Forbidden Words: Taboo and the Censoring of Language

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Food and smell 201 The longer the word has been in the language, the more disagreeable the denotation. Stink and stench have been around the longest. The most fragrant terms listed are French – odour, scent, perfume, fragrance and aroma. French and Latin have long been sources for English euphemisms. Yet, the deodorizing property of the sweet-smelling euphemism inevitably fades as the taboo sense asserts itself. Odour, as the oldest of these five, has already festered. Forbidden fruit This chapter has been concerned with the language of food and drink, especially the culinary delicacies and abominations of modern times. Avoidance strategies take the form of gastronomic red herrings – language that disguises, distorts, deceives, misleads, inflates and obfuscates. Current nutritional superstitions and gastronomic fetishes condemn salt, fat, sugar, caffeine, butter and margarine. Food labels and advertisements send out ‘healthy’ messages, with descriptions such as fat-free, salt-free, sugar-free, meat-free, guilt-free, and so forth. One lite product advertised itself with ‘Nothing added’. Even the king-size nomenclature, so popular in food labels generally, has now been dropped from chocolate bars in an effort to promote healthy eating and combat obesity (and its trendy offspring macbesity, globesity and diabesity). Food has an intimate association with our bodies. Eating and drinking bind us within a community and differentiate us from others. Eating habits and dietary regimens are deeply entwined with cultural traditions, connecting with things religious, moral, medical and sexual. Food and drink taboos are identity tags for group membership; using Brillat-Savarin’s aphorism, ‘Tell me what you eat: I will tell you what you are.’ 54 The food consumed by one group is despised by another, so that ethnic and racial slurs can play on gastronomy; and they are increasingly common. The most robust taboo of all is that people should not be turned into food. Somewhat surprising therefore is the dearth of euphemistic expressions for cannibalism. Perhaps the idea of people as food is so repugnant as to be barely mentionable – even if a common response to tension is nail-biting and finger chewing. Metaphorical cannibalism flourishes where the language of food and the language of sex meet. Expressions such as I could eat you! capture the similarities between our eating habits and sexual behaviour. This link is exploited in the food metaphors used to describe sexual body parts and associated activities. The image of an edible lover can be found in language as diverse as the poetic diction of elevated literature, through to the amateurish efforts of those who post their St Valentine’s Day messages in a local
202 Forbidden Words paper. In this tangle of eating and sexual desire we find smell provoking all sorts of appetites, not least sexual attraction. And yet the language of olfaction is surprisingly impoverished. Descriptions of smells rely heavily on taste. There are few positive expressions and perhaps no true orthophemisms. Maybe this reflects the fact that humans are uncomfortable with the smell of their bodily effluvia. Certainly, words to do with smelling are prone to deteriorate as euphemism is undermined by taboo.
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Forbidden Words217905 Many words an
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CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS Cambridg
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393676 Contents List of figures pag
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351501 Acknowledgements We owe grat
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2 Forbidden Words and dysphemism ma
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4 Forbidden Words apprehension they
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6 Forbidden Words with unclean part
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8 Forbidden Words Figure 1.1. A wom
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10 Forbidden Words in (pre)history
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12 Forbidden Words different brain
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14 Forbidden Words alleurynge of ma
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16 Forbidden Words Wants pawn term
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18 Forbidden Words very extensive g
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20 Forbidden Words Milton would hav
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22 Forbidden Words Such vile deeds
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24 Forbidden Words Censorship nearl
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26 Forbidden Words existed, would c
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28 Forbidden Words more than impose
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30 Forbidden Words instance, Fieldi
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32 Forbidden Words Table 2.1. Contr
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34 Forbidden Words Figure 2.1. Dist
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36 Forbidden Words So, defining the
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38 Forbidden Words Figure 2.2. Visu
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40 Forbidden Words were to inform c
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42 Forbidden Words Dirty words have
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44 Forbidden Words taboo topics the
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46 Forbidden Words meaning ‘gay m
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48 Forbidden Words Zimmerman’s na
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50 Forbidden Words I cross the swin
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52 Forbidden Words It is generally
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54 Forbidden Words are wedded to co
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56 Forbidden Words Jargon. Gibridge
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58 Forbidden Words b. Idioms and ab
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60 Forbidden Words These phrases de
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62 Forbidden Words another point of
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64 Forbidden Words scholarship; lik
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66 Forbidden Words standards); they
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68 Forbidden Words Syntagmatic rela
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70 Forbidden Words the terms argot
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72 Forbidden Words entries labelled
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74 Forbidden Words Key: Her scotche
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76 Forbidden Words appropriate to t
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78 Forbidden Words management of X-
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80 Forbidden Words cat and bitch of
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82 Forbidden Words homosexuality. T
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84 Forbidden Words whites; and in A
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86 Forbidden Words ing, joining, ra
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88 Forbidden Words [Two urban worki
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4 The language of political correct
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92 Forbidden Words supposed that th
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94 Forbidden Words There once was a
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96 Forbidden Words correct’ terms
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98 Forbidden Words For many, the po
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100 Forbidden Words the controversy
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102 Forbidden Words in the face of
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104 Forbidden Words contaminated ot
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106 Forbidden Words viruses, global
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108 Forbidden Words A recent Britis
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110 Forbidden Words to race, religi
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5 Linguistic purism and verbal hygi
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114 Forbidden Words The making of t
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116 Forbidden Words prescriptive pr
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118 Forbidden Words In his own priv
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120 Forbidden Words who engage in r
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122 Forbidden Words and verbs.’ 3
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124 Forbidden Words would be dysfun
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126 Forbidden Words In the early tw
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128 Forbidden Words by circumlocuti
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130 Forbidden Words length identifi
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132 Forbidden Words But he that fil
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134 Forbidden Words the role the sp
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136 Forbidden Words second person i
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138 Forbidden Words Consider occasi
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140 Forbidden Words (Geordie and Cu
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142 Forbidden Words chairman, super
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7 Sex and bodily effluvia This chap
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146 Forbidden Words thy brother. 9
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148 Forbidden Words whack off, get
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Page 225 and 226: 214 Forbidden Words eighteenth cent
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252 Forbidden Words odious; so the
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Notes 1 TABOOS AND THEIR ORIGINS 1
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256 Notes to pages 16-23 26 Cf. htt
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258 Notes to pages 38-51 national o
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260 Notes to pages 69-78 25 Partrid
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262 Notes to pages 93-106 trivializ
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264 Notes to pages 116-27 19 Campbe
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266 Notes to pages 137-47 31 We are
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268 Notes to pages 153-7 there are
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270 Notes to pages 168-76 nickname
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272 Notes to pages 193-211 43 Fern
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274 Notes to pages 229-43 56 Simons
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276 Notes to pages 249-52 32 Coming
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278 References Aristotle. 1984. The
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280 References Bybee, Joan L. 2003.
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282 References Emerson, Ralph W. 18
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284 References Harris, Catherine L.
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286 References Kinsey, Alfred. 1953
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288 References Moore, Judith. 1994.
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290 References Rochester, John Wilm
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292 References Van Lancker, D. and
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294 Index Balinese 5 Banks 262 bant
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296 Index disease 1, 22, 41, 62, 71
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298 Index Hughes, G. 16, 24, 260, 2
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300 Index OED (Oxford English Dicti
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302 Index Spain, Spanish 52, 132, 1
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Forbidden Words: Taboo and the Censoring of Language

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