[Ads-l] profanity in music lyrics (UNCLASSIFIED)

[Charles C Doyle]

Doesn't the decalogic prohibition of "taking the Lord's name in vain" actually refer not to an idle exclamation like "Goddamn!" but rather to false swearing (upon God's name) in a legalistic sense?

--Charlie

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Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Poster:       "Mullins, Bill CIV (US)" <william.d.mullins18.civ at MAIL.MIL>
Subject:      profanity in music lyrics (UNCLASSIFIED)
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CLASSIFICATION: UNCLASSIFIED

Jesse Sheidlower recently tweeted a link to an analysis of "profanity" in m=
usic lyrics.

https://twitter.com/jessesheidlower/status/679394230679298048

http://lab.musixmatch.com/profanity_genres/

A couple of thoughts:

The authors are using "profanity" as a catch-all for bad words.  I generall=
y think of "profanity" as language involving a religious taboo ("damn" or t=
aking the Lord's name in vain, for example).  Obscenities are those which o=
ffend a sexual taboo (the f-word).  I don't know of a particular noun that =
refers to bad words that offend scatological taboos ("shit", "piss"), or ra=
cial taboos (the N-word), or other miscellaneous bad words (SOB, dumbass, e=
tc.)

The authors of the study identified "bum" (presumably in the British sense =
of ass) as the most common profanity in Folk music, and the third most comm=
on in Country music.  I bet that the vast majority of the usages of this wo=
rk in these genres referred to "someone who is out of work" (bum =3D hobo),=
 or "to bum" as in "to ask for a cigarette or the like".  I wouldn't consid=
er this usage to be profanity.=20

Country's top 3 were ass, shit, and bum -- surprising that neither hell nor=
 damn were at the top.

The authors link to the list of dirty words for which they searched.  It in=
cluded a number of words that may or not be taboo, depending on usage (ball=
, knob, etc.), but don't explain as to how or if they considered context (f=
rom the comments on "bum" above, I'd suspect they did a poor job of it).  A=
nd it included a number of words that I wouldn't consider to be profanity a=
t all (although I would be careful as to how I used them in polite company)=
 such as Viagra, whore, pornography.  And it included "kondum" but not "con=
dom", which is odd.
CLASSIFICATION: UNCLASSIFIED

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