Diploma Thesis

MASARYK UNIVERSITY BRNO FACULTY OF EDUCATION DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE

USAGE AND ORIGIN OF EXPLETIVES IN BRITISH ENGLISH DIPLOMA THESIS

BRNO 2006

SUPERVISED BY:

WRITTEN BY:

ANDREW PHILIP OAKLAND OAKLAND, AKLAND, M.A.

HANA ČECHOVÁ

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I should like to thank to Mr. Andrew Philip Oakland, M.A. for his academic guidance and precious advice he provided me with and thus helped to accomplish the following thesis. I would also like to thank to Peter Martin Crossley for all his patience and kind help.

BRNO, 20th APRIL 2006

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I should like to thank to Mr. Andrew Philip Oakland, M.A. for his academic guidance and precious advice he provided me with and thus helped to accomplish the following thesis. I would also like to thank to Peter Martin Crossley for all his patience and kind help.

BRNO, 20th APRIL 2006

DECLARATION

I hereby declare that I have worked on this undergraduate diploma thesis on my own and that I have used only the sources listed in the bibliography. I also give consent to deposit this thesis t hesis at Masaryk University in the library or the Informational system of the Faculty of Education and to be made available for study purposes.

______________________ ________________________ __ Hana ČECHOVÁ

CONTENTS

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CONTENTS 1. INTRODUCTION

............................................................................6

2. WHAT ARE EXPLETIVES?

................................................................ 9

2.1

EXPLETIVES IN GRAMMAR

2.2

EXPLETIVES AS A PART OF SOCIO-LINGUISTICS

3. WHY DO PEOPLE USE EXPLETIVES?

................................................12

3.1

WHY DO WE SWEAR?

3.2

IS SWEARING A SIGN OF A WEAK MIND?

4. SWEARING IN HISTORICAL PERIODS 4.1

OLD ENGLISH

4.2

MIDDLE ENGLISH

4.3

THE REFORMATION

4.4

THE RENAISSANCE

4.5

MODERN PERIOD

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4.5.1

PYGMALION (1914)

4.5.2

LADY CHATTERLEY´S LOVER (1928, 1960)

4.5.3

OTHER INCIDENTS (1965-2004)

5. SEMANTIC CATEGORIES AND SPEAKERS PREFERENCES ..................56 5.1

HEAVEN AND HELL

5.2

SEX/ BODY AND ITS FUNCTIONS

6. ETYMOLOGY OF SELECTED WORDS ..............................................63 6.1

THE F-WORD

6.2

THE C- WORD

7. BODY LANGUAGE

........................................................................67

8. RHYMING SLANG ...........................................................................71 9. RESEARCH

.................................................................................73

10. CONCLUSION

...............................................................................75

11. SUMMARY/ RESUMÉ

..................................................................77

11.1 IN ENGLISH 11.2 IN CZECH 11. BIBLIOGRAPHY 12. APPENDICES

............................................................................ 79 .................................................................................81

APPENDIX 1-2

RESEARCH PARTICIPANTS CHARTS

APPENDIX 3 –7

MALE PARTICIPANTS TABLES

APPENDIX 8 –12 FEMALE PARTICIPANTS TABLES APPENDIX 13

RESEARCH COMMENT

APPENDIX 14

SEMANTIC CATEGORIES AND PREFERENCES

APPENDIX 15

QUESTIONNAIRE

INTRODUCTION

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1. INTRODUCTION

Expletives, taboo words, bad language, swear words - we all know these expressions. Some of us use them freely, some of us do not dare say them, and others tend to faint at the slightest act of profanity while most of us pretend not to know and not to use them. This work attempts to present the reader with a general outline concerning the usage of English expletives, their etymology and preferences that native speakers of British English make while, if in fact, they use expletives. I am perfectly aware of how delicate the selected topic is, as bad language or taboo words – this is how we often refer to expletives –

would, by great efforts of many, be banned from the English language corpus at once (see Chapter 4 – Swearing in historical periods). On the other hand, the actual usage of such disputable terminology by broad range of speakers proves expletives to be active and I dare say flourishing part of the language. Even though having been handled seriously as a matter of socio-linguistic study it still brings out hesitancy whether to be displayed in an open and public way. As was already mentioned, expletives are widely used by native speakers of a various background, education, faith, social status and gender. The question remains why profanity thrives in some places and is hardly heard in others. This ambivalent attitude towards the foul

INTRODUCTION

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language will be a subject matter of this thesis, based on used literature, London-Lund Corpus, BBC research Delete Expletives? (2000) and my own research carried out in London (during summers 2004 and 2005. See Chapter 9 and Appendices 3-13). In the following chapters I would like to acquaint the reader with etymologies of the most frequently used English expletives. As many of them are taboo words, I am going to list English euphemisms that are used to avoid speaking the words. Not much to our surprise many of the words originate in languages other than Old English or are regarded to be of an uncertain origin. On the other hand many of them entered other languages mainly via media such as the Internet, literature and last but not least – via film. I will also discuss those semantic fields or categories in which expletives tend to occur. Regarded as blasphemy are those expressions found in Heaven and Hell category, such as Gosh, Cor, blimey etc., usually preferred by female speakers – according to London-Lund Corpus. Another semantic field, listed under Sex/Body functions, predominantly used by male English speakers, deals with expletives expressing functions of human body by replacing anatomic and biological terms by those, say, incendiary ones. Grammatical categories in which expletives appear are also part of this work, illustrating morphological and syntactical forms and word

INTRODUCTION

8

formations. Syntactically, a word can, for example, make an appearance in a sentence as a noun, an adjective, a verb, an adverb or most commonly an interjection, and this with or without changing its morphological form. Hopefully, this thesis will not be seen as propaganda for swearing but as an academic piece of writing regarding expletives as one of many aspects comprising the English language as a whole. Words viewed as especially offensive and vulgar are not spelled in full unless they are quotations and I inclined to use the most common form of showing expletives in the text which is in the asterisk form where an initial letter is given and so is the suffix in cases of possible confusion as to which word is actually hidden behind the signs or the initial letter plus hyphen combination (F *** or F-word). Also finding a decent and reliable linguistic source for this rather unusual topic should be taken into account. There are many articles, books and links concerning bad language but few of sufficiently scientific and academic nature.

WHAT ARE EXPLETIVES?

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2. WHAT ARE EXPLETIVES? There are two linguistic phenomena in English language that are referred to as expletives – first of them being grammatical and the second is a term of socio-linguistics. 2.1 EXPLETIVES IN GRAMMAR The first usage of this term is the one for syntactic filler. The position of the filler may be taken up by syllables, words or phrases and by filling the sentence it adds nothing to its meaning. A typical example is a dummy subject or preparatory – it - as shown in: “It was clear, that she had made up her mind about what to do with her life.”

Preparatory it - occupies the place of the subject here and does not affect the meaning of what is said in the following clause. The entry is of Latin origin, from the word explētīvus 1- to fill out. However, expletives are more common in the language of poetry where they either

1 From

Late Latin explētīvus, serving to fill out, from Latin explētus, past participle of explēre , to fill out : ex-, ex- + plēre, to fill. Source: CUSS CONTROL ACADEMY, [online] 20.2.2006

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WHAT ARE EXPLETIVES? fill the meter or the sentence for flavour as in: “It takes a brave man to do such a thing.”

2.2

EXPLETIVES AS A PART OF SOCIO-LINGUISTICS

So-called expletive attributive, the second usage of the above mentioned term, is used in linguistics, closely socio-linguistics, to describe syntactic filler with an attributive meaning and frequently carrying a negative connotation. In this area we can find words such as bloody, damn, f *** ing, etc.

Within a sentence structure attributive expletive takes up a position of a noun, an adjective, a verb, an adverb and an interjection. An expletive in a place of - a noun:

He is an old git, isn´ t he?

- an adjective:

You bloody fools!

- a verb:

Stop f *** in´ round, would ya?!

- an adverb:

It was bloody marvellous!

- an interjection: Oh Lord! Not her again! Outside linguistics this term represents any bad language or profanity used meaningfully or without any particular meaning to add into the context. Famous quote including the term expletive – Expletive

WHAT ARE EXPLETIVES?

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deleted – appeared for example in Watergate 2 tape transcripts to prevent

the committee from being shocked by these terms apparently having been used by the speakers on the tapes, including the president Nixon himself. There are other, though, more common expressions generally referring to English expletives such as: bad language, profanity, swearwords, cursing, cussing, foul language, flyting, etc. Preceding entries are defined in the subsequent chapter.

2

The Watergate Scandal (1972–1974) was an American political scandal and constitutional crisis that led to the resignation of President Richard Nixon. Wikipedia [online] < http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watergate_scandal> 15.3.2006

WHY DO PEOPLE USE EXPLETIVES?

3. WHY DO PEOPLE USE EXPLETIVES? The phrase “to use expletives” actually means “to swear”. But before I approach a polemic of why people swear, the term swearing itself should be explained beforehand. Concise Oxford Dictionary for example provides a following definition of swearing and related expressions: swear3 – 2 use offensive language, especially to express anger. profanity4 - profane language or behaviour profane – (of language) blasphemous or obscene blasphemy5 - profane or sacrilegious talk about God or sacred things taboo6 – (as in taboo words) – prohibited or restricted by social custom When attempting to create a more complex definition of swearing compelling some parts of those mentioned above we might come to a definition not dissimilar to one offered by Hughes 7: “…..swearing shows a curious convergence of the high and the low, the sacred and the 3

Concise Oxford Dictionary. 10th Edition. OUP, 2001. p.1446. ISBN 0-19-860438-6.

4


5


6


7

HUGHES, G. Swearing. Penguin Books Ltd, 1998. p.4-5. ISBN 0-14-026707-7

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profane. From the high dualistic perspective it is language in its most highly charged state, infused with a religious force recognizable in the remote modes of the spell, the charm and the curse, forms seeking to invoke a higher power to change the world, or support the truthfulness of a claim. …… However, a major shift has occurred in comparatively recent times in that a quite different emphasis has become dominant. The lower physical faculties of copulation, defecation and urination have come very much to the force as referents in swearing.”

It can be clearly deduced from the definition given above that swearing has “evolved” and changed throughout particular periods of time, from blasphemy being the most insulting and offensive, even deadly in the past, to forms mainly referring to bodily functions which have become the most frequent features of current foul language. It will be dealt with this kind of division later on in Chapters 4 and 5. For now the matter of our interest be the psychological reasons and explanations for swearing, if there, of course, are any.


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3.1 WHY DO WE SWEAR Common definitions present us with following justifications for using expletives: Used in highly emotional states, or highly charged situations, expressing strong feelings, both positive or negative ones. - Positive usage to show liking: “ It was a bloody good game!” - Negative usage to show dislike: “ She was absobloodylutely terrified!”

As we can see, taboo words do not accompany speakers only in negative and unpleasant situations. Do expletives make up for lack of adequate vocabulary to enable the speakers to express themselves accordingly? Certainly there are many common and generally approved expressions to retain the same meaning, so what is it that makes these disputable words so unique and seemingly fitted? History of mankind provides us with few neat examples of anything that had become banished or illegal and popular or demanded at that very moment. So it might be for the flavour (or in our times an aftertaste more so) of illegality and even mysticism that makes expletives carry on living in English speakers and of course speakers of other language as well. I am not, by any means, implying that speakers of English are more profane and vulgar than any other nation in the world. It is its current function as a widely used Lingua Franca that puts its expletives more on display. And being in the spotlight and thus dealt with openly, expletives of


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English tend to enter other languages, both related and unrelated, which, in the fact, raises eyebrows of many purists and linguists worldwide.

