My mother, who I have never heard curse in my language, says "shit" like it was "oh darn". I see English swear words everywhere online. They really don't feel like a taboo to me.
I've entertained this idea for some time, but I can't really see how they can develop into full blown general curse words. I have to consider that perhaps I'm now just part of the crowd that holds them as sacred, and that newer generations will start intelligently using them as swears and slowly grow their acceptance, but that still doesn't feel very compelling. I read this article trying to pull out any parallels to see what I might be missing, but still didn't get anything.
I think that kind of progression has actually run its course within the narrower contexts it has been able to - take back the word empowerment, etc. But breaking out into the general societal context seems impossible as long as those words still acutely hurt significant contingents of people, as most people don't want to casually engage in hurtful behavior.
Then again if America loses the election on Tuesday, perhaps society will just regress to the point where most people are just fine stoking group hatred (it's cheaper than bread or professional circuses, after all!), and "general" acceptance will happen that way. I still don't personally see myself taking part though, despite being otherwise quite enthusiastic about swearing.
> I've entertained this idea for some time, but I can't really see how they can develop into full blown general curse words.
I think what you mean by "full blown general curse words" is what I'd actually call "faded dying curse words" if what you mean is that it's something you could say in casual conversation without people thinking less of you.
By the point that a curse word is used for emphatic punctuation, it's because the people using it don't actually believe the word holds real power to do harm, it just carries residual power because of a cultural memory of a time where it was taboo to say the word.
So I think these slurs would only become part of a regular persons vocabulary of merely 'rude' words if regular people stopped thinking they were doing real harm by uttering them.
But there are still plenty of casual contexts where one can use traditional curse words, and they will still have an impact. Making people think less of you is not the main dynamic of curse words (and they don't have a monopoly on that either!). Rather cursing is about openly transgressing social mores to display some combination of exceptional emotion plus (not being beholden to) social status. It's basically saying "I'm going to reject this thing you care about."
So unless those words stop being routinely used for ignorant personal attacks, I don't see how swearing with racial slurs could become trendy for anybody but racists rejecting the idea that racism continues to be a problem. A decade ago I had more of an idealist post-racist outlook and could have believed that in a few more decades we'd be at the point where these words would have lost their deeply personal punch, with their only lingering effect being to cause pearl clutching (and who doesn't want to needle pearl clutchers?). But at this point that looks to be a pipe dream. Which is why I say it's a similar dynamic of words being off limits, but it's not actually the same. Some social mores have fundamental merit, believe it or not.
Don't mistake reddit popularisation of "cunt" for reality. It's certainly used heavily by some subcultures, ex and current armed forces, young men. Mostly it's braggadocio and routine use in everyday conversations is not normal no matter what redditors say. It's a version of "drop bear" trapping for unwary visitors. It's extremely unacceptable to most people and is avoided.
Coon cheese changed its name to "Cheer" despite having no context where it's origin story related to its slang use. It's Edward Coon of Philadelphia's proprietary branding.
Slang words for aboriginal females have fallen out of use and were all highly derogatory along with most other objectifying language about the aborigines. Terms like murri and mob are self-referential use.
I was shocked by use of Yid 20 years ago. I think some people in Australia had little or no context of its use in Europe. Likewise Paki which is still used, to a British person from the era of the BNP and paki-bashing this word is anathema. Jap went from a term of derision to a term with probably positive meanings, jap cars are cheap, well made and reliable.
Chink was and remains abusive since the gold rush era and racist white Australia immigration policy. A nong has nothing to do with the N word, ningnong just means a stupid person. Mong is offensive everywhere.
For context, we're both talking about Australia here, right?
What's (IMHO) uniquely Australian is the slang adoption of "cunt" for men, sometimes in a positive sense (good cunt, mad cunt), sometimes negative (dog cunt, shit cunt). But, just like the US, you absolutely cannot use it to refer to a woman unless you intend to offend.
Yes. Australia. But, that usage remains highly contested as acceptable. It's been my experience that it's an emerging trend which is leveraging social media. It's like code switching, few people would do it in front of their wives, girlfriends, bosses or strangers. Whereas "fuck" is almost entirely normalised amongst the under 60s. My 80yo contacts still apologise when they say it.
"Being John Malkovitch" implied it was edgy arts scene in the US who used it. For me, it's been ex forces telecommunications technicians and .. younger bogans. This is why I think it's braggadocio: Used because it remains transgressive.
