Forbidden Words: Taboo and the Censoring of Language

Taboo, censoring and the human brain 249
religious profanity and blasphemy have given way to sexually obscene words
and, commonly, racial epithets. One woman married to a man with TS felt
that coprolalia was specifically something that affected an area of the brain
designed to store hostile reactions toward some perceived group of ‘others’;
she concluded, ‘I think that is why racial epithets are so sadly a part of
coprolalia for many people.’ 31
A number of researchers have characterized TS as a breakdown of the
brain’s inhibitory mechanisms: ‘a “disinhibition syndrome” due to release of
the inhibiting neuronal pathways’. 32 In other words, the characteristic tic
disorders are understood to be conditions in which there is a failure to inhibit
bits of ‘normal’ behavior. There is a substantial body of data based on postmortem
and neuro-imaging studies that implicates the basal ganglia (the
interconnected areas located deep below the cerebral cortex) both in TS and
related neurological disorders. 33 These basal ganglia are the hidden pathways
that contribute to the multiple circuits involved in the different cognitive and
limbic processes that regulate emotions, thoughts and movement; neurologists
suggest that the outbursts of foul language would be associated with a
failure to inhibit portions of the limbic mini-circuits. 34 There may not yet be
any laboratory or neuro-imaging studies that have conclusively identified the
exact neuro-anatomical sites where taboo expressions are stored, or