3.2

IS USING EXPLETIVES A SIGN OF A WEAK MIND?

Assuredly, the fact that expletives are mostly short, one- or twosyllabic words (especially those of Germanic origin such as f ***, sod and others) makes them naturally available – so to speak. Can existence or non-existence of expletives in our active vocabulary actually tell us anything about our mental abilities, though? In the past, expletives were generally thought suitable only for people of humble origin, lower classes and beggars. Rude words were definitely not suited for young ladies and masters of good manners and reputation. At those times, social status was an indication of mental and moral qualities. A classical example for many, Geoffrey Chaucer in his masterpiece Canterbury tales8 (15th century) puts expletives mostly in mouths of

8

Chaucer,G. Canterbury Tales. Penguin Books Ltd., 1996. ISBN 0140622071


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those who represent lower gentry, thus ordinary people, such as the Pardoner or the Wife of Bath. Example provided: Pardoner´s Tale: (c. f. verse 708-9) 9 “Any many a grisly ooth thanne han they sworn And Cristes blessed body they al torente.”

His words could be vaguely translated as: And by many grisly oaths they tore Christ ´s holy body into pieces. In other words Chaucer despises swearing but as a man of letters he cannot deny its existence. On the other hand, as though Chaucer himself felt a little embarrassed about using such language he apologizes for that matter in the Prologue to Canterbury tales (verses 725-42): 725: But first I pray yow, of youre curteisye, 726: That ye n' arette it nat my vileynye, 727: Thogh that I pleynly speke in this mateere, 728: To telle yow hir wordes and hir cheere, 729: Ne thogh I speke hir wordes proprely. 730: For this ye knowen al so wel as I, 731: Whoso shal telle a tale after a man, 732: He moot reherce as ny as evere he kan

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Chaucer,G. Canterbury Tales. Penguin Books Ltd., 1996. ISBN 0140622071


733: Everich a word, if it be in his charge, 734: Al speke he never so rudeliche and large, 735: Or ellis he moot telle his tale untrewe, 736: Or feyne thyng, or fynde wordes newe. 737: He may nat spare, althogh he were his brother; 738: He moot as wel seye o word as another. 739: Crist spak hymself ful brode in hooly writ, 740: And wel ye woot no vileynye is it. 741: Eek plato seith, whoso that kan hym rede, 742: The wordes moote be cosyn to the dede. I would like to explain his words as: 725: But first I pray for your courtesy That you will not consider me vulgar Even though I speak plainly about this matter here To retail their words and deeds I do not use their exact words But you know as well as me That when telling a story other man had told I must be as truthful as I can Even the last word if I remember it No matter how rude or unfit it was …………………………………………..

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Christ spoke broadly himself in Holly Writ (the Bible) And you know that there is nothing wrong with it Also Plato says to those who can read The word must be a cousin of a deed.

Chaucer is aware of the fact that to purify language by pretending such expressions do not exist would be untrue. His aim is to depict the existing society in its real colours without tinting it pink. People are what they are and Chaucer respects them and asks for the same attitude from his readers. Also the way his characters speak reflects the way they live and behave. Word is a cousin of a deed. Shall we accept his claim that swearing is in our true nature? Are we as a race naturally rude? The truth be told, words themselves cannot cause any offence because they are only referents. The deeds, actions or facts they refer to, together with our common, shared knowledge of things being referred to, is what makes them so incendiary and disputable. By condemning expletives we basically condemn actions hidden behind them. Such expressions of personal disapproval aggravate the actual impact on our listener. Had they not known what the word stands for, they could hardly find them offensive or irritating. My own research (cf. Chapter 9) shows that there is a significant difference in our rate of tolerance towards expletives in particular situations. Interviewees unanimously reported that using expletives to


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release tension, express fury and personal discomfort is acceptable, whereas using them to demonstrate the real nature of these items – which is to mock, to insult, to humiliate, to dismay, to savage, to scorn or to disrespect others - is socially and morally wrong. Another interesting fact resulting from my research shows that unlike in past times when swearing was ascribed to uneducated people many of them wrongly accused of being unintelligent (we know that intelligence comprises of more – e.g. social and emotional intelligencethan just knowledge gained through education itself) in our times educated people tend to swear more then those with low or no education whatsoever (cf. Chapter 9) denying the generally spread and approved opinion among many that only “weak minds” lack vocabulary to express themselves adequately. To conclude, people of different classes, status and education use expletives in different emotional states. This sort of behaviour is generally more or less acceptable as long as their “surge” is not directed towards another person and does not offend.

SWEARING IN HISTORICAL PERIODS

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4. SWEARING IN HISTORICAL PERIODS

The human race has been evolving and so has been its mean of communication - the language and its constituents including swearing. Not only the societal attitudes towards swearing but also the actual linguistic material itself changed. Hughes10 claims that swearing now encompasses many different forms and in the past times people used to swear by , whereas nowadays they mostly swear at - meaning of which I

would like to exemplify by providing phrases containing a verb to swear and a preposition:

- swear by sth or sb: to show that what/who we swear by is of high value to us and thus that our words are true “He swore by his mother´s life.”

- swear that: something is so “He swore that he was innocent.”

- swear to do sth: means to promise to do sth “He swore to love her till the end of his life.”

10

HUGHES, G. Swearing. Penguin Books Ltd, 1998. p.4. ISBN 0-14-026707-7


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- swear sb in/ into sth: to make them promise to do sth “The president was sworn into office.”

- swear on sth: similar to swear by “Witnesses swore on the Bible to tell the truth, nothing but the truth.”

- swear at sb or sth: to use offensive and rude language in order to hurt or insult sb or to show anger and exasperation “He was often heard swearing at the government.”

4.1

SWEARING IN OLD ENGLISH By the term Old English is generally understood a period of

Anglo-Saxon English which could be framed between 600 -1200 AD ending the era of Roman Britain. Angles, Saxons, Frisians and Jutes came from the area of today Germany and during the 5th and 6th century these Germanic tribes settled on what is known to us now as the British Isles. A term related to our matter of interest - curse - originates in this period as an Anglo-Saxon entry “curs” in the meaning of “imprecatory prayer or malediction”.11 At present “to curse” is akin to “to swear” in having both

11

Panikon [online] < http://www.panikon.com/phurba/articles/lang/curse.html> 11.1.2006


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meanings: to swear an oath or to use foul language. By tracing either of these meanings in OE literature I would like to emphasize their primary meaning of maledictions12 interpreted as speaking evil of. The most prominent literary achievements of Old English Era are undoubtedly a heroic poem Beowulf, and lyrical elegies the Wanderer and the Seafarer preserved in a manuscript named Cotton Vitellius A.XV.

For example in Beowulf epos, written approximately in the 10 th century depicting a story of a Scandinavian warrior of the 6th century AD, the term "swear" would hardly interest us here, were it not used in the sense of curse or maleficiate here. Following the Seamus Heaney translation13, we read of Grendel that "He had conjured the harm from the cutting edge of every weapon." The operative word of the text (line 804, translated as "conjured" by Heaney) is "forsworen," which could be glossed with "forswerian - to rob of power by a spell " and thus only a step to “forsworen” – to commit perjury as in to “forswear“ that is a common entry in modern English. Clearly deduced swearing or originally Anglo-Saxon “sweran” in OE period retains its original connotation of calling upon magic powers of any kind, either pagan or later Christian, in order to make a promise or on oath – to swear by - rather than causing an insult - to swear at.

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13


HEANEY, S. Beowulf. W W Norton & Co Inc, 2001.ISBN 0393320979.


As for the modern swearwords, some of the most frequent ones came to existence in Anglo-Saxon times. However, not all four-letter words are exclusively of Anglo-Saxon origin, Hughes claims.14 On etymological and historical basis it proves to be true only for the main anal terms: (note an abbreviation “c.” stands for “circa” – around, around the year of the earliest recorded instances): - shit c.1000 - an excrement, or faeces - turd c.1000 - a synonym word to “a shit” - arse c.1000 – a human bottom - fart c.1200 – to break wind Hughes marks some of the other four-letter expressions as ones of uncertain origin15: - F-word c.1503 – sexual intercourse - C-word c.1203 – female sexual organs - twat - female sexual organs – no first official record - bum – bottom – no first official record - hore – a whore – a prostitute – no official record - crap – c.1490 -an excrement –residue from renderings, dregs of beer or ale, ME crappe from Latin crappa meaning “chaff” 14


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Another fact worth pointing out is a legal punishment for swearing. The Anglo-Saxon law, claimed to be very rigorous when dealing with swearing, clearly states that: “If anyone in another´s house calls a man a perjurer or shamefully accosts him with insulting words, he is to pay a shilling to him who owns the house, and six shilling to him whom he spoke that word, and to pay twelve shillings to the King. (Laws of Hlothhere and Eadric, kings of Kent,

673-85?) II.16 An infamous collision between Christianity, allegedly brought to England in the 6th century AD by a monk St. Augustine, and old Germanic tradition of worshiping pagan gods could be seen in many literary pieces of evidence, e.g. in already mentioned Beowulf. A story of a pagan warrior even resorting to devil worship (line 175-80) when unable to defeat a monster Grendel seen from the perspective of a likely Christian narrator hundreds of years later is a typical example of a strange co-existence of two dissimilar faiths. And so are the laws. In Alfred´s Laws (900 AD) swearing is constrained by:

“Do not swear by heathen gods”

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Incidentally this comes some 300 years after peoples of England were officially converted into Christians. Though Anglo-Saxon era was undoubtedly full of contradictions and conflicts, there were a few phenomena worth respecting – whether it was out of duty imposed by the strict laws or morality forced by the Church. And these much-prized virtues are: recognizing a vital, almost sacred, link between words and deeds and being cautious before venting feelings or emotions in an unacceptable way. An instance being a formula often repeated in the Wanderer: “A wise man must be patient, not over-passionate, nor overhasty of speech.” (verse 65)18

4.2

SWEARING IN MIDDLE ENGLISH

“The great force behind most medieval swearing was Christianity. …An astounding volume of religious asseveration, ejaculation, blasphemy, anathema and cursing, both personal and institutional, fraudulent and genuine, poured forth in the course of Middle Ages. The word of God, so signally absent from the older heroic

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asseverations, was used and abused, elevated, debased and distorted as never before. The sacred was made profane….”

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The Middle Ages comprise the period from 1200 to 1500 AD approximately, beginning by the Norman Conquest of England in 1066 by Duke William II of Normandy, on the basis of which, he became later called William the Conqueror. This brought significant changes into the society with Normans becoming the ruling class of England and French becoming the language of the court. As the above mentioned quote suggests, blasphemy – language showing low or no respect for God or religion, represents the most serious and aggravating form of foul language however bizarre and grotesque it may seem. Our modern genital, incestuous and copulatory swearing would very probably cause less agony in Middle Ages whereas religious swearing had a much greater impact on medieval people than it would have or has on us. So-called sexual swearing is practically non existent in Chaucer as Hughes20 states. The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer, a 14 th century collection of poems and prose, provides us with a genuine social and

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linguistic sample. For that reason it has been a matter of study for many linguists for its vernacular heritage. Chaucer invented a frame story of a pilgrimage to Sir Thomas Beckett´s shrine at Canterbury Cathedral. A current AngloNorman society is depicted via various literary genres –fabliaux, fable, romance, sermon - by a member of each class and thus a language register and narrative style of each pilgrim varies from the rest of the company. As was already mentioned sexual swearing does not appear in Canterbury tales even though swear words in this era are abundant, as we shall see a little later. On the other hand, there are numerous instances of religious swearing or blasphemy despite the fact that pilgrims are devout Christians and thus obeying the Ten Commandments, especially a commandment no.3 which says:

"Thou shall not swear falsely by the name of the Lord...".