TIL that `false` is (was) a swear word. (I just hope the compliance checker for my source code doesn't start flagging it, as I'd hate to have to replace them all with `!true`... as that just makes the code read like flam-flam.
Had me puzzled for a moment as well. I guess its intended use is to describe a person? In German, a "false" person is a routinely dishonest person. (A little more nuanced than that, but I don't feel like writing an essay about it)
Is this also true for French with a similar timeline, potentially explaining why Québecois - settled in the 1600s - primarily uses religious swear words?
There is a much wider range of swear words than just putain in French. And much more than in English in general which sounds like a poor language for insults to French ears.
Zounds! Some of those 1600s usages still sound modern. "That flim-flam has me in a pickle" is something that could have come out of my mouth yesterday.
I think that the period we're in right now is also a very similar watershed. What used to be quite 'powerful' swear words such as 'fuck' and shit' are now just a normal part of informal speech, that don't carry any actual taboo. We have now developed a new set of very real actually culturally taboo "curse words".
These new curse words are in fact so taboo that the most powerful of them cannot even be uttered in a context of explaining that someone else said them, and can only be referenced in an oblique manner such as 'he said the N-word' or 'they uttered a homophobic slur'
> I think that the period we're in right now is also a very similar watershed.
I think you’re right.
In the article, they mentioned that words denigrating the holy or sacred were the most offensive while in more recent times the most offensive words became words referring bodily functions, sex, etc. But now as you suggest, the most taboo words in the English language are slurs denigrating entire groups like various ethnic groups, religious groups, women and the elderly.
The elderly? I'm drawing a blank.
Likewise. Boomers aren't typically elderly, yet.
Even when Alan Pardew (and I take great pleasure in being the first to mention his name in this forum) called opposing soccer manager Manuel Pellegrini "a fucking old cunt" it wasn't perceived as a slur on his elderlyness. It was the cunt bit that got him in trouble - and, even then, not that much.
I'm guessing that one is "Boomer", but I don't think it is so taboo that it cannot be uttered yet.
Depends on the context and social circle, like lots of post-slang terms for a class. It can be endearing (or endearing and patronizing), a general insult, a common adjective…
Those aren't curse words, they are slurs. Curse words are just verbal punctuation marks used for emphasis. 'Fuck' and 'shit' never carried the element of hate that slur words do.
I think the fact that you feel that way shows how much our culture has lost its taboos around its traditional curse words.
I think maybe an easier example to consider would to be to put 'fuck' and 'shit' aside (since its even harder to understand how these were ever really taboo), and instead consider the older more religiously inspired curses like 'damn it', 'blood the mary', etc.
These curses (in certain circles) were hugely taboo because in the worldview of the times, they were deeply harmful to use on a metaphysical / spiritual level. You were doing real harm in the world by exclaiming "damn it to hell!" or telling someone "go to hell!".
This is perhaps hard for us in our current culture where even even amongst people who claim to be religious, almost everyone would just view those as empty words, but I do think there's a real case to be made that our ancestors would have understood such curses in a very similar way to the way we understand and treat slurs today.
I do agree actually. And I guess that I'd say there are "swear" words (crude verbal punctuation) and "curse" words in the sense that you describe.
I do know people who think "g-- damn it" is a far worse thing to say than 'fucking piece of shit' for example.
> I do know people who think "g-- damn it" is a far worse thing to say than 'fucking piece of shit' for example.
That would be my mother. Hasn't been to church in decades, curses like a sailor, but will never take the lord's name in vain.
Although, maybe with enough time, she will, it took her until she was 60 before she started saying 'fuck.'
The worst one I’m seeing, even on here, is what I will just call “JFC.”
That’s actually blasphemy, full stop. You had better be 100% absolutely sure that Christ is not real to use that one. I have also yet to see anyone use the name of Mohammed or Buddha as a substitute.
I mean stuff like "Bud fucking dha" wouldn't exactly roll of the tongue but I get what you generally mean about e.g. Muslims still taking a much more strict view of blasphemy in current times. My understanding of Buddhism (which could be wrong) is it's more that blasphemy isn't an "extreme" type of thing to exclaim in the first place.
That's not blasphemy in the biblical sense. JFC said so himself. It's sin or slander at most. You're just too caught up in parading around what you think is your religion to know what your religion actually claims. Beware the sin of pride.
> “And so I tell you, every kind of sin and slander can be forgiven, but blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven. Anyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but anyone who speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come” (Matthew 12:31-32).
“Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain; for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain.” - Exodus 20:7 and Deuteronomy 5:11
“Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.” - Matthew 5:17
“But I tell you that for every careless word that people speak, they will give an account of it on the day of judgment.” - Matthew 12:36
Also, you seem to completely fail to understand blasphemy against the spirit, which both Catholics and Lutherans believe refers to refusal to repent. Christ is saying that those who abuse his name with repentance will not be condemned; but those who blaspheme against the spirit by permanently refusing repentance will never be forgiven.
This is ironically rather self fulfilling. Repentance is necessary for both mercy and forgiveness. Absolute refusal to repent (a sin against the Holy Spirit, which gives the grace to repent), means absolutely no mercy or forgiveness. Very simple.
> It's sin or slander at most
This makes zero sense, even as a “win,” as both of those things can lead to damnation. It’s even more stupid when you are saying “beware the sin of pride” while simultaneously saying this only “sin at most.”
“If anyone causes one of these little ones—those who believe in me—to stumble, it would be better for them to have a large millstone hung around their neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.” - Matthew 18:6
“Don't you know that when you offer yourselves to someone to obey him as slaves, you are slaves to the one whom you obey--whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness?” - Romans 6:16
“The Son of Man will send out his angels, and they will weed out of his kingdom everything that causes sin and all who do evil. They will throw them into the blazing furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” - Matthew 13:41-42
As for you, for your ludicrously ignorant suggestion that swearing with the name of Christ cannot be a sin in Christian theology:
“For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths.” - 2 Timothy 4:3-4
“There are some things in them that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures.” - 2 Peter 3:16
“I appeal to you, brothers, to watch out for those who cause divisions and create obstacles contrary to the doctrine that you have been taught; avoid them. For such persons do not serve our Lord Christ, but their own appetites, and by smooth talk and flattery they deceive the hearts of the naive. For your obedience is known to all, so that I rejoice over you, but I want you to be wise as to what is good and innocent as to what is evil.” - Romans 16:17-19
> As for you, for your ludicrously ignorant suggestion that swearing with the name of Christ cannot be a sin in Christian theology
You clearly didn't read. I explicitly listed it as a sin rather than blasphemy.
In regard to the Holy Spirit you bring up, I am much closer to channeling an aspect of it than you are:
John 16:8-9, JFC words in regard to the Holy Spirit: > “When he comes, he will prove the world to be in the wrong about sin and righteousness and judgment: about sin, because people do not believe in me.”
You are clearly in the wrong here. Feel free to ignore your savior's words about whether it is blasphemy to take his name in vain.
But to continue to ignore the fact you're doing it now that it's pointed out is not just a sin against your savior, it's actual blasphemy against the holy spirit.
Matthew 12:31-32: > “There’s nothing done or said that can’t be forgiven. But if you deliberately persist in your slanders against God’s Spirit, you are repudiating the very One who forgives. If you reject the Son of Man out of some misunderstanding, the Holy Spirit can forgive you, but when you reject the Holy Spirit, you’re sawing off the branch on which you’re sitting, severing by your own perversity all connection with the One who forgives.”
If you would judge others souls' as past any redemption for the words they speak about your savior, you are slandering God's Spirit. Continuing THIS behavior knowingly after it's pointed out to you is what your own religion says will damn you forever.
Please, sir, I worry for your soul here.
Unless, of course, what you actually care about here is your own sense of righteousness. In which case you're not truly religious, you're just conceited and use religion to inflate your sense of superiority.
The development of phrases like "g-- damn it" is interesting to me. I think its recent increase in use (especially in the media) and seemingly social acceptance is normal as cultures become increasingly secular. However, slurs against religious groups, especially certain monotheistic ones, seem even more taboo now than in the past. Perhaps a result of giving more power to identity in the current culture.
To your point, I know groups who would find the slur less offensive than "g-- damn it."
A curiosity about GDI - what if the thing already sucks because 'god' has in fact damned it? That is, if someone believes it to be a statement of fact (spin on the phrase) rather than somehow compelling a mystical spirit to curse something.
A curse word is a word used to curse somebody. Cursing, as in wishing ill upon someone, or delivering ill fate through magic. Hate is pretty much required for it to be an effective curse, I would think.
> What used to be quite 'powerful' swear words such as 'fuck' and shit' are now just a normal part of informal speech, that don't carry any actual taboo.
