Nine Nasty Words

This originally appeared at The Irresponsible Reader.
—

What's key is that the stock of curses is ever self-refreshing, The fashions change, as always and everywhere, but what persists is taboo itself, a universal of human societies. What is considered taboo itself differs from one epoch to another, but the sheer fact of taboo does not. Language cannot help but reflect something so fundamental to our social consciousness, and thus there will always be words and expressions that are shot out of the right brain rather than gift-wrapped by the left one.

NINE NASTY WORDS

Nine Nasty Words

:

On that matter of evolution, profanity has known three main eras—when the worst you could say was about religion, when the worst you could say was about the body, and when the worst you could say was about groups of people. The accumulation of those taboos is why “just words” like h

, s

, and n

** respectively harbor such sting.
I don't know how accurate that is, but it kind of makes sense—and it works pretty well as a framework for the book, too.

* The book uses the actual words, I wimped out and elided them.

The chapter headings give you a pretty good idea of what the book covers and shows how the framework is used (with the addendum at the end):

1 D

: English's First Bad Words2 What Is It About F

4 A Kick-A** Little Word5 Those Certain Parts.6 Why Do We Call It “The N-Word”?7 The Other F-Word8 Being in Total Control, Honey!9 A M

**

NINE NASTY WORDS

To understand how language changes without allowing a certain space for serendipity is to understand it not at all.

I listened to this on audio, and that has pros and cons. McWhorter has a great voice and it makes it a lot of fun. But the subject matter of linguistics does require a fair bit of visualization to see the progression (at least for me). So I would barely get from “Shit and nice used to be the same word? That's interesting!” before already forgetting the way they changed throughout the years. I'd have probably gotten more out of this long term if I had read it physically, but I certainly enjoyed listening to it.

I enjoyed learning the origins of a lot of these words, and how murky the English language truly is. I also thought it was super fascinating how swears have progressed from “about religion” “about the body” and “about social groups”. I had never really considered “slurs” the same as “swears”. Which makes sense, because I consider myself somebody who swears but not somebody who uses slurs. Although it really puts into perspective how this changes over time. People from a different generation may have felt the same outrage at me saying “Jesus Christ!” as some of us feel about slurs today.

I knocked one star off because McWhorter brings up rabbits, due to them being tangentially related to the word “cunt”, but then drifts off into a random aside about how rabbits are “blank” creatures that don't have any intelligence or spark to them, and “never amount to much of anything”. I've had four rabbits, one of which is absurdly intelligent for an animal with such a small brain, and all of whom were complex, social, intelligent, and loving animals. I imagine McWhorter has experienced rabbits solely in tiny cages with no engagement or socializing. This normally would not be something that bothered me enough to knock a star off a book about linguistics...however, the book is about linguistics, including factually incorrect statements about rabbits for no purpose, and I have no way to express my disappointment to McWhorter himself so...one star less it is. I hope someone informs him of his mistake someday.

But again, very enjoyable read. I certainly recommend it (besides the rabbit slander

I skimmed much of this because it was so chock-filled with details, history, etymology, and anecdote. I knew that I couldn't retain it all, but it's the sort of book that would be fun to come back to now and then or to use in a class (which is how I came to know about it – from a teacher friend). I appreciated the section on the N-word a lot, as well as the attention to how certain words have become less impactful over time. The author spells out the N-word, but also explains why he's made that choice. Throughout, I appreciated the humor and the history even though I breezed through some of the detailed evolution stories.