Forbidden Words: Taboo and the Censoring of Language

Disease, death and killing 235
From the secure position afforded us by twenty-first-century medicine,
when each new day seems to bring some new medical breakthrough, our fear
of disease is no less acute than in earlier times. Disease is still something of a
mystery: there are symptoms and there are sick patients, but there is often
nothing tangible in disease itself. It seems mostly to arrive out of the blue and
just as mysteriously seems able transmit itself from person to person,
affecting some while leaving others curiously untouched. This is particularly
true in the case of stigmatizing illnesses, such as AIDS or cancer. Current
social attitudes towards these and disorders included under the label mental
illness still reflect the medieval equation of good with well-being and evil
with disease.
Human beings fear losing control of their destinies, and this is at the root of
many taboos. Disease is something that afflicts us; we are patients, we
exercise no control. This adds to the horror of disease, which in the past
would have been more acute because diseases were more mysterious and the
fear of contagion greater. In normal non-clinical usage, madness is also
perceived to result from a lack of control, and the fear of becoming insane
has inspired some of the strongest linguistic taboos to be found in the general
area of illness and disease. Death is, of course, simply another unavoidable
body process; no one gets out alive. We can end our own life, but we have no
control over when Nature will rob us of it. Death awaits all of us, and to
most of us it is an unknown, something to be avoided and something that it
is reasonable to be fearful of. Even those with strong religious beliefs are
not usually in a hurry to meet their maker. For those who die after enduring
severe pain, death is a haven. For others, death is eternal sleep or the start of
a new afterlife. As we have seen, the language of death reflects all such
attributes.
Except for enemies, killing of persons is taboo. People we don’t like may
be told to drop dead or go to hell (not heaven!); and if annoyed, we may say
something like I’d like to wring his/your neck, even to persons we are
normally fond of. Legally sanctioned killings are set about with euphemism.
Acts of war are often cloaked in language that masks the true purpose and
nature of acts of killing. By using deodorant language to describe dirty deeds,
it is perhaps easier to commit those dirty deeds. Expressions such as soft skin
target, surgical strikes, collateral damage and friendly fire help to minimize
feelings of responsibility. They play down the slaughter of human beings and
also create psychological distance between the perpetrators and their actions.
And, while it is unlikely anyone is really taken in by such doublespeak –
public opinion is not as easily manipulated as George Orwell’s Newspeak
would suggest – research carried out by people like Elizabeth Loftus shows
that loaded language does work to influence memory and perception. 70
Hunting is also characterized by language motivated by fear of dangerous