[lg policy] Linguistic Hygiene: Why Do Educated People Use Bad Words?

[Harold Schiffman]

Why Do Educated People Use Bad Words? By THE
EDITORS<http://roomfordebate.blogs.nytimes.com/author/the-editors/>
[image: profanity]Anna Otto

California state legislators have long pushed self-improvement schemes on
their constituents. Remember the “State Task Force to Promote Self-Esteem”
(1986)<http://www.nytimes.com/1986/10/11/us/now-the-california-task-force-to-promote-self-esteem.html>?
The latest such effort was a “Cuss Free
Week”<http://www.mercurynews.com/breaking-news/ci_14470454?nclick_check=1>designated
last month aimed at reducing profanity in public places.
 Related

   - News Sites Rethink Anonymous Online Comments
   <http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/12/technology/12comments.html>
   - Reader Ideas for Moderating Comments
   <http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ombudsman-blog/2010/04/readers_offer_ideas_for_modera.html?wprss=ombudsman-blog>

 The crusade was ridiculed, but is it a lost
cause<http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/13/opinion/13pubed.html>?
It would seem so, at least among vice presidents. When Vice President Joseph
Biden used an expletive<http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/03/23/at-white-house-bidens-expletive-caught-on-open-mic/>in
a private aside to President Obama after the health care victory, the
remark was picked up by a microphone and spread quickly on the Web. In
2004 Vice
President Cheney used a form of the same
word<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A3699-2004Jun24.html>on
the Senate floor to tell Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont what to do
to
himself.

Have people’s attitudes changed toward what’s considered socially acceptable
language? Have public forums on the Web worsened this reflex, since people
whose identities are shielded can use words they might not have said out
loud?


   - John McWhorter,<http://roomfordebate.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/04/12/why-do-educated-people-use-bad-words/#john>author,
“Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue”
   - Deborah Tannen,<http://roomfordebate.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/04/12/why-do-educated-people-use-bad-words/#deborah>professor
of linguistics
   - Tony McEnery,<http://roomfordebate.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/04/12/why-do-educated-people-use-bad-words/#tony>professor
of English language
   - Lee Siegel,<http://roomfordebate.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/04/12/why-do-educated-people-use-bad-words/#lee>author,
“Against the Machine”
   - Ilya Somin,<http://roomfordebate.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/04/12/why-do-educated-people-use-bad-words/#ilya>professor
of law, blogger
   - Timothy Jay,<http://roomfordebate.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/04/12/why-do-educated-people-use-bad-words/#timothy>author,
“Cursing in America”

------------------------------

Our Comfort With Cuss Words
[image: John McWhorter]

* John McWhorter <http://www.manhattan-institute.org/html/mcwhorter.htm>, a
senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, is the author of “Our Magnificent
Bastard Tongue: The Untold Story of
English.”<http://www.amazon.com/Our-Magnificent-Bastard-Tongue-English/dp/1592403956>
*

Cursing in casual settings has never been alien to American life. In the
1850s, the engineer of the Brooklyn Bridge, Washington Roebling wrote to his
fiancee in tones like these: “unless it be the spirit of some man just made
perfect, come to torment me while I am writing to my love” — but in the same
letter mentioned that he had been “building bridges and swearing all day.”

In our society, the main taboo is no longer sex, but race.

We can be sure that Lincoln’s vice presidents weren’t popping off with,
shall we say, crudities when he signed legislation. But our society differs
profoundly from that one.

In a hatless America of T-shirts and visible underwear, where what were once
written speeches are now baggy “talks” and we barely flinch to see nudity
and simulated copulation in movies, what would be strange is if people
weren’t increasingly comfortable using cuss words in public. We cherish the
“reality” of so much of what makes us different from our grandparents — but
maintain a peculiar battle pose against its extension to a few pungent
words.

Read more… <javascript:void(0);>

The America where words connected to sex and excretion were never uttered in
the public forum was, at least, consistent. When a slang dictionary could
have trouble finding a publisher, people sequestered themselves under reams
of fabric, and illegitimate birth was a scandal, calling chicken thighs
“dark meat” to avoid saying “leg” made sense, felt right, and was easily
enforced.

