A look at censorship and swearing

Some of my favourite words are swear words. Cusses, curses, profanity, blasphemy, expletives – whatever you call them, “dirty” words have always and will always be around.

The “F-Word” is considered to be one of the worst, and it also happens to be one of the most versatile words in the English language. It can be used as a verb (active, passive, transitive, or intransitive), noun, adjective, adverb, interjection, or tmesis. This means it can be used in almost any place in a sentence. It dates back to at least 1475 in a coded poem that accused friars of breaking their celibacy vows. Its use has increased over the years, but it is still far from acceptable in “polite company”. For this reason, there are also many “cleaner” replacements for it, including f-bomb, that-four-letter-word, frick, frig, and so on.

As an English and writing graduate, I have a particular affinity for language. For myself, I do not believe in censoring or ignoring certain words because of their negative meanings. I believe that all words have their place in some conversation, even if just in an academic discussion of that word’s implications and history in society.

I find it especially interesting how some words that are considered “bad” today originally had no negative connotations (e.g. sh-t, which was previously a neutral term and originated from words meaning ‘to separate’), and how other words might have a terrible connotation in one part of the world and be common in another (e.g. c–t, which is considered even worse than f–k in North America, but is widely used in Australia). Or consider the French, whose translation of sh-t is ‘merde’, but they also use that word to say good luck.