Swearing -taboo words

Have a read of this fantastic article " Warning: Contains Coarse Language" from the Weekend Australian Magazine june 7-8 2008. It is very interesting and is a great background for talking to people about words that we consider ( or don't consider) offensive. Below are 2 quotes from the article.

"Our preoccupation with these taboos produces a vast array of alternative words – Allan and Burridge estimate English has 1000 expressions for penis, 1200 for vagina, 800 for copulation and 2000 for wanton woman. “When people say they don’t swear, of course they swear,” says Burridge. “They use remodelled swear words. Golly, gosh, heck. They’re remodelled from something stronger.”

"Disguising sexual words has also been practised for a long time. There’s effing (1929) and frigging (1785) for f..k; shucks (1847) and shoot (1934) for shit – a word that dates back at least 1000 years. There’s the quaint firkytoodle for foreplay. Then there is rhyming slang, some of which has been shortened so it loses any obvious association. A kick in the Khyber (Pass) is probably well known still, but who would remember that to be called a berk was originally to be called the c-word (from Berkeley Hunt, an English country hunt)? “Puck you,” was Jonah’s euphemism in the ABC’s Summer Heights High. Pinker argues there’s an ancient reflex to swear. It can be deeply satisfying, he says, and may go back to an old mammalian “rage reflex”. It’s like a good howl. As well, he says we know that to use swear words gets attention, because they create an emotional response in the listener. The reason is that we appear to store swear words in a part of the brain separate to other speech, or at least to access them differently. Burridge says taboo words go with a red-flag to the limbic part of the brain, more attuned to emotions than analytical thinking. And our bodies react to them in a very different way than to other language. Our brains more readily remember them and are distracted by them, and our skin goose-pimples on hearing them. “Forbidden words are more arousing, more shocking, more memorable and more evocative than all other language stimuli,” Burridge says. "

This is so pertinant in the sexual health training that I do with workers AND young people as it takes sooo long to desinsitise ourselves enough to talk openly about sexual health issues.