In our society, the main taboo is no longer sex, but race. Such things
evolve: the big taboo for medievals was religion, and thus evasions like
“Egads” for “Ye Gods.” Then came sex; that time is all but gone. Now even
the edgiest satire tiptoes around using the N-word — and if a comedian
like Michael
Richards slips up on
it<http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/03/fashion/03comedy.html>,
he is burned in effigy for weeks.

We consider racial slurs an offense against human beings for concrete
reasons — but would be harder pressed to express why Joe Biden’s use of an
expletive makes him a bad human being. Give it a while, and people clutching
at their pearls at things like that will look as quaint as people
considering it a big deal that Clark Gable said “damn” in “Gone With the
Wind.”
------------------------------

When Mere Words Aren’t Enough
[image: Deborah Tannen]

* Deborah Tannen <https://www9.georgetown.edu/faculty/tannend/bio.html> is a
professor of linguistics at Georgetown University. Among her many
books are“You Just Don’t
Understand,”<http://www.amazon.com/You-Just-Dont-Understand-Conversation/dp/0060959622/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1247753987&sr=1-1>
“You’re
Wearing THAT?,”<http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Youre-Wearing-That/Deborah-Tannen/e/9780812972665/?itm=3>and,
most recently, “You
Were Always Mom’s Favorite!: Sisters in Conversation Throughout Their
Lives.”<http://www.amazon.com/You-Were-Always-Moms-Favorite/dp/1400066328/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1248724356&sr=8-1>
*

Vice Presidents Joe Biden’s and Dick Cheney’s uses of the same expletive, on
the surface, could not be more different. Biden’s whispered utterance,
unexpectedly picked up by a microphone, was a moment of intimacy, a private
acknowledgment that the excitement about a momentous event was appreciated
and shared.

Cheney’s utterance was an expression of anger that was meant to be heard.
Yet these contrasting uses of the same word had something in common: the
expression of intense emotion. That’s one reason profanity is used — and
will continue to be.

For those who use them, swear words are linked to emotion in a visceral way.


People need special words to convey emotion, which is, by nature, ineffable.
For those who use them, swear words are linked to emotion in a visceral way.
People who speak more than one language report that they always curse in
their native tongue; they can say swear words in a second language but they
don’t feel them — the gut link to emotions just isn’t there.

Read more… <javascript:void(0);>

Cursing is most often heard, as Biden’s was intended to be, in private
conversation. Using language that can’t (or shouldn’t) be used in public in
itself creates intimacy. But we hear more and more examples of cursing in
public — sometimes to recreate private conversation, as in fiction or on TV,
and sometimes, as with Biden, because of technology. Whatever the reason,
the public airing of words once confined to private conversation is one of
many ways that the barriers between public and private are crumbling, just
as topics previously whispered only in private are now discussed publicly.
We’re unlikely to sweep those topics back under the rug; the same is true of
profanity.

Legislating language rarely works, because language develops to serve human
purposes. Some people will always swear in private to show strong feelings —
or to sound cool. Given our culture’s inexorable tendency to make the
private public, the increasing use of profanity in public — by intention or
accident — seems inevitable.
------------------------------

Purity of Speech and Power
[image: Tony McEnery]

*Tony McEnery <http://www.ling.lancs.ac.uk/staff/tony/tony1.htm>, a
professor of English language and linguistics at Lancaster University in
Britain, is the author of “Swearing in English: Bad Language, Purity and
Power from 1586 to the
Present.”<http://books.google.com/books?id=iKbvbEwNjugC&printsec=frontcover&dq=Swearing+in+English:+Bad+Language,+Purity+and+Power+from+1586+to+the+Present&source=bl&ots=NMpJNhfqUH&sig=5lBrnNdu1hCcdOFI-d9LkdnrMXw&hl=en&ei=SdjBS6bLAoaKlwfFit3bBA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CAkQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false>
*

Purity of speech has been associated for so long with power in public life
in the English speaking world that it is almost inconceivable that it could
ever have been different. Yet it was — a powerful example of this comes from
James I’s participation in an ecclesiastical debate in the early 17th
century. When he said that he did not give a “turd” for the argument of a
leading cleric, James did not attract opprobrium. He attracted praise —
those present were impressed by his debating skills, not appalled at his
choice of words. This is unimaginable now. How did the change come about?

