End the word (was: a word from "Huck Finn")

[Jonathan Lighter]

When I was in 7th grade in NYC (1959-1960) _spaz_ (n.) and _spastic_ (n. &
adj.) were the dismissive male insults of choice, with_fag_ and _faggot_
tied for fourth.

I hadn't heard any of them before. But I hadn't heard "motherfucker" before
either, which was also up there in popularity.

JL

On Sat, Mar 3, 2012 at 3:00 AM, Ben Zimmer <bgzimmer at babel.ling.upenn.edu>wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Ben Zimmer <bgzimmer at BABEL.LING.UPENN.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: End the word (was: a word from "Huck Finn")
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> On Sat, Mar 3, 2012 at 2:34 AM, Michael Newman
> <michael.newman at qc.cuny.edu> wrote:
> >
> > The problem with a campaign to make a word taboo is not being able to
> say it. the difference
> > between retarded and lame, though is that lame is hardly used in its
> original sense in popular
> > usage though probably more than spastic. I was probably in my 20s before
> I realized that
> > spastic referred to cerebral palsy. In any case, any efforts to police
> spazz?
>
> In the UK, if not the US. Here's a Language Log post I wrote on
> "spaz(z)" back in '06:
>
> http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/003020.html
>
> --bgz
>
> --
> Ben Zimmer
> http://benzimmer.com/
>
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> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>



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