Forbidden Words: Taboo and the Censoring of Language

100 Forbidden Words
the controversy surrounding British Mencap’s refusal to change the name
mental handicap, their director of marketing observed: ‘It is only a matter of
time before even the most right-on expression becomes a term of abuse. It has
been the same since people talked about village idiots, and “learning difficulties”
is no exception. Children are already calling each other LDs as an
insult.’ 26
Consider ways of referring to poor countries. One of the earliest expressions
was backward, a word whose euphemistic sheen is so badly tarnished by
connotations of mental illness and lack of civilization that it is difficult to ever
imagine it as euphemism. In the late 1940s, it was substituted by underdeveloped,
which was then replaced in the 1950s by less developed, or better still,
lesser developed – the use of the comparative is a subtle euphemistic practice,
ensuring the description is always a little fuzzy around the edges. The more
positive developing appeared in the 1960s, followed closely by emerging or
emergent. But the smack of colonialism soon rendered all these taboo, and as
Ayto points out, 27 nowadays we tend to retreat to the safe territory suggested
by geographical labels like Third World, and more recently The South –or
else an acronym like HIPCs (highly indebted poor countries). 28
Censorship and repression, whether manifest in full-blown sanctions or
merely social niceties, always seem to provide fertile ground for the taboos
they exist to control. During the Renaissance period, linguistic censorship in
England coincided with a flourishing of linguistic subterfuge in the form of
‘dismembering oaths’ like zounds or sfoot. 29 Sex went underground during
the Victorian era, but erotic literature flourished and sexual promiscuity was
rife. Today, we see the same mix of exuberance and restraint: next to public
PC etiquette there is a flourishing lexicon of bigotry. Green’s collection of
largely racial slurs highlights a brand new litany of abuse. Ironically, the
United States of America, the land of immigrants and aliens, tops the list of
abusers; American coinages make up the largest proportion of dysphemistic
language in his book. 30 Like some kind of dysphemistic worm in the euphemistic
bud, offensive language always seems to thrive on social sweetness.
Political correctness and self-censorship
PC-driven language is politically motivated, and so attracts more attention
and resistance than most euphemism. PC euphemism is perceived to arise
directly out of linguistic intervention. Except for slang (or at least their own
slang), people generally dislike linguistic change, especially change that
smacks of deliberate manipulation. Peggy Noonan, a journalist and former
speech writer for Ronald Reagan, spent much of a piece on political
correctness lamenting the loss of words she claims to have been hijacked
and reinterpreted: ‘I wish we could rescue them’, she writes, ‘and return