Taking the name of the God in vain is perceived as a sin in the Middle Aged society nevertheless Chaucer´s characters swear indiscriminately. They provide the whole gamut of oaths and religious abuse. Several quotes to exemplify the above claimed: 21

21

Boise State University [online] 12.1.2006


Lawyer´s Tale: ……. And all this voice said truth, as God is true... ………Unto the Cross of Jesus thus said she: "O bright, O blessed Altar of my choice, Red with the Lamb's blood full of all pity…

………..

Fie, mannish women! Nay, by God, I lie!

………..O Lady bright, to Whom affliction cries, Thou glory of womanhood, O Thou fair May.

The Friar´s Tale: …….Without an order, and an ignorant man, Yet would he summon, on pain of Christ's curse …….In God's name," said this yeoman then, "dear brother. …….Many thanks," said this summoner, "by my faith!" And they struck hands and made their solemn oath To be sworn brothers till their dying day. ….…"Alas!" cried she, "God knows I have no guilt!"

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……."Twelvepence!" cried she, "Our Lady Holy Mary So truly keep me out of care and sin,

The Second Nun´s Tale: ……Some teardrops from his two eyes he let fallAlmighty Lord, O Jesus Christ," said he, …….."O Christ, God's Son, Whose substance is the same, Thou'rt very God, and blessed be Thy name, Who hast so good a servant Thee to serve; This with one voice we say, nor will we swerve."

Without any exaggeration we could find many other numerous examples of how popular swearing was in Chaucer´s time. There were other popular blasphemic invocations of God, his son Jesus Christ, Christ´s blood, body and Crucifixion, and Mary, Mother of Jesus: - Holy Mother Mary! - Our Lady! - By God that sits above! - By Goddes Corpus! Etc.

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Personalized and sexual swearing makes its appearance in the language corpus as well. Areas or personal referents22 such as age (e.g. Old! ), status (e.g. Lousy! ), intelligence or unintelligence (e.g. Fool! ) came

into a centre of attention even though they are utterly secular. Some Anglo-Saxon words deteriorated in meaning and became to be used as terms for personal abuse or opprobrium – severe criticism. Hughes23 lists several of these opprobrious words which all gained its negative connotation by 15th century: wretch, churl, knave, villein, beggar, rascal, scullion. I further illustrate the semantic shift in meaning from Anglo-Saxon (A-S) to the Middle English (ME) usage in some of these words:24 - wretch - A-S “wrecca ” – an exile -ME - a wretch – an unpleasant person - wretched - unpleasant and extremely annoying

- churl - A-S “ceorl ” – a man, but also a prince, a hero – ME - a churl - a peasant, a miser

- knave knave – A-S “cnapa ” or “ cnafa ” – a male child, male servant - ME – a knave – a dishonest and immoral person 22


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note: definitions partly taken from the Oxford Concise Dictionary


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- villain – A-S “villanus ” – a servant in a villa - ME – a villan – an evil person

- wicked – A-S “ wicca ” – a witch - ME - wicked- evil or morally wrong

- rascal – A-S “ rascaille ” – a noisy group of people - ME – a rascal – mischievous person or a child - a dishonest man The changes described above could also serve as an outline of A-S versus Norman relationship when the ruling class was corrupting a language of those inferior to them as a mean of demonstrating power over them.

The efflorescence of swearing at that time brought about once again a strong legal opposition. In ME it consisted of two possible forms. Form one being a judicial punishment while form two being an ecclesiastical denunciation – public criticism. If you happen to swear within the precinct –area - of the royal residence then the Norman law obliges you to pay: 40 shillings when a duke 20 shillings when a lord 10 shillings a squire


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3 shillings a yeoman whipping for a page

A more drastic opinion on what to do with loose tongues (c.1270): “ Swearers should be branded (marked) upon the face with a hot iron for a perpetual memorial of their crime, and later on, indeed, ordained that they should be set in a public place in the high stocks….” 25

4.3

SWEARING IN THE REFORMATION The reformation, or the Protestant Reformation, was a

European movement which emerged in the 16th century, a Tudor or Humanist Era, as a series of attempts to reform the strict and some thought obsolete doctrines and practices of the Roman Catholic Church. In England it resulted in the establishment of the Church of England with the Tudor monarch Henry VIII as its head. The Church of England was separate from and independent of Rome. The official separation was accomplished in 1534 by passing the Act of Supremacy. Reformists from all over Europe such as Martin Luther, John Wycliff, Erasmus Roterodamus, John Hus and others triggered the 16th century reformation. Their common ground was a redefinition of God 25

MONTAGU, A. The Anatomy of Swearing . Macmillan, 1973. p.111. ISBN 0812217640.


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and religious authority as such and a requirement to make religion more emotional and fervent. Hence the ideology of Humanism and Devotionalism - God´s will cannot be changed. The puritan ideology, however, and the attitude of the king regarding swearing was a little ambiguous to say the least. Ryrie 26 says on this subject matter: “Given Henry VIII´s fondness for imposing oaths on his subject, this was controversial enough. ….Some compared oaths to homicide. Magistrate might lawfully require oaths but only from the same God- given authority which permits magistrates lawfully to kill and to require others to do so. Swearing is no more permitted for the private citizen than murder.”

Reformation brought about a whole sectarian boom. Later on for example, the Puritan movement emerged during the reign of the Queen Elizabeth (1558-1603) and there were puritans willing to risk their own life for the sake of their belief, states Erroll Hulse:27 “Almost all the Puritans preached consecutive expository sermons and so covered every subject in the Bible. But they were prepared to break with this method whenever it was necessary. A town was invaded

26

RYRIE, A. The Gospel and Henry VIII: Evangelicals in the Early English Reformation, CUP,

2003.p.77 ISBN: 0521823439

27

Fire and Ice, Puritan and reformed writing

[online] 11.10.2005


34

by …. soldiers. These soldiers behaved very badly. Part of their bad behaviour was swearing and cursing. The minister of that town was a Puritan by name Robert Harris. He preached a sermon on James 5:12: Above all, my brothers, do not swear - not by heaven or by earth or by anything else. Let your Yes be Yes, and your No, No, and you will not be condemned. This was so effective and so convicted the uncouth soldiers that they threatened to shoot Harris if he preached from that text again. Fearlessly the next Sunday he announced as his text James 5:12 and began to expound! He saw one of the soldiers preparing his gun ready to shoot him. But the soldier was restrained and did not have the courage to shoot the preacher. The belief in following biblical ethics in all matters cost the Puritans very dearly. In the worship of God they were not prepared to compromise by submitting to rules made by men or formed by tradition.“

Also Christian was longer a synonym for a brother in faith or a fellow. Followers of Roman – Catholic Church became rivals and even enemies. The hatred generated a vocabulary connected with Christianity for religious abuse. John Bale, a Bishop of Ossory called his Catholic opponents:


“…..fylthie whoremongers, murtheres, thieves, raveners, idolatours, lyars, dogges, swyne…. and very devils incarnate .”28

Compared to a Catholic point of view: “Whereas Christian attitude towards other religions was uncomplicatedly chauvinistic (believing that their religion is better than others) – calling their adherents simply heathens, pagans.” 29

According to Hughes30 we could divide these old – new abusive anti – Catholic expressions into following categories: - earlier xenophobic terms: - a saracen – formal meaning an Arab - a Mohammedan – formal meaning of a muslim - iconographic terms: - idol dol - image/picture - saint

28

BENNET, H.S. English Books and Readers. CUP, 1952. p.73. ISBN 0521379911

29


30

HUGHES, G. Swearing. Penguin Books Ltd, 1998. p.92 -94. ISBN 0-14-026707-7

35


36

As this might be confusing for some, I will demonstrate on a quote: “One Rood (cross) with Marie and John and the rest of such idolles was burnt,” 31 is what we learnt in an inventory of destruction when

iconoclastic frenzy seized England and monasteries were being dissolved during 1530s and 1540s under Henry VIII. - terms relating to the Pope and Rome: - papist/ popish/ popery/ papistical/papistic papistical /papistic - Romish - Pope Pope-holy – meaning hypocritical - popeing – soliciting money - terms of demonology and animals - antichrist - devil An interesting fact is that terms for minor religious sects such as Quakers, Shakers, Presbyterians, Methodists, Non-conformists used neutrally today originated as words of an ironic and abusive character at the time.

31



37

I am not implying that only religious profanities flourished in this period. Some completely secular swearwords occurred as well: - merkin (c.1535) – female pudendum (genitals) - bugger (c.1555) – a sodomite - former meaning a heretic “A bugger” used to denote a person of a different opinion against the principles of a particular religion – “a heretic”. In the Tudor era, however, its meaning changed to “a sodomite”, or a person practising bestiality and it was at that time when a Buggery Act32 was adopted in 1533. Until this point sex crimes such as a rape or adultery were ignored by the codes. If caught when practising any of the sexually deviant forms, the person could be lawfully hanged. The penalty was not finally lifted until 1861.

4.4

SWEARING IN THE RENAISSANCE

The English Renaissance dates back to the early 16 th till the early 17th century AD unlike in the rest of the Europe where this cultural and artistic movement predates. It is sometimes referred to as “the 32

Wikipedia, [online] < http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buggery_Act_1533> 15.2.2006


38

Elizabethan Era” or “the Age of Shakespeare”. An era of great names poets such as John Milton, Edmund Spencer, philosophers Sir Thomas More, Sir Francis Bacon and last but not least the playwrights Christopher Marlowe, Ben Jonson and William Shakespeare. The Renaissance marks the end of the Tudor dynasty and witnesses a succession of the Stuart dynasty. Queen Elizabeth I. famous for her patronage and support for the theatre houses deserves a major credit for the fundamental language advancement, going hand in hand with an increase of profanities. Elizabeth herself was known as “no stranger to a “good” mouth-filling oath.” 33 “A shocking practice seems to have been rendered fashionable by the Queen….for it is said that she never spared an oath in public speech or in private conversation when she thought it added energy to either.” 34

Queen´s penchant for swearing was thus in a sharp contrast with restraints her government was attempting to impose. In 1574 an institution called Master of Revels – a name contradictory to its role – to censor all the plays prior to the public viewing. Any profanity or state insults were banished from staging.