Maybe in some social circles, but in most circles I run in, saying "fuck" is still considered quite offensive.
Is it considered to be offensive though, or is it just a breach of protocol? I don't doubt that there are social circles where it's truly a noxiously offensive word, but in much much more circles, it's just improper or inappropriate to say, which is very different.
I am not aware of social circles nowadays where words like "fuck" and "shit" are worse than racial slurs. Even when racial slurs are accepted they are still usually considered stronger words than "fuck".
There are absolutely racist evangelical christian circles where saying "fuck" will you get you a stern reproach but using the "hard R" when talking about black people is not worthy of note.
The interesting thing is that some of the "new" taboo words are only taboo for certain groups of people.
The N-word has been reclaimed by people of color, but remains taboo for others to say.
The F-slur is in the process of being reclaimed by gay people, but remains taboo for everyone else.
I can't think of any parallels in past English curse words -- "fuck" was taboo no matter who you were.
Only certain people of color.
Sure. I was necessarily speaking in generalities. There are always exceptions.
The words that must not be named are and always have been informal speech in online multiplayer voice chats.
Mainly due to anonymity and lack of consequences. As the public becomes less and less tolerant of these words, pressure to moderate such behaviour has increased.
That stuff has been scrubbed out of text communication in multiplayer games for ages now, and I think it'll be forcibly removed from voice communication with increasing frequency soon.
It is right now, in a few games you can report people for using slurs in voice chat at which point it's saved for review. In some cases the reporter gets some kind of reward for actioned reports.
However, this is only in the largest games. Gaming is now one of if not the most valuable media industries out there and only growing, however there are still a lot of niche games where either for cultural or demand reasons there's zero interest in censorship. Go check Wargame Red Dragon global chat for instance.
Sure. But there's always been dark alleys where people freely said things that respectable memebers of society would lose their jobs for saying.
That doesn't mean that those words aren't curse words. In fact, it's a sign that they are curse words. It wouldn't be so edgy to say them if they weren't so heavily frowned upon by "polite society"
Oh to be clear I'm not arguing that they're not curse words at all, in fact the increased censorship in high profile spaces like popular video games is evidence they are curse words.
It's also a class divide- the slurs are more serious for fancier people.
Yes, they have always been context-dependent. They can be perfectly acceptable in some situations and absolutely forbidden in others.
Fully agree. As a non-native English speaker, I always thought English doesn't have "real" curse words, and the only actual (taboo) curse words I know are so-called "n-word" and similar.
It's hard for me to explain the difference, but (as an educated and relatively eloquent person) I would really hesitate (as in, physically struggle with my throat) to curse in my language aloud in a public place. Saying them among my friends or family would be seen as between mildly offensive and absolutely unacceptable. When hearing someone curse in public, I instinctively assume they're uneducated or intoxicated.
Meanwhile, i can freely swear in English among the same people (and online, and in most situations abroad). My mother, who I have never heard curse in my language, says "shit" like it was "oh darn". I see English swear words everywhere online. They really don't feel like a taboo to me.
I would say it's totally normal for a 2nd language's swear words to have much less impact on one's psyche than one's maternal language.
> I see English swear words everywhere online
With regard to online (and music, and movies): have you paid attention to the social register in which you're seeing them used?
John McWhorter wrote a whole book about this a few years ago
Well, I didn't read that book but it probably influenced someone who then communicated that idea to me. I should check it out.
Those are slurs, not curse words. Nobody yells the N-word when they accidentally hit their thumb with a hammer.
I've entertained this idea for some time, but I can't really see how they can develop into full blown general curse words. I have to consider that perhaps I'm now just part of the crowd that holds them as sacred, and that newer generations will start intelligently using them as swears and slowly grow their acceptance, but that still doesn't feel very compelling. I read this article trying to pull out any parallels to see what I might be missing, but still didn't get anything.
I think that kind of progression has actually run its course within the narrower contexts it has been able to - take back the word empowerment, etc. But breaking out into the general societal context seems impossible as long as those words still acutely hurt significant contingents of people, as most people don't want to casually engage in hurtful behavior.
Then again if America loses the election on Tuesday, perhaps society will just regress to the point where most people are just fine stoking group hatred (it's cheaper than bread or professional circuses, after all!), and "general" acceptance will happen that way. I still don't personally see myself taking part though, despite being otherwise quite enthusiastic about swearing.
> I've entertained this idea for some time, but I can't really see how they can develop into full blown general curse words.