Historical campaigns that linked bad language with moral degeneracy endure
in the English language to this day.

Starting in the late 17th century a movement swept the English speaking
world which firmly linked purity of speech with power. Groups like the
Society for the Reformation of Manners in the British Isles and the Society
for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts in the colonies began to
fight against sin in all of its forms by preaching and prosecution.

A main target for them was bad language. From time to time these campaigns
rise again — as happened recently in the California Assembly.

Read more… <javascript:void(0);>

Such proposals are directly influenced by the campaigners from the 17th
century who argued that moral probity, as evidenced, for example, by an
avoidance of bad language, was a prerequisite for the exercise of power.
[image: Dick Cheney]Mike Simons/Getty Images Dick Cheney, who used a
four-letter word against a political opponent, said he “felt better
afterwards.”

The effects of these groups on the English language has been profound and
endures to this day — in the past couple of years in the U.K. (look at David
Cameron’s description of Twitter
users<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d3Mrfut-FSw>),
Ireland (see Paul Gogarty’s forthright attack on fellow lawmaker Emmet
Stagg) and the U.S. (notably by Joe
Biden<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zR4lSLEvyMs&feature=related>and
Dick
Cheney <http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/26/politics/campaign/26cheney.html>),
lawmakers have been called upon to apologize for using words in the public
sphere that they almost certainly use in private with impunity.

The hypocrisy of public purity but private impurity also has deep roots.
Eighteenth-century campaigners gave up on any attempt to regulate behavior
in the private sphere, quickly accepting that people could use whatever
language they wished in private as long as their public speech was pure. It
is to such campaigners that we can ascribe examples such as Richard Nixon,
who simultaneously managed to crusade for an improvement in public morals
while revealing himself on the White House tapes to have a full command of
bad language.

The campaigns of the late 17th and early 18th century that linked bad
language with moral degeneracy, low education and general brutishness were
incredibly successful in forming views of bad language that endure in the
English language to this day. They were also successful at establishing the
nascent middle classes of the English speaking world as a locus of purity
and hence a locus of power.

The moral triumph of the middle classes was also a political triumph. The
triumph endures and still sets the rules of the game for public political
discourse to this day.
------------------------------

What the Internet Unleashes
[image: Lee Siegel]

*Lee Siegel is senior columnist for the Daily
Beast<http://www.thedailybeast.com/author/lee-siegel/>and the author,
most recently, of “Against
the Machine: How The Web Is Reshaping Culture and Commerce–And Why It
Matters.”<http://www.randomhouse.com/catalog/display.pperl/9780385522663.html>
*

Public language in America has always been less constrained than public
rhetoric in other places. But there’s no doubt that, just as styles of dress
have become more casual, language has become either more liberated or
coarser, depending on your perspective. Just five years ago, I probably
would not have been able to say in this newspaper that something “sucks.”

Uttering a taboo word in public is a great hierarchy-buster.

I’m not sure that the Web is the cause, though. It’s true that Internet
anonymity has created a style of expression that is unprecedentedly obscene.
But the Web, with all its leveling and equalizing ambitions, is the product
of ever-expanding democratic forces.

So is vulgarity. Uttering a taboo word in public is a great
hierarchy-buster. It also gives you an extra boost in a society that is
becoming ever more competitive. The word Joe Biden was overheard using to
characterize the outcome of the epic struggle for health care reform was,
after all the anger and acrimony, the winner’s language. It was a power word
meant to triumphantly drown out the failed opposition.

Read more… <javascript:void(0);>

That’s not to say that the growing frequency of public figures using
vulgarity is romantic. It is also the symptom of a general anger and
despair, as well as an expression of contempt for any type of authority,
even the most benign. An imprecation expresses finality, an exasperation
with rational expression, a wish for violent words to become
reality-changing deeds.

