Saying that there are many words in the world is an understatement. Saying there are many words in only one language is an understatement. You see, there are thousands of words in the English language; in fact when we take everything into account, we have around three quarters of a million words in English. Of those words, a comparably small number are deemed swear words, or words that have been accepted by society as inappropriate for general use. Some examples of swear words would be: shit, fuck, and bitch. Examples of other "non-usable" words are: nigger, chink (when referring to Asians), and fag (generally used as an insult for gays).
Now what makes these words so bad? As a society, we've been taught they're bad since we first started speaking. But why are we taught this? I have a feeling that if you asked people, a fairly large amount would respond with something like "Because those words are bad." or "Because they're offensive!" the latter being especially true when asking people about words like "nigger". As most everyone reading this knows, all such words have a history behind them, innocent or malicious. Some are more known than others though.
Ass and bitch are probably the two most commonly known; ass of course originally means donkey, and bitch is used for a female dog. Damn can be traced to Latin in the word damnum. Early in the 14th century we see damn enter Old English from French; starting around the 18th century and up until about the 1930's, damn was considered a heavy expletive, and was avoided in print. Fuck has a fairly debated origin, but the first use of it was seen in about 1503, and is likely derived from the Dutch word fokken, which means "to breed" (as in cattle. Also see the Swedish word fókka, or to copulate). The last word I'll go back into is nigger. The word itself has origins in Latin from the word "niger", which means black; however the word nigger is most likely a deliberate mispronunciation of the word negro. We all know how it's a racial slur, probably the biggest one, and used to demean black people.
But words can change.
We've seen that in the word 'gay' going from meaning happy, to homosexual. The word fag from a cigarette to an insult for gays. When I say the word holocaust, I bet there's one thought in your mind. The...er...Holocaust. What you may not know is that originally holocaust is an ancient Greek word meaning burnt offering, as in to the gods.
You see, words are only what we make of them. We view certain words as being bad because we're taught they're bad. But what if we weren't taught these words were bad? What if people were brought up thinking that these "unspeakable" words were just normal? Well I say logic dictates that these words wouldn't be quite so bad. Sure, they would probably still hold a bit more oomph, but perhaps shit would be closer to crap. Damn closer to dang. Nigger closer to cracker. I'm of the opinion that, eventually, this is the direction these words will end up going anyway. It's a process that, like gay rights, will happen regardless of what some people want.
I think it's safe to say however, that it's easier for words to go from a good to bad meaning than from bad to good, or at least less bad. Look at the word gay. Yes, it went from happy to homosexual. But now the phrase "That's so gay" is being used for everything under the sun, in a negative light. From tough homework assignments, to bad movies, to something going wrong on a car; "That's so gay" can be used to describe it all. This has been met with a big backlash from both the gay and straight communities. Personally, I think this is something that we need to let happen. I don't know a single person who has used that phrase to demean gay people, yet some gay people still find offense in it. It's the same deal with the word fag and faggot. I don't personally know anyone who uses either or those words to actually insult a gay person; in the words of C.K. Louis, "I don't call someone a faggot because they're gay. I call them a faggot because they're being...well, a faggot." I couldn't have said it better myself.
Nigger is especially complicated given the severity of the term and it's dual use in society. If a white person uses the term, everyone takes offense and apologies all around need to be made, as was the case with Michael Richards. Yet Lil Wayne has a song out called "Nigga Nigga Nigga" and, I believe it's him as well, another called "Niggas in Paris", and no one has really seem to be upset by them. See, black people apparently have 100% rights to the word nigger (or nigga), but white people cant say it. Thankfully if this trend continues it will also die out soon; every time the word nigger is said without anyone caring, that brings us one small step closer to just letting it be a normal word.
Something else happening is the term nigga transforming in meaning. If you look in the right places, you can see the word nigga quickly moving from a racial slur to a term of endearment on par with homie, homedog, or (on the whiter side of things), friend and pal. Just like fag(got) descending into an everyday general insult, nigga will ascend to mean friend.
Swearing in general can serve a purpose though. Studies have found that if a person who normally doesn't swear heavily begins to yell strings of expletives, they can tolerate a good deal more pain than they would be able to normally. And of course swearing can add emotion to otherwise lacking sentences, whether it be anger, pain, or even humor. The latter even more so when swearing is used in unique ways like "bitchnuggest" or "shitballs"; swearing adds spice to our words.
No matter good or bad, words are only what we make of them. They do not have any meanings or power aside from that which we give to them. We as a society have the power to change those meanings; we have the power to take away the hate and spite twined into curse words and racial slurs. We only need to realize that we have power over our words, not the other way around.
I see the Blogspot whiteout gets you too. Just go in and fix the HTML tags that magically got inserted there that give some of your text a white background. I don't know why this happens but it's very annoying.
ReplyDeleteOverall agreed, and some very good points. I'll add a few things myself if you'll warrant it.
The first is on the word nigger. I think the reason it remains insulting when whites use it is because historically this is what slave owners called black slaves in the United States. It was actually reappropriated before slavery was made illegal as blacks developed their own dialect and began calling themselves "nigger" to suggest to their owners overhearing them that, even though they can't understand them otherwise, they're still fitting in with being slaves when in fact they're planning escape, revolt, etc. So it literally was code for "my friend". Interestingly, today, as you yourself sort of noted, there has been a phonological change for it to be used by blacks to mean "my friend" - they say "nigga" not "nigger" almost without exception.
The second is on "faggot", which is actually not specifically from a cigarette: the word is much older. A faggot is a bundle of sticks that is meant to be burnt, and homosexuals once received this treatment. So there certainly is good reason for the word "fag" to be considered offensive when applied to homosexuals, though even that is being reappropriated.
I'm glad you've finally got this started up and that it looks to be a good, smart blog. Keep it up.
Ah, this comment was a pleasant surprise, haha.
ReplyDeleteAbout the whiteout, I can't see any HTML tags. Tried undoing it in the "highlight" tool, but to no avail. DX
Very interesting about the word "nigger". I suppose I could have looked into it a bit more before posting, but hey, I'm here to learn!
I was aware that faggot meant a pile of sticks, but not the rest of what you said; so that sort of puts a bit of a worse spin on things, yeah.
And thank you! I hope I'll be posting more. XD Just with this post I found myself learning a bit, so I hope that trend continues, either with hard, solid knowledge, or discovery of inner self and whatnot.
Edit your post and click the tab called "HTML View" or something. That way you can see the tags and get rid of them.
DeleteExcellent, thanks. I shall remember that, or so I hope.
Delete