Taboo replacements

[Steven A. Gustafson]

Robert Whiting wrote:

> >-Taboo- has a relatively specific meaning in cultural
> >anthropology; does this linguistic process fit that definition?

> The linguistic process is just a prohibition against using a
> certain word.  It may be from reverence (the name of God),
> superstition (hunting, gambling), or disgusting or embarrassing
> (bodily functions) or distressing (death, etc.) connotations.
> Whether these would match the cultural anthropological
> definitions in all cases, I don't know (but I doubt it).
> Linguistic taboo is often a matter of good manners and manners
> change like everything else.

A taboo, generally speaking, reserves or sets aside something for sacred
or special use.  For some taboos, the tabooed item is always forbidden;
in others, it can be made use of at special times or places, but is
forbidden otherwise.  People who obey taboos, obviously, know what they
are; they can give an account of what is forbidden, and usually can tell
you why.

Taboos are necessarily -conscious- processes.  This is why I think
invoking taboo to explain changes in a lexicon is problematic.  Of
course, there are plenty of linguistic taboos in modern English.  For
example, we still know what coffins are, even if folks in the coffin
trade use some other word to refer to their wares.  We all know they're
coffins, though, and are not fooled.

A live taboo does not remove a tabooed word from the lexicon, or render
it obsolete.  People need to know what words they are forbidden to use
if they hope to avoid using them.  Moreover, they will deliberately
continue to use the forbidden words in various social contexts, from
formal ritual to the heat of anger; and the forbidden words will be
understood by their hearers.  If actual replacement has occurred, and
the former word is forgotten, the taboo cannot still be in effect.

There is no problem in applying the anthropological category 'taboo' to
certain rules a language's users make about the appropriate use of its
lexicon.  Those factors may ultimately result in lexical change.  But,
when that change is actually happening, the word 'taboo' seems an
imprecise fit.  Words cannot be removed from the lexicon by taboos, only
by the ghosts of forgotten taboos.

(This is also why I have difficulty explaining the loss of the word,
'hart,' by taboo.  In certain circles it may be considered daring to
call a coffin a coffin.  No such cachet seems to surround the word
'hart,' even if it is a word that gets spoken only in church if it is
spoken at all.)

--
Steven A. Gustafson, attorney at law
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