In the hands of the powerless, it can be an ominous weapon of almost sacred
power. But when powerful figures like politicians and various types of
celebrities use obscenity in public, you begin to feel that power itself has
become angry and desperate. When our Eisenhowers start to talk like our
Lenny Bruces, it’s time to reclaim expletives in the name of fairness and
decency.
------------------------------

Social Sanctions Do Work
[image: Ilya Somin]

* Ilya Somin <http://mason.gmu.edu/~isomin/> is an associate professor at
George Mason University School of Law. He is co-editor of the Supreme Court
Economic Review<http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/page/scer/toc.html?cookieSet=1>and
blogs at The
Volokh Conspiracy. <http://volokh.com/> *

For generations, moralists have denounced supposed degradation of public
discourse. In the 1950s, critics claimed that innocent children were being
corrupted by Batman comics. Elvis Presley’s music raised similar fears.
[image: Elvis]Associated Press Elvis Presley’s music: was it a bad influence
on language?

Despite constant claims of decline, in some ways discourse norms have
actually become *less* permissive. For example, racist, sexist and
homophobic remarks are far less tolerated today than a generation ago. Even
practitioners of garden-variety obnoxiousness don’t pass unscathed.

People who regularly insult others or use language widely considered to be
inappropriate suffer tremendous damage to their reputation. They have fewer
friends, contacts and business opportunities than they would otherwise. If
they are public figures, they face severe criticism in the media and
elsewhere. When Vice President Cheney and Vice President Biden used
expletives that got caught on tape, they were both widely denounced.

Read more… <javascript:void(0);>

Social sanctions work even in the online blogosphere. Bloggers can and often
do ban commenters whose statements get too nasty. When prominent bloggers
themselves say offensive things, they get denounced by other bloggers eager
to take their competitors down a peg.

The government makes a poor moral arbiter.

Nonetheless, some still argue for government regulation as a solution. Yet
the state makes a poor moral arbiter. Government power is far more likely to
be deployed against politically unpopular speakers than against those who
whose speech is offensive in some objective sense.

Moreover, language is constantly evolving as a result of social and
technological development; consider just the impact of the rise of the
Internet. The cumbersome processes of government are unlikely to be able to
keep up. Finally, if anyone can be trusted to restrict supposedly immoral
speech, it should be those whose own moral rectitude is unimpeachable. Few
if any politicians qualify.
------------------------------

Say It – It’s Cathartic
[image: Timothy Jay]

* Timothy Jay<http://www.mcla.edu/Undergraduate/majors/psychology/timothyjay/>,
a psychology professor at Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts, is the
author of “Cursing in
America”<http://www.amazon.com/Cursing-America-Psycholinguistic-Language-Schoolyards/dp/155619451X>and
“Why
We Curse.”<http://books.google.com/books?id=nCQOpG4ODXIC&dq=why+we+curse&printsec=frontcover&source=bn&hl=en&ei=_9jBS4urI4aBlAeVhaXdBA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4&ved=0CBYQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q&f=false>
*

We now have legal rulings prohibiting sexual harassment, road rage, racial
and gender discrimination, bullying and hate crimes. These did not exist
before.

Attitudes about profanity have swung like a pendulum. Maybe we’re paying for
the ’60s now?

Our speech is sanctioned in the workplace through voicemail, email, and with
video recordings. The F.C.C. has larger fines and a wider net to catch nasty
words in the media. Conservative media groups, a growing trend, now have
electronic networks to voice their attitudes. What you say can and will be
held against you.

On the other end, there are more offensive words on more offensive
television programs than ever before, and music lyrics aren’t getting any
cleaner.

This doesn’t mean the average person is swearing more. But we have recorded
more women swearing in public than before, and more young children using
offensive language and at younger ages than before. By the time they enter
school, most children know the words their parents complain about on
television, though there is no evidence that children are harmed by words on
television.

Read more… <javascript:void(0);>

http://roomfordebate.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/04/12/why-do-educated-people-use-bad-words/



-- 
=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+

Harold F. Schiffman

Professor Emeritus of
Dravidian Linguistics and Culture
Dept. of South Asia Studies
University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, PA 19104-6305

Phone:  (215) 898-7475
Fax:  (215) 573-2138

Email:  haroldfs at gmail.com
http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/

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