I think what you mean by "full blown general curse words" is what I'd actually call "faded dying curse words" if what you mean is that it's something you could say in casual conversation without people thinking less of you.
By the point that a curse word is used for emphatic punctuation, it's because the people using it don't actually believe the word holds real power to do harm, it just carries residual power because of a cultural memory of a time where it was taboo to say the word.
So I think these slurs would only become part of a regular persons vocabulary of merely 'rude' words if regular people stopped thinking they were doing real harm by uttering them.
But there are still plenty of casual contexts where one can use traditional curse words, and they will still have an impact. Making people think less of you is not the main dynamic of curse words (and they don't have a monopoly on that either!). Rather cursing is about openly transgressing social mores to display some combination of exceptional emotion plus (not being beholden to) social status. It's basically saying "I'm going to reject this thing you care about."
So unless those words stop being routinely used for ignorant personal attacks, I don't see how swearing with racial slurs could become trendy for anybody but racists rejecting the idea that racism continues to be a problem. A decade ago I had more of an idealist post-racist outlook and could have believed that in a few more decades we'd be at the point where these words would have lost their deeply personal punch, with their only lingering effect being to cause pearl clutching (and who doesn't want to needle pearl clutchers?). But at this point that looks to be a pipe dream. Which is why I say it's a similar dynamic of words being off limits, but it's not actually the same. Some social mores have fundamental merit, believe it or not.
Fucking right
Don't mistake reddit popularisation of "cunt" for reality. It's certainly used heavily by some subcultures, ex and current armed forces, young men. Mostly it's braggadocio and routine use in everyday conversations is not normal no matter what redditors say. It's a version of "drop bear" trapping for unwary visitors. It's extremely unacceptable to most people and is avoided.
Coon cheese changed its name to "Cheer" despite having no context where it's origin story related to its slang use. It's Edward Coon of Philadelphia's proprietary branding.
Slang words for aboriginal females have fallen out of use and were all highly derogatory along with most other objectifying language about the aborigines. Terms like murri and mob are self-referential use.
I was shocked by use of Yid 20 years ago. I think some people in Australia had little or no context of its use in Europe. Likewise Paki which is still used, to a British person from the era of the BNP and paki-bashing this word is anathema. Jap went from a term of derision to a term with probably positive meanings, jap cars are cheap, well made and reliable.
Chink was and remains abusive since the gold rush era and racist white Australia immigration policy. A nong has nothing to do with the N word, ningnong just means a stupid person. Mong is offensive everywhere.
For context, we're both talking about Australia here, right?
What's (IMHO) uniquely Australian is the slang adoption of "cunt" for men, sometimes in a positive sense (good cunt, mad cunt), sometimes negative (dog cunt, shit cunt). But, just like the US, you absolutely cannot use it to refer to a woman unless you intend to offend.
Yes. Australia. But, that usage remains highly contested as acceptable. It's been my experience that it's an emerging trend which is leveraging social media. It's like code switching, few people would do it in front of their wives, girlfriends, bosses or strangers. Whereas "fuck" is almost entirely normalised amongst the under 60s. My 80yo contacts still apologise when they say it.
"Being John Malkovitch" implied it was edgy arts scene in the US who used it. For me, it's been ex forces telecommunications technicians and .. younger bogans. This is why I think it's braggadocio: Used because it remains transgressive.
TIL that `false` is (was) a swear word. (I just hope the compliance checker for my source code doesn't start flagging it, as I'd hate to have to replace them all with `!true`... as that just makes the code read like flam-flam.
Had me puzzled for a moment as well. I guess its intended use is to describe a person? In German, a "false" person is a routinely dishonest person. (A little more nuanced than that, but I don't feel like writing an essay about it)
Is this also true for French with a similar timeline, potentially explaining why Québecois - settled in the 1600s - primarily uses religious swear words?
I think the French today mostly say putain, which has mostly lost its literal sense, but my French is not very good.
There is a much wider range of swear words than just putain in French. And much more than in English in general which sounds like a poor language for insults to French ears.
The francophones of my acquaintance mostly do. (although one or two of them use punaise to mince, nom de Dieu !)
Learned a new swear word from this article: "trumpery".
Zounds! Some of those 1600s usages still sound modern. "That flim-flam has me in a pickle" is something that could have come out of my mouth yesterday.
Why is it that the author decided to write 'f-word' twice instead of just 'fuck'?
Variety
Sometimes you gotta throw out the effing "fuck" word.