33


34



Hughes35 explains that it was only in James´ reign when the “Act to Restraine Abuses of Players ” finally passed through both the Houses

in 1606. Offence of any kind would cost the company “tenne pounds”, a fine big enough to make the company go bankrupt. This provoked a wave of exuberant creativity in playwrights. So called “minced oath” , as Oxford English Dictionary refers to them, came to existence to circumvent the censorship. Following examples are listed by Hughes:36 - ´sblood – 1598 Shakespeare, Henry IV., - God ´s blood - ´slid

- 1598 Shakespeare, Merry Wives – God´s Eyelid

- ´slife

- God´s life

- ´sfoot - God´s foot - zounds/zoons/zauns – God´s wounds And the most peculiar one: - ´slidikins – God´s little eyelids The subsequent page serves as an instance of an extraordinary and a very unusual way to offend: 37 - you venomed, crook-pated puttock 35


36


37

Sam I am [online] 1.9.2005

39


- you mewling, swag-bellied codpiece - you roguish, tickle-brained lout - you goatish, idle-headed dewberry - you paunchy, milk-livered strumpet - you puking, urchin-snouted measle - you surly, beetle-headed coxcomb - you loggerheaded, rump-fed pumpion - you clouted, common-kissing giglet - you currish, knotty-pated minnow - you puny, dismal-dreaming flax-wench - you roguish, half-faced horn-beast - you jarring, hell-hated hugger-mugger - you wayward, fen-sucked flax-wench - you infectious, beef-witted haggard - you beslubbering, elf-skinned gudgeon - you cockered, plume-plucked canker-blossom - you reeky, boil-brained flap-dragon - you droning, spur-galled dewberry - you warped, dismal-dreaming wagtail - you venomed, knotty-pated maggot-pie

40


It is not the words themselves but the peculiar combination of rather unpleasant and unconventional images that creates the final insulting effect and at the same times emphasizes an enormous creativity and fantasy used to offend without using expletives at all. Elizabethan prominent dramatist William Shakespeare was a master in disguising expletives either by using other languages, mostly French and Latin, or ever so well by using puns, euphemisms and coded evasions. Of course it is impossible to demonstrate Shakespeare´ s talent in full but let us study some of his pieces: - Hamlet: Hamlet Hamlet: Lady, shall I lie in your lap: Ophelia: No, my lord. Hamlet: I mean, my head upon your lap? Ophelia: Ay, my lord. Hamlet: Do you think I meant country matters? Ophelia: I think nothing, my lord. Hamlet: That´s a fair thought to lie between maid´s legs. Ophelia: What is, my lord? Hamlet: Nothing. (Act III.ii. 120-129)

Interpretation Hughes38 offers for the term “Nothing” is that it represents a sexual pun on an “O thing” – meaning female genitals. 38


41


42

The next examples are more explicit ones and do not require any explanation:

- Richard III. III.: “The slave of nature and the son of hell! Thou slender of thy mother´s womb! Thou loathed issue of thy father´s loins! Thou rag of honour! “(Act I. iii 230-233)

- Hamlet: Hamlet

“What an ass am I! This is most brave, That I, the son of a dear father murder´d Prompted to my revenge by heaven and hell, Must like a whore, unpack my heart with words, And fall a-cursing like a very drab, A scullion!” (Act II. Ii.619-24)

Let me explain the last quote of Hamlet´s lament, the usage of two actually very offensive expletives: “a whore” (see 4.1) and “a drab” and a word “a scullion”. The first two are basically synonyms, both referring to a prostitute. - a drab39 - origin C16 - a slovenly woman or a prostitute - a scullion40 - a servant assigned the most menial kitchen task 39


40



43

How was it possible for Shakespeare to get away with using expletives of such strength without being persecuted? The answer is simple really, as long as his plays were not blasphemous or antimonarchist, which was the main concern of the censorship, other swearwords that seem very strong and offensive to us were practically tolerated.

With stringent regulations of the period, Hughes sees41 the last hope for swearing in so called flyting flyting. It became a popular pastime of the period especially in the North of the country, namely Scotland. It would be hardly surprising not knowing that Scotland was “a country with a vehement tradition against swearing” .42 Encyclopaedia Brittanica offers a

following definition:

“(Scots: “quarreling,” or “contention”), poetic competition of the Scottish makaris (poets) of the 15th and 16th centuries, in which two highly skilled rivals engaged in a contest of verbal abuse, remarkable for its fierceness and extravagance. Although contestants attacked each other spiritedly, they actually had a professional respect for their rival's vocabulary of invective. The tradition seems to have derived from the

41


42



44

Gaelic filid filid (class of professional poets), who composed savage tirades against persons who slighted them.” 43

Hughes jokingly defines flyting as “A fine art of savage insult.” 44

Typical examples of flyting could be found in the famous writing The Flyting of Dunbar and Kennedy (c.1503). 500 line long. Poet William

Dunbar was a Master of Arts and a Franciscan monk and a recipient of royal pension and Walter Kennnedy was also a highly admired poet with an academic education and royal blood in his veins. The piece contains highly sophisticated language alongside with evil imprecations, not dissimilar to the ones of Shakespeare.

Provoking opening itself:45 Kennedy: Dirtin (filthy) Dumbar (a pun - dum) Further: Kennedy: Fantastik fule (fool)….. Ignorant elfe, aip, owl irregular

43

Encyclopaedia Britannica [online] < http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9034708 > 15.2.2006

44


45

CRAWFORD, R. The New Penguin Book of Scottish Verse.Trafalgar Square, 2001. ISBN: 014058711X

45


Skaldit (scabby) skaitbird and common skamelar

(sponger, parasite) Wan fukkit funling (ill-conceived foundling)

Dunbar fights back: Dunbar: Cuntbitten crawdon…

Of course there were other oral battles or contests fought in flyting, amongst many the one in which King James V. insulted Sir David Lindsay (a knight and a writer) and vice versa.

4.4

SWEARING IN MODERN PERIOD

Several centuries later and still-existing swearing rises eyebrows of public and critics. Only the royal laws and restrictions changed into radio and television regulations – representing a censorship of 20 th and 21st century. It would be impossible to try and analyse every single case of using swearwords and foul language in our times, as swearing is practically omnipresent. We already know that Kings and Queens used to swear, just as modern rulers – presidents – do. Playwrights of the past swore on stage and it appears modern writers are fond of swearing too


46

because causing public upheaval by spicing up they works automatically attracts attention and brings in popularity.

Let us look into several cases of trespassing on public tolerance – some of them jibing more than once:

- G. B. Shaw´s Pygmalion staging (London 1914) - DH Lawrence´s Lady Chatterley´s Lover (1928, 1960) - F-word said by Kenneth Tynan on BBC (1965) - Watergate affair (1972) - Sex Pistols banned from TV for saying the F-word in the teatime (1976) - David Hockney uses the C- word on TV (1981) - Princess Anne saying “Naff off!” to the press (1982) - Prince Charles used the expression “bloody” in public (1989) - John Lydon uses the C-word in front of millions (2004)

4.5.1 PYGMALION

When on April 11, 1914 at His Majesty's Theatre in London during the first staging of George Bernard Shaw´s Pygmalion his character a Covent Garden flower girl Eliza Dolittle – inflamed the audience by uttering:


47

“Walk! Not bloody likely. I am going in a taxi”

an actress Mrs. Campbell was allegedly risking her career by saying “bloody” on stage. The performance was preceded by its Austrian premiere given by the same playgroup in English the year before. On the night of the English premiere the Daily Sketch greeted the readers with:46 “TONIGHT´S “PYGMALION” IN WHICH MRS PATRICK CAMPBELL IS EXPECTED TO CAUSE THE BIGGEST THEATRICAL SENSATION FOR MANY YEARS… One word in Shaw´s new play will cause sensation. Mr. Shaw introduces a certain forbidden word. WILL MRS PATRICK CAMPBELL SPEAK IT? Has the censor stepped in or will the word spread? If he does not forbid it, then anything might happen!

And subsequently the headlines alluded: “Shaw´s bald bad word”, “the unprintable swearword”, “the langwidge of the flower girl” or “the theatre to be boycotted”.

Shaw himself commented the story as: “I do not know anything more ridiculous than the refusal of some newspapers (at several pages length) to print the word “bloody”, which is in

46



48

common use as an expletive by four-fifths of the English nation, including many highly-educated persons.” 47

Whereas the reaction of press is always a bit of an overstatement, the audience seems to be more welcoming. The London audience reacted by “a few seconds of stunned disbelieving silence and then by a hysterical laughter for at least a minute and a quarter.” 48

And across the ocean: “The Americans were not in the least offended by The Word, regarding it as a charming and delightful piece of English slang.” 49

4.5.2 LADY CHATTERLEY´S LOVER

DH Lawrence published his controversial book Lady Chatterley´s Lover privately in 1928 in Italy and unlike Shaw, it took another three

decades for Lawrence´s book to be published in Britain. (1960) The basis for scandal here was much broader than in the case of Pygmalion. Firstly the novel depicts an adulterous relationship a working- class male and a bourgeois female and further in the famous Chapter 14 the author explicitly depicts a sex scene using the F-word, fed, f-ing and the C-word several times. 47


48


49


49


When it was published in Britain in 1960 the book was sold out in thousands but the Penguin Books publishing house was taken to court under the Obscene Publication Act. The trial took six days the Old Bailey court and it literally fascinated nation. The defence called in many important witnesses, including clergy, writers and critics, to prove that the work was of literary merit. The prosecuting counsel Mervyn Griffith Jones shocked the jury and ridiculed herself by asking: "Is it a book you would wish your wife or servants to read?" The verdict was not guilty

which resulted in much greater freedom for publishers and author and the trial became as a precedent in the future.

4.5.3 OTHER INCIDENTS On 13 November1965, during a live debate broadcast on BBC, Kenneth Peacock Tynan, a controversial and renowned National Theatre critic, commenting on the subject of censorship, said: "I doubt if there are any rational people to whom the word "fuck" would be particularly diabolical, revolting or totally forbidden."

50

The occasion marked the first time the word F*** was used on British television. For this incident, the BBC produced a formal apology.

50

Wikipedia [online] < http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenneth_Tynan> 15.2.2006


50

The House of Commons signed four separate censuring motions signed by 133 Labour Party and Conservative backbenchers. Mary Whitehouse, a frequent critic of the BBC over issues of "morals and decency," wrote a letter to the Queen, suggesting that Tynan "ought to have his bottom spanked". 51This episode summarily cut short Tynan's television career. For more on Watergate affair (1972) see Chapter 2.2.

In December 1976 the Sex Pistols, an influential British punk band, appeared on the “Today” show, on a former the Thames television in the teatime, where the host Bill Grundy provoked the band by demanding: “Say something outrageous” . The immediate response came from the vocalist Steve Jones:

“You dirty bastard…You dirty fucker….What a fucking rotter!” 52

The television was deluged with complaints. Sex Pistols were banned from the broadcasting and allegedly one irate lorry driver put his foot through his television in disgust. The Sex Pistols´ concerts in their Anarchy UK tour were mostly cancelled and those that were not cancelled ended in public riots or were dissolved by local authorities.

51

52

Wikipedia [online] < http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenneth_Tynan> 15.2.2006 Sex Pistols Diary [online] 15.04.2006


51

The Press turned hostile against a so far very popular band and the Daily Mirror ran the headline calling them “The Filth and the Fury”. The host Bill Grundy was suspended for two t wo weeks and the whole programme was cancelled in two months due to the public upheaval it caused. Even parents of the musicians became influenced by the public disgust. Mother of the drummer Paul Cook told t old The Daily Mail that Steve was no longer welcome at home and that she was going to turn his bedroom into a dining room.

Only five years had gone since the Sex pistols ban when a British Pop artist David Hockney use the C- word in 1981 on the South Bank show, talking about Piccasso´s painting as “the painter was looking directly at his model´s c***.”

According to the Guardian the television comment was: “We received two phone calls of complaint. No action was deemed necessary by the powers that be at ITV. The audience was between 1.5 and 2 million.” 53

As was at the beginning of this chapter, we saw the Kings and Queens swearing in the past and in our times we can also find some of the royal members using expletives as a part of their active word stock. 53

Guardian Unlmited [online] < http://www.guardian.co.uk/lett http://www.guardian.co.uk/letters/story/0,,11420 ers/story/0,,1142065,00.html> 65,00.html> 12.04.2006


52

Princess Royal, know better as the princess Anne, the th e only daughter of HM Queen Elizabeth II., is supposed to have said: “Naff off!” to the press as they snapped her taking a ducking from her mount at the t he Badminton Horse Trials in 1982. It is believed that she had a different phrase on her mind. But even if she did not the origin of naff off is more than interesting: - naff off 54 - an adjective and means inferior, tatty, contemptible or useless. - became popular after Ronnie Barker used it lot in Porridge , a 70s sitcom from UK.

- possibly from Australian “nasty as f***”

Also Princess Anne´s brother - Prince Charles, the British Heir Apparent, is alleged to have said that “English so taught so bloody badly” with no major objections of the public . Though the first scripted use of 'C-word' on television - the first time its use was premeditated by a broadcaster - was in the ITV drama No Mama No : - "What did he say?" -"He said your Dr Cawston is a cunt" (1979).

54

Everything2 [online] < http://www.everything2.com/in http://www.everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=434399l> dex.pl?node_id=434399l> 12.04.2006


Other time the C-word was aired on television Channel 4 in Irvine Welsh´ s drama The Granton Star Cause in in 1996 and the author himself comments: “To C4's credit, there was never any question of censorship, nor gleeful anticipation of a controversy. Just as with John L ydon's remarks on I'm a Celebrity... , not many people bothered. When we say the C-word offends us the most, I think we feel it should vex us more than it actually does. If used in its traditional way, purely as an insult, it usually will cause offence. But only the most soulless of stuffed shirts could be offended by John Lydon's affectionate jibe at the British reality-TV voting public.” 55

The most recent incident Welsh was referring to was when John Lydon, known as Johnny Rotten a former lead singer of the Sex Pistols, used the C-word in front of millions in 2004 on the prime time reality show called “I´m a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here”. The media watchdog OFCOM (a super regulator, abbreviation stands for Office of communication) , received only 96 complaints from audience believed to range around nine million viewers, after the singer swore on TV. ITV channel immediately apologised and the regulator said it would not face any more action. 55

Guardian Unlmited [online] < http://www.guardian.co.uk/lett http://www.guardian.co.uk/letters/story/0,,11420 ers/story/0,,1142065,00.html> 65,00.html> 13.04.2006

53


54

"Viewers were aware that this was a live programme, featuring John Lydon in the Australian bush," Ofcom said. 56

To summarise the preceding facts, the tolerance towards bodily swearwords such as F-word and C-word has increased recently whereas words that are not accepted as politically correct but otherwise not viewed as swearwords as were used without restraints in the past decades (e.g. spastic, Paki, nigger), are regarded as very offensive by both – authorities and the public. As for the blasphemy and religious swearing there is no legal restriction in our times compared to previous periods as we could see in Chapter 4.

56

BBC News [online] < http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/tv_and_radio/3548041.stm> 13.04.2006

SEMANTIC CATEGORIES AND SPEAKERS PREFERENCES

5. SEMANTIC CATEGORIES AND SPEAKERS PREFERENCES

According to semantics, expletive repertoire in English could be derived from two distinct semantic fields: – heaven and hell - sex/body and its functions We are exploring both of them further also from the speakers´ point of view regarding severity and causing offence.

5.1 HEAVEN AND HELL

Into the semantic category called Heaven and hell belong words related to God, including euphemisms or corrupted forms to avoid blasphemy - seen as a deadly sin by Christians, and also expletives referring to devil or evil and also means of expressing damnation. The data based on London-Lund Corpus of Spoken English or “the Quirk Corpus”57 support Stenstrom´s claim and also my survey results that male and female speakers tend to use expletives of different semantic fields. Whereas men swear in expletives related to hell and body, female

57

Stenstrom, A-B. Expletives in the London-Lund corpus1991. In: K. Aijmer and B. Altenberg. English Corpus Linguistics Studies in Honour of Jan Startvik , 1991.London, New York: Longman.

55

SEMANTIC CATEGORIES AND SPEAKERS PREFERENCES speakers use expletives referring to heaven. (for preferences see Appendix 3-14)

Some of the religious corruptions above may require further explanation: - cor blimey –God blind me! - crikey – euphemism for Christ - crumbs - By Christ! - lummy – Lord love me!

I dare say the chart above is not complete as Hughes 58 offers other euphemisms for God, Christ and etc. Chosen are only the most interesting ones: GOD: - gogg (1350s) - cokk (1386) - Jove (1570) - gadzooks (God´s hooks) (1650s) - odsbodikins (God´s little body) (1709) - Drat! (God´s rot) (1844) - Great Scott (1884) - By Godfrey! (1909) JESUS: 58


56

SEMANTIC CATEGORIES AND SPEAKERS PREFERENCES - Gis, Jis (1528) - Gemini (1660) - Jiminy (1830s) - Jimmy Crickets (1848) - Jeez (1900) - Gee (1905) - Judas Priest (1922) - Jeepers Creepers (1934) HELL: - heck (1892)

5.2

SEX/ BODY AND ITS FUNCTIONS

Hughes59 suggests that language is generated in a patriarchal or phallocratic dispensation and for this reason there has developed, especially in male swearing, a prevalence of the terms of feminine anatomy and that these words have greater potency and currency than the equivalent male terms. Numerous examples referring to a woman illustrate his claim: 60 OE: - WITCH: - hag, amazon, scold, shrew, vixen, brim, battleaxe 59


60


57

58

SEMANTIC CATEGORIES AND SPEAKERS PREFERENCES - WHORE: - harlot, strumpet, concubine, bawd, drab, trull, punk, slut, slattern, draggletail - bird, chick, chicken, crow, duck, goose, hen, cow, mare, sow, - bitch, mutton, brach, filly, cat, tabby, kitten, puss, coney, bat - dish, tart, cookie, crumpet, pancake, sweetmeat, peach, cherry - baby, lamb, mouse, poppet, nymph, etc.

The chart bellow deals with Gender in Swearing according to Hughes61 and is also a perfect demonstration of categories within the sex/body semantic field: GENDER OF TERMS

GENITAL

male

female

prick

c-word

indeterminate

twat pillock ANATOMICAL

EXCRETORY

tit

arsehole

shit turt fart

IMBECILIC

idiot imbecile

61


59


moron cretin prat

ANIMAL

pig

cow

swine

bitch sow GENERAL

bugger

bastard

sod

fucker

Some of these words are not used by many speakers of English and for that purpose a variety of euphemisms can be found 62:

SHIT:

- shucks(1874)/shoot/shute(1934)/sherbet(?)

F-WORD: - foutre/foutra (from Fr. foutre ) (1592) - foot/sfoot (1600s) - footy (1785) - frig/frigging (1785) - eff/effing (1925) - fiddlesticks (1600) - fiddlededee (1784) - botheration (1801) - thunderation (1820s) 62



60

- perdition (1890s)

DAMNED: - darned (1837) - durned (1876)

5.2.1 BBC RESEARCH

The research undertaken jointly by Advertising Standards Authority, British Broadcasting Corporation, Broadcasting Standard Commission and the Independent Television Commission conducted by Andrea Milwood-Hargrave in December 2000 brought some interesting facts to light. Expletives are ranked according to there their severity. First of all its main focus was on media and the usage of expletives before and after the nine oćlock Watershed. As assumed, the respondents disapproved with using expletives before this time as children are expected to be in the audience. It also showed there are certain house rules restricting watching television after 9 oćlock pm in British families.

“If our child sees or hears that (on television), then it´s going to think that´s a norm.” 54

SEMANTIC CATEGORIES AND SPEAKERS PREFERENCES Following figure63 shows the rank of severity according to respondents in 2000 in comparison with 1997 research results: Figure 1: Ranked order of words according to severity Expletive

2000

1997

C-word

1

(1)

Motherfucker

2

(2)

F-word

3

(3)

Wanker

4

(4)

Nigger

5

(11)

Bastard

6

(5)

Prick

7

(7)

Bollocks

8

(6)

Arsehole

9

(9)

Paki

10

(17)

Shag

11

(8)

Whore

12

(13)

Twat

13

(10)

Piss off

14

(12)

Spastic

15

(14)

Slag

16

(18)

Shit

17

(15)

Dickhead

18

(19)

Pissed off

19

(16)

Arse

20

(20)

Bugger

21

(21)

Balls Jew

22 23

(22) (24)

Sodding

24

(23)

Jesus Christ

25

(26)

Crap

26

(25)

Bloody

27

(27)

God

28

(28)

63

Advertising Standard Authority Website [online] < http://www.asa.org.uk/NR/rdonlyres/1EAEACA78322-4C86-AAC2-4261551F57FE/0/ASA_Delete_Expletives_Dec_2000.pdf> 15.3.2006

61


62

As we can see there are only slight changes in tolerance to swearwords in media. The most prominent shifts are in viewing racial and xenophobic expletives such as Paki or Nigger that are now felt as more offensive by the participants then they were in 1997.

When asked whether expletives should be beeped out, dubbed or left in, when appearing in post- Watershed time (after 9 o ćlock pm) the answers were as follows (Table 15) 64: Beep out 16% Dub

19%

Leave in

65%

In my own research (See appendices 3-13) the participants were also against using expletives in media in full, nevertheless, they did not support the idea of deleting expletives completely which suggests that there is a significant tolerance towards expletives in media. Very interesting were answers claiming swearing was more acceptable on commercial channels such as Channel 4 and satellite channels than on BBC television.

64

Advertising Standard Authority Website [online] < http://www.asa.org.uk/NR/rdonlyres/1EAEACA78322-4C86-AAC2-4261551F57FE/0/ASA_Delete_Expletives_Dec_2000.pdf> 15.3.2006

ETYMOLOGY OF SELECTED WORDS

63

6. ETYMOLOGY OF SELECTED WORDS

People have always been keen on etymology of expletives and due to an enormous creativity and wit there are numerous stories of origin, a part of so called FOLK ETYMOLOGY, or FALSE ETYMOLOGY - some of them viable, some of them less viable.

6.1 THE F - WORD

The F-word is of a Germanic origin and thus it is related to similar words in other Germanic languages, such as Dutch, German, Swedish. It belongs to a loosely connected group of words with the same structure: f+ VOWEL + CONSONANT. The basic meaning is “to move back and forth“. These are other English words with the same structure and similar sense: fiddle, fidget, flit, flip, flicker, and frig . Although there are suggestions that it might be of Latin origin Sheidlower negates this.65 Also according to Sheidlower the acronym theories are not true as they only appeared in 1930. But people tend to believe them to be reliable source of origin. One of fake etymology suggesting an acronymic origin says that the F-word stands for: Fornicate Under the Command of King – or Fornicate Under the Consent of King 65

SHEIDLOWER, J. The F-word. M ackays of Chatham plc., 1999. p.xvii. ISBN 0571197302


64

and it dates back to the times of the plague to give a consent to a sexual intercourse or as a sign on houses giving royal consent to sexual intercourse for knights. Another legend holds that it came from the Irish law, standing for: Found Under Carnal Knowledge – or Fornication Under Carnal Knowledge

- used as a “FUCK” sign for those found guilty of adultery. Forced Unlawful Carnal Knowledge or Felonious Use of Carnal Knowledge - used as an acronym for labelling the crime of rape.

As much as we like to invent new legends and theories, none of these are most probably true. To demonstrate how colourful word the f-word is Andersson and Trudgill66 provide following examples in which speakers actually utilized the F-word to express their feeling in particular situations:

66

- FRAUD

“I got fucked by my insurance agent.”

- DISMAY

“Oh, fuck it!”

- TROUBLE

“I guess, I´ m fucked now.”

- AGGRESSION

“Fuck you!”

- PASSIVE

“Fuck me.”

- CONFUSION

“What the fuck?”

- DIFFICULTY

“I can´t understand this fucking business.”

- DESPAIR

“Fucked again.!

ANDERSSON, L.-G., TRUDGILL P. Bad Language, Penguin Book, 1992. p.60. ISBN 0140125086


- PHILOSOPHICAL

“Who gives a fuck.”

- INCOMPETENCE

“He´s all fucked up.”

- LAZINESS

“He´s a fuck-off.”

- DIPLEASURE

“What the fuck is going on?”

- REBELLION

“Oh, fuck off!”

6.2 THE C-WORD It is a word of uncertain origin probably of Middle English origin, Traceable via the Middle Dutch and Danish word kunte, and the Norwegian and Swedish, kunta . The C-word is seen by many as a very offensive word relating to female genitals. (See BBC research 5.2.1 and my own research Appendices 3-13). However, this word was perfectly socially acceptable in rural areas of England until as recently as the 1960s referring simply to cow´s vulva. The first dictionary citation is said to be in Oxford English Dictionary in 1230 as in Gropecunt Lane – originally “Gropecuntelane” London street name.

65


According to Hunt:67 “Chaucer, in his Tales Of Caunterbury, employs the deliberately faux-archaic spelling 'queynte' (variants: 'queynt', 'qwaynt', 'quaynte', 'queinte', 'coynte', and 'coint'; modern spelling: 'queint') as a substitute for 'cunt'.”

At present it can also be used not only with abusive meaning but also to show endearment between friends and can be applied to both sexes: “He´s a lucky c***!”

However, amongst majority it is considered unacceptable to speak the word, there are again euphemisms to avoid uttering the word in full: - C U Next Week - Can´t Use Normal Thinking - See you, Auntie – when pronounced loud and quickly

For its appearance in media and public see Chapter 4.5.3.

67

HUNT MATHEW, Cunt: A cultural history [online] http://www.matthewhunt.com/cunt/censorship.html 12.04.2006

66

BODY LANGUAGE

67

7. BODY LANGUAGE

People use words that are referents for objects we use or actions we perform. These referents, words, basically give names to the world around us. But before speech developed in humans during prehistoric times there were signs used as one of the earliest and simplest way to get the message across. Nowadays we call this mean of communication a body language, or non-verbal communication, as we are aware of the fact that our bodies can communicate ideas and messages with or without words and direct intentions. Some people use non-verbal communication in addition to the verbal one. However, some of the gestures can be and are generally understood without being accompanied by words at all. I am going to make the reader familiar with several gestures that are used in English speaking countries to cause an offence or to substitute where swearwords would be used instead. Some of them could also have a different meaning in other cultures but this is of no concern to this document. As a reliable source I chose online encyclopaedia Wikipedia. 68

68

WIKIPEDIA [online] < http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gesture > 15.3.2006

BODY LANGUAGE

68

7.1. BLOWING A RASPBERRY

“Blowing a raspberry” or a so-called “Bronx cheer” is not a hand gesture. To make this, you stick your tongue out between your lips and while blowing you make the sound reminiscent of flatulence. From the phonetic point of view it could be seen as a “labiolingual trill”. 69 The origin of this is to be traced in London Cockney Rhyming Slang (for Rhyming Slang see Chapter 8) where “Raspberry tart” is a rhyming synonym for “fart”. The generally understood meaning of this gesture is to show disrespect or scorn.

7.2

THE FINGER

“The finger” of “giving somebody the finger” is a hand gesture made by extending your middle finger while bending the other fingers. The middle finger is used as a phallic symbol, a symbol for penis, and it bares a silent meaning of “F..k you!” Another expressions which are used for this gesture are “flipping the bird”, “flipping someone off” or “the one finger salute”. The gesture of “digitus impudicus” as it also called in Ancient Rome meaning an impudent finger, was mentioned in one of the Aristophanes´ comedy intended to insult.

BODY LANGUAGE

69

However, it must be said that this gesture is regarded as very offensive when used towards an authority it can be qualified as a criminal offence under the Public Order Act (1984). Here is just one example of many, in January 2006 a driver in Essex was hit with an £80 fine for making the middle finger curse. The fine ticket said: “Used offensive hand gestures towards police in full view of passing public for 3-4 seconds.” 69

Flipping the finger in the USA, Germany and other states is also seen as an offence against the law.

7.3

THE BOWFINGER

“The bowfinger” is a two-fingered hand gesture (extended index and middle fingers), other fingers clenched, with the palm inward while flicking the hand. It is believed that this highly offensive gesture dates back to a French–English Hundred Years´ War in the 15th century. The myth says that the French used to cut off the two fingers of all captured English archers because without them it was impossible to draw the English longbow. The longbows were made of the English yew tree so the natives called the act of drawing the longbow - “plucking the yew”. After the English victory the saying “Pluck you!” occurred and has 69

The Sun [online] < http://www.thesun.co.uk> 15.3.2006

BODY LANGUAGE

nothing to do with the phrase “F***k you!” despite numerous claims of folk etymology based on its similarity. But there is one legend worth mentioning and it suggests that there were pheasant feathers used on the arrows and so the already mentioned middle finger gesture is thus known as “giving the bird”. But knowing this gesture originates in the Ancient Rome makes this theory one of many proofs of folk creativity.

70

RHYMING SLANG

71

8. RHYMING SLANG

A more frequently used term “Cockney rhyming slang” could be described as an English slang originating the East End of London. It was developed as a way to obscure the meaning of utterances to those who did not understand the slang. It works by replacing the word, a meaning of which is to be hidden, with the first word of a phrase that rhymes with that very word. For instance, "face" would be replaced by "boat", because face rhymes with "boat race". Similarly "feet" becomes "plates" ("plates of meat"), and "money" is "bread" (a very common usage, from "bread and honey". Rude Rhyming Slang follows the same the same principles with only one exception – it obscures bad language. Nind 70 offers following rhymes: A:

- Andy Capp – crap - Anthony Blunt – the C word - Auntie Annie – fanny (female genitals)

B:

- Bacon bits – tits - Barclays bank – wank - Barry White – shite - Billy Hunt – the C word - Boat and oar – whore

70

NIND, T. Rude Rhyming Slang. Abson Books, London, 2003. ISBN 0902920839

72

RHYMING SLANG

- Brighton peer – queer

C:

- C&A – gay - cattle truck – the F word

D:

- Donald Duck – the F word - Deaf and Dumb – bum - Doris Day – gay

E:

- Eddie Grundies – undies - Elizabeth Regina – vagina

F:

- Fillet of cod – sod - Fish and shrimp – pimp

G:

- General Election – erection - Gypsies kiss – piss

etc.

73

RESEARCH

9. RESEARCH

My own research was conducted in London in summers 2004 and 2005. It was based on a questionnaire (see Appendix 15). I received 50 completed questionnaires and the participant figures are presented in Appendices 1 and 2. I am aware than such a low number of respondents makes valid statistical analysis rather difficult. Nevertheless, it is possible to observe some trends and tendencies in swearing across certain age groups, sexes and educational background. (See Appendices 3 – 13.) The observed tendencies are as follows: 1)

Younger participants tend to be more tolerant towards swearing and also tend to use swearwords more.

2)

Tertiary educated women admit to swearing more compared to secondary educated ones.

3)

All participants declare a marked reluctance to swearing in front of children. The same seems to be true, though to a lesser extent, in front of parents and authorities.

4)

As the participants get older their usage and tolerance towards religious swearing decreases. It is

74

RESEARCH

probably no coincidence that this group has a higher proportion of religious people. 5)

Bodily functions swear words are less tolerated across all the groups, however the youngest groups take the least offence.

To summarize, the results come as no surprise. The already mentioned BBC and London-Lund corpus research both showed very similar trends.

CONCLUSION

10. CONCLUSION

In the previous chapters we attempted to give a general description of expletives and the meaning of the term “expletive“ itself. We pointed out some of the reasons why people use expletives, whether it is in an emotionally tensed situation, to emphasize what is being said or to express belonging to a certain social group. In Chapter 4 Swearing in historical periods I explored various periods of English history – namely the Old English, Middle English, the Reformation, Renaissance and Modern period. Within each of them, we provided and example of expletives used by the most prominent contemporary writers e.g. Geoffrey Chaucer, William Shakespeare and others. The main difference in “swearing by” in Old English and Middle English period and “swearing at” in the following time periods has also been also illustrated, including the most recent incidents of airing expletives on British media causing more or less no offence in the end. Exploring given semantic categories labelled “Heaven and Hell“ and sex/body functions shows related words to God, Jesus Christ, their euphemisms to prevent blasphemy and words referring to body parts and their functions. We also provided several charts and figures to demonstrate preferences speakers of English make while using

75

CONCLUSION

76

expletives, based on London-Lund Corpus of spoken utterances, “Delete Expletives?” research conducted in 2000 by BBC and my own research. Assuredly, etymology of selected expletives outlined in Chapter 6 contributed to the scope of this thesis. I also decided to use examples of so called folk etymology as they are a result of public interest in expletives and their origin. Although it has been statistically proved that the public strongly despise hearing expletives in media, the actual existence of expletives in everyday conversation shows that we the speakers of English tend to use expletives as an active part of their word stock and they even became more tolerant towards them, as the dropping of severe legal restraints proves.

SUMMARY/RESUMÉ

77

11. SUMMARY/RESUMÉ

11.1 SUMMARY

The main purpose of the thesis is to provide the reader with a general outline of English expletives, their usage, origin and semantic categories of related words. In addition to legal restraints which limited and punished usage of expletives uttered either in public or private, the study also explores given historical periods – such as Old English, Middle English, The Renaissance and Modern period in order to illustrate development of expletives throughout the centuries, analysing expletives found in works of the most prominent contemporary writers of the period, e.g. Chaucer, Shakespeare etc.

11.2 RESUMÉ

Hlavním cílem této dimplomové práce je poskytnout čtenáři obecný přehled anglických pejorativů, jejich používání, původ a semantické kategorie přibuzných slov. Práce se též zabývá právními postihy, které omezovaly a trestaly používání těchto slov, vyslovených jak v soukromí tak na veřejnosti.

SUMMARY/RESUMÉ

Dále jsou zkoumána jednotlivá historická období – jako například Staro-anglické období, Období Middle English, Renesance a současnost, za účelem demonstrovat vývoj pejorativů během staletí pomocí analýzy děl předních autorů doby, např. Chaucera, Shakespeara a dalších.

78

BIBLIOGRAPHY

79

12. BIBLIOGRAPHY BOOKS ANDERSSON, L.-G., TRUDGILL P. Bad Lan guage, Penguin Book, 1992. ISBN 0140125086. BENNET, H.S. English Books and Readers. CUP, 1952. ISBN 0521379911.

CHAUCER, G. Canterbury Tales . Penguin Books Ltd., 1996. ISBN 0140622071.

Concise Oxford Dictionary . 10th Edition. OUP, 2001. ISBN 0-19-860438-6.

CRAWFORD, R. The New Penguin Book of Scottish Verse. Trafalgar Square, 2001. ISBN: 014058711X HEANEY, S. Beowulf. WNorton & Co Inc, 2001.ISBN 0393320979.

HUGHES, G. Swearing. Penguin Books Ltd, 1998. ISBN 0-14-026707-7.

MONTAGU, A. The Anatomy of Swearing . Macmillan, 1973. ISBN 0812217640. NIND, T. Rude Rhyming Slang . Abson Books, London, 2003. ISBN 0902920839. RYRIE, A. The Gospel and Henry VIII: Evangelicals in the Early English Reformation, CUP, 2003. ISBN: 0521823439. SHEIDLOWER, J. The F-word. Mackays of Chatham plc., 1999. ISBN 0571197302. STENSTROM, A-B. Expletives in the London-Lund corpus 1991. In: K. Aijmer and B. Altenberg. English Corpus Linguistics Studies in Honour of Jan Startvik , 1991.London, New York: Longman.

BIBLIOGRAPHY INTERNET SOURCES Advertising Standard Authority Website [online] < http://www.asa.org.uk> 15.3.2006 BBC News [online] < http://news.bbc.co.uk> 13.04.2006 Boise State University [online] 12.1.2006 CUSS CONTROL ACADEMY, [online] 20.2.2006 Encyclopaedia Britannica [online] < http://www.britannica.com> 15.2.2006 Everything2 [online] < http://www.everything2.com> 12.04.2006 Fire and Ice, Puritan and reformed writing [online] 11.10.2005 Guardian Unlmited [online] < http://www.guardian.co.uk> 12.04.2006 HUNT MATHEW, Cunt: A cultural history [online] < http://www.matthewhunt.com> 12.04.2006 Panikon [online] < http://www.panikon.com> 11.1.2006 Sam I am [online] 1.9.2005 Sex Pistols Diary [online] 15.04.2006 Wikipedia, [online] < http://en.wikipedia.org> 15.2.2006

80

1 x i d n e p p A

Research participants according to age and sex groups 9 8 7 6

Number of 5 respondents 4 3 2 1 0

Age / sex 1 18-26 male

18-26 female

27-35 male

27-35 female

36-45 male

36-45

46-60

female

male

60+ 46-60 60+ male female female

S E C I D N E P P A

APPENDICES

Appendix 2

Research participants according to age groups

age 60+ 4 respondents 8% age 46-60 9 respondents 18%

age 18-26 14 respondents 28%

APPENDICES

Appendix 2

Research participants according to age groups

age 60+ 4 respondents 8%





APPENDICES

MEN

Appendix 3

Table 1

male 18- 26 (7 people) general usage

secondary education (3) very offensive

God gosh Lord Jesus Christ Heaven Hell Bloody Damn/damned Sod Bugger Devil Bastard Ass/arse Shit Crap Cunt Fuck/fucking

slightly offensive 2 1 1

1

1 1 1 1 1 1 1

1 1

2 2

tertiary education (4)

not offensive 1 3 2 1 3 3 2 2 2 2 3 2 2 1 2 1 1

very offensive

slightly offensive

not offensive 4 4 4 4 4 4 2 4 4 2 4 2 3 2 3 1 2

2

2 2 1 2 1 1 2

2

Table 2

If directed at them (7)



slightly offensive

not offensive 2

1

1 1 1 1 1 1 2 2


1

very offensive 1 3 3 2 3 3 3 3 2 2 3 2 2 1 2 1 1

slightly offensive

not offensive

1

1

1 2 2 2 1

1 1

4 4 4 3 4 4 3 4 4 3 2 4 2 4 1 2

APPENDICES Table 3

male 18-26 secondary education (3) Which of these would you say in front of your: parents God gosh Lord Jesus Christ Heaven Hell Bloody Damn/damned Sod Bugger Devil Bastard Ass/arse Shit Crap Cunt Fuck/fucking

child 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 1 2 2 2 1 1

boss/teacher 2 2 2 1 2 1 1 1 1 1 1

partner 2 2 2 1 2 2 1 2 1 1 2 1 1 1 1 1 1

1

friend 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 2 2 3 2 2 2 2 1 2

3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 2 3 2 2 3

Table 4

male 18-26 tertiary education (4) Which of these would you say in front of your: parents God gosh Lord Jesus Christ Heaven Hell Bloody Damn/damned Sod Bugger Devil Bastard Ass/arse Shit Crap Cunt Fuck/fucking

child 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 3 2 4 3 3 1 1

boss/teacher 2 2 2 2 3 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2

partner 3 4 3 2 4 2 2 4 2 2 3 2 2 2 2 1

friend 4 4 3 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 3 4 4 4 4 1 4

4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 3 4 4 4 4 4 4

APPENDICES Table 5

Media In newspaper, expletives should be spelled out fully used in asterisk form not used at all

2 5 0

On television and radio, expletives should be pronounced in full beeped out not used at all

3 4 0

Religion religious atheist none or N/A

6 1 0

APPENDICES

MEN

Appendix 4

Table 6

male 27-35 (9 people) general usage God gosh Lord Jesus Christ Heaven Hell Bloody Damn/damned Sod Bugger Devil Bastard Ass/arse Shit Crap Cunt Fuck/fucking God


slightly

not offensive

4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 3 4 3 2 3 4

1 1 2 1 2 1


2 3 4

very offensive

slightly

not offensive

1

4 5 4 4 5 4 4 4 3 3 5 3 3 3 3 1 1 4

1 1 1 1 1 1 1

1 1

1 1 1 1 3 1

1 1 1 1 1 3 1

Table 7

If directed at them (9) God gosh Lord Jesus Christ Heaven Hell Bloody Damn/damned Sod Bugger Devil Bastard Ass/arse Shit Crap Cunt Fuck/fucking


slightly

1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1

1 2 2


not offensive

2 2 1 1 2

very offensive

3 4 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 4 2 2 3 2 2

slightly

not offensive

1 1 1 1 1 1 1

2 1 4 2

3 3 2 3 3 2 1 3

4 5 4 4 5 4 4 4 1 2 5 1 2 1 3

APPENDICES Table 8


child 3 3 3 4 3 4 4 4 2 2 3 2 4 4 4 1 1

boss/teacher 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 2 1 1

partner 3 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 2 2 3 2 3 3 3

1 1 1

friend 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 2 2 3 2 3 3 3 2 3

1

4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 3 3 4 3 4 4 4 3 4

Table 9


child 5 5 5 4 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 3 4 3 4 2

boss/teacher 4 5 5 3 5 5 3 3 1 1 4 2 1

partner 4 5 5 4 5 5 4 4 3 3 4 3 3 3 3 1 3

friend 5 5 5 4 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 3 5

5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 3 5

APPENDICES Table 10

Media male 27-35 In newspaper, expletives should be spelled out fully used in asterisk form not used at all

2 4 3


5 2 2


3 1 5

APPENDICES

MEN

Appendix 5

Table 11

male 36-45 (4 people) general usage


God gosh Lord Jesus Christ Heaven Hell Bloody Damn/damned Sod Bugger Devil Bastard Ass/arse Shit Crap Cunt Fuck/fucking God

slightly


not offensive

1

very offensive

slightly

2 2 2 1 2 2

not offensive

2 2 2 1 2 2 2 2 1 1 2

1

2 1 2 1 1 1 1 1 1

1 1 1 1 2 2

1 2 1 1

1 1 2 1 1

1 1 1 1 2

1

1

2

2

Table 12



slightly


not offensive

1

very offensive

2 2 2 1 2 2

1 1 2 1 2 2

1 1

1 2 2 1 1 1

not offensive

1

2 1

slightly

1 1

2 2 2 1 2 2 1 1 2 1 2

2 1 1

1 2 1

1 1 1 1

1

APPENDICES Table 13


child

boss/teacher

1 2 1 1 2 2

1 2 1 1 2 1

1 1 1 2 1 1

1

partner 2 2 2 2 2 2 1 1 1 1 2 1 1 1 1 1

1

1

friend 2 2 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1

2 2 2 2 2 2 1 1 1 1 2 1 1 1 1 1 1

Table 14


child 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1

boss/teacher 1 1 1 1 1

1 1 1

partner 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1

friend 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 2

1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 2

APPENDICES Table 15


2 2 0


1 2 1


3 1 0

APPENDICES

MEN

Appendix 6

Table 16

male 46-60 (6 people) general usage



slightly

not offensive

1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1

tertiary education (4) 2 2 2 1 2 1 1 1 2 1 2 1 1 1 1

1 1 2

very offensive

slightly

not offensive

4 4 4 2 4 4 3 3 3 1 3 1 2 1 2

2

1 1 1 1

2 1 2 1 2 1 2 2

1 1 1 1 2 2

4

Table 17



slightly

not offensive

1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1

tertiary education (4) very offensive

1 2 1 1 1 2 1 1 1 1 1

1 1 1 1 1 1

slightly

not offensive

3 1 1

1 1 1 1 1 1 2 3 3

2 2 1 2 1 1 2 1 1 1

4 4 4 1 3 3 2 2 2 1 3 2 2 1 1

APPENDICES Table 18


child 2 2 1 1 2 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1

boss/teacher 2 2 1 1 2 2 1 1 1 1 1

partner 2 2 1 1 2 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 1

friend 2 2 1 1 2 2 1 1 1 1 2 1 1 2 1 1 1

1

2 2 1 1 2 2 1 1 1 1 2 1 1 2 1 1 1

Table 19


child 4 4 3 1 3 3 1 1 1 1 2 1 1 1 1


partner 3 3 3 3 3 3 2 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 1

friend 4 4 4 4 4 4 3 4 1 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 1

4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 2 3 2 1 1 1 1 1 2

APPENDICES Table 20


0 5 1


1 3 2


5 1 0

APPENDICES

MEN

Appendix 7

Table 21

male 60+ (1 person) general usage


slightly

not offensive


slightly


not offensive

1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1

Table 22




slightly offensive

not offensive


slightly offensive

not offensive 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1

1 1

APPENDICES Table 23

male 60+ terciary education (1) Which of these would you say in front of your: parents God gosh Lord Jesus Christ Heaven Hell Bloody Damn/damned Sod Bugger Devil Bastard Ass/arse Shit Crap Cunt Fuck/fucking

none

child

boss/teacher none

none

partner none

friend none

Table 24

Media male 60+ In newspaper, expletives should be spelled out fully used in asterisk form not used at all

1 0 0


1 0 0


0 1 0

APPENDICES

WOMEN

Appendix 8

Table 25

female 18- 26 (7 people) general usage



slightly offensive

not offensive

very offensive

2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 1 2 1 2

1 1 1

tertiary education (5) slightly offensive

not offensive 5 5 5 4 5 5 5 5 4 4 4 4 3 3 3

1

1 1 1 1 2 2 1 1 3

1

1 4 2

1 2

Table 26




slightly offensive


not offensive

very offensive 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2

2 1

1

slightly offensive

2 1 1 2 1 1 2 5 4

not offensive

1 1 1 2 1 1 2 2 1 3

1

5 5 5 4 4 4 3 4 2 2 4 1 3 1 5 5 5

APPENDICES Table 27

female 18-26 secondary education (2) Which of these would you say in front of your: parents God gosh Lord Jesus Christ Heaven Hell Bloody Damn/damned Sod Bugger Devil Bastard Ass/arse Shit Crap Cunt Fuck/fucking

child 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2

boss/teacher 1 2 1 1 2 1 1

partner 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 1 2

2

2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 1 1

1 1

friend

1

2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 1 1

Table 28

female 18-26 tertiary education (5) Which of these would you say in front of your: parents God gosh Lord Jesus Christ Heaven Hell Bloody Damn/damned Sod Bugger Devil Bastard Ass/arse Shit Crap Cunt Fuck/fucking

child 4 4 4 2 3 3 4 3 3 4 4 2 4 4 4 1

boss/teacher 2 3 3 3 3 2 3 1 1 3

1

partner 5 5 5 2 5 5 4 5 2 2 2 1 2 2 2

friend 4 4 4 1 4 4 4 4 2 3 4 2 4 4 4

4 4 4 1 4 4 4 4 2 3 4 2 4 4 4

2

2

APPENDICES Table 29

Media In newspaper, expletives should be spelled out fully used in asterisk form not used at all

1 6 0


1 6 0


3 2 1

APPENDICES

WOMEN

Appendix 9

Table 30

female 27-35 (5 people) general usage



slightly

not offensive

1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 2 1


slightly

2 2 2 2 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1

3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 2 2 3 1 3 3 3

1 1 2

1 1

1

not offensive

2 1

1 3

2

Table 31



slightly

not offensive

1 1 2 2 1 1 1

2 2


1 2 1 2

very offensive

slightly

not offensive

2 2 2 2 2 1 1

1 1 1 1

1 2 2 1 1 1

1

1

1 2 2

3 3 3 3 3 3 3 2 1 1 3 1 2 2 2 1 1

APPENDICES Table 32


child 2 2 2 2 2 2 1 1


partner 2 2 2 1 2 1 1

1 1

friend 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2

1

1 1

2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 1 2

2

Table 33


child 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 1 2

boss/teacher

partner

2 3 2 2 3 2 1 1 1

1 2 1 1 3 2

1

1

1

1

2

friend 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3

3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 2 3

APPENDICES Table 34

Media female 27-35 In newspaper, expletives should be spelled out fully used in asterisk form not used at all

2 2 1


2 1 2


3 1 1

APPENDICES

WOMEN

Appendix 10

Table 35


secondary education (0)



slightly

not offensive

2

3 5 4

1 2

3

5 4 1 3

1 4 2 4 2 1 2 4 4 3

1 1 3 1 1 1 5 5

2 4

1

Table 36


secondary education (0)


slightly

not offensive

1

2

1 1 3 1 2 1 5 5

1 2 2 3 2 2 2 1 1 4 3 3

4 5 4 1 5 3 2 3 2 2 4 1

1

APPENDICES Table 37


child 5 5 3 2 3 3 3 3 2 3 4 1 1 3 2

boss/teacher 4 5 2 3 1 2 1 2 4 1 2 2

1

partner 4 5 3 1 3 3 1 2 1 2 4

1

friend 5 5 2 2 3 3 4 4 3 4 4 3 3 5 4

5 5 2 2 3 3 4 4 3 4 4 3 3 5 4

2

1

Table 38


0 2 3


0 4 1


4 0 1

APPENDICES

WOMEN

Appendix 11

Table 39




slightly


not offensive

very offensive

slightly

not offensive

1 1 1 1

2 2 2 1 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 1 1 2 2

1 1

1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1

1 1

2 2

Table 40



slightly

not offensive

1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1

tertiary education (2) 1 2 1 1 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1

very offensive

slightly

not offensive

1

1 1

1 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 1 1 2 2

2 2

APPENDICES Table 41


child

boss/teacher

partner

friend

1 1

1 1

1 1

1 1

1 1

1 1

1 1

1 1

1 1

1 1

Table 42


child 2 2 2 1 2 2 2 2 1 2 2 1 1 1 1

boss/teacher

partner

1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1

2 2 2 1 2 2 1 1 2 1 2

1

1

friend 2 2 2 1 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 1 2 2 1 2

2 2 2 1 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 1 2 2 1 2

APPENDICES Table 43


0 1 2


0 2 1


3 0 0

APPENDICES

WOMEN

Appendix 12

Table 44

female 60+ (3 people) general usage



slightly


not offensive

1

very offensive

slightly

1 2 1 1 2 1 1 1 1 2 1 1

1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 2

1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1

2 1 2 2

not offensive

1 1

1 1

Table 45




slightly offensive

not offensive

1 1 1 1 1 1 1

2 2 1 1 2 2


slightly offensive

1 2 1 1 2 1 1 1 1 2 2

not offensive 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1

1 1

1

APPENDICES Table 46

female 60+ secondary education (2) Which of these would you say in front of your: parents

child 2 2


boss/teacher 1 1 1 + 1 1

1

2 1 2 1 1

partner

1

1 1 1

friend 2 2 1 2 2 1 2 1 1 1 1

2 2 1 2 2 1 2 1 1 1 1

1 1

1 1

Table 47

Female 60+ tertiary education (1) Which of these would you say in front of your: parents God gosh Lord Jesus Christ Heaven Hell Bloody Damn/damned Sod Bugger Devil Bastard Ass/arse Shit Crap Cunt Fuck/fucking

child

boss/teacher

partner

friend

1 1 1

1 1 1

1 1 1

1 1 1 1

1 1 1 1

1

1

1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1

APPENDICES Table 48

Media female 60+ In newspaper, expletives should be spelled out fully

1

used in asterisk form

1

not used at all

1

On television and radio, expletives should be pronounced in full

1

beeped out

2

not used at all

0

Religion religious

2

atheist

0

none or N/A

1

APPENDICES

Appendix 13

Comments on research tables in Appendices 3-12: •

MEN 18-26

Table 1 –

The tertiary educated men within this age group were generally less offended by all the swearwords which suggests that they tend to use expletives more than their secondary educated peers.

Table 2 –

Supports the idea that tertiary educated males at this age are slightly more tolerant towards personal insults.

Table 3 & 4 – religious terms not offensive in front of parents whereas there is greater reluctance to use the words in front of their children. In front of the authority figure Boss/teacher the tertiary educated seem happier to swear. In front of a partner and a friend there were no noticeable differences between the two educational groups. Table 5 -

•

According to this age group expletives can be used in all forms of media with or without restrictions.

MEN 27-35

Table 6 & 7 – Shows tolerance to more or less all the terms, again with Bodily function swear words regarded more offensive than religious words. Table 8 & 9 – There are no significant differences between the educational groups. Bodily swear words are not acceptable in front of parents and children of these participants.

APPENDICES Table 10 – A small proportion thought there should be no swearing in media.

•

MEN 36-45

Table 11& 12 – Show a tendency in this group of becoming less tolerant to all forms of swearing. Table 13 & 14 – More protection towards children. Table 15 – Similarity to table 5, swear words should not be banned in media.

•

MEN 46-60

Table 16 & 17– Tertiary educated males tend to be more offended by bodily function swear words then their secondary educated counterparts. Table 18 & 19 – Tertiary educated males were more cautious in front of children then those with secondary education and tend to use bodily swear words less in front of their partners. Table 20 – Majority supports restrictions of swearing in media. Tables 21 to 24 - Are an example of just one representative. He is tertiary educated and very tolerant, however, we have to further evidence that this is typical and applicable to his age group in general. Other members of this age group refused to fill in the questionnaire when asked.

•

WOMEN 18-26

Table 25 & 26 – Female respondents show high tolerance to general usage of expletives while when directed at them tertiary educated group was more offended by bodily swear words.

APPENDICES Table 27 & 28 - Bodily swear words not used in front of children in both categories but tertiary educated women do not restrict themselves in front of their parents. C-word found very offensive even in front of a friend or a partner against the general tendency of tolerance towards these relations. Table 29 – expletives in media should be used with restrictions according to the vast majority.

•

WOMEN 27-35

Table 30 & 31 – Show less tolerance than the younger age group. Table 32 – Religious swear words acceptable in front of parents, authority and to a lesser extent in front of children Table 33 – Parents regarded in the same light as partners and friends which means all swearing is acceptable in front of them. Children are exposed to religious but bodily swearing. Table 34 – No united opinion on swearing in media.

•

WOMEN 36-45

Table 35 & 36 – Unfortunately no secondary educated participants. Tertiary educated women display reduced tolerance compared to the younger groups. Table 37 – Participants are more cautious in front of their partners, friend and authority in to traditional child protection. Table 38 – Expletives should be only used with restrictions or banned.

APPENDICES

•

WOMEN 46- 60

Table 39 & 40 – Secondary educated women more offended by bodily function expletives. Table 41 & 42 - Usual pattern found here, child authority and parents protection against bodily function expletives. Table 43 - Swearing does not belong in media according to this group.

•

WOMEN 60+

Table 44 – 47 – All kinds of swearing less acceptable Table 48 – Even though this group does not tend to swear a lot they are not completely against swearing in media.

APPENDICES

Appendix 14 Stenstrom, A-B. Expletives in the London-Lund corpus 1991: SEMANTIC CATEGORIES AND PREFERENCES Types

Male

Female

Total

HEAVEN

103

103

206

God

40

35

75

gosh

13

17

30

goodness

9

9

18

Lord

10

7

17

heaven

4

8

12

cor

6

3

9

golly

4

3

7

Christ

4

3

7

crikey

3

3

6

gracious

3

3

6

Jesus

4

1

5

blimey

/

4

4

cor blimey

2

/

2

gawd

/

/

1

gad

/

1

1

crumbs

1

/

1

lummy

/

1

1

cor lummy

/

1

1

oh God God God

/

1

1

APPENDICES oh my God goodness

/

1

1

ooh good Lord wow good heavens

/

1

1

Types

Male

Female

Total

HELL

27

16

43

bloody

11

10

21

hell

5

4

9

damn/damned/dammit

4

/

4

devil

3

/

3

what the fucking hell

3

/

3

bloody hell

1

1

1

dash

/

1

1

HEAVEN AND HELL

3

/

3

God dammit

3

/

3

God damnation

3

/

3

Good Lord hell

3

/

3

APPENDICES

Appendix 15 Hello, This questionnaire has been created as a part of my undergraduate dissertation on English expletives (i.e. swear words, taboo words, etc). The purpose of the paper is to find out whether, and to what extent, British people are familiar with the e tymology (i.e. origin) of such words and also to record by numerical system the usage and preferences of native speakers of British English regarding the choice of expletives, if indeed they use them at all. I would like to apologize in advance if you should find any of the questions offensive. Thank you for your time and your precious contribution to my thesis. Hana

Part A)

RESPONDENT’ S DETAILS – please tick the appropriate answer

1) Sex: 2) Age:

male female 18 – 26 27 – 35 36 – 45 46 – 60 60+ 3) Highest education reached: secondary education tertiary education ( i.e. academic, higher) 4) Religion: a) Christian b) Jewish c) Muslim d) Atheist e) other ……………..

Part B) EXPLETIVES

5) Please put a tick into the column expressing your opinion. More than one answer is allowed.

EXPLETIVES God gosh Lord Jesus Christ Heaven Hell Bloody Damn/damned/dammit Sod Bugger Devil Bastard Ass/arse Shit

If used in general reference

If directed at you personally

Very Slightly Not Very Slightly Not offensive offensive offensive offensive offensive offensive

Diploma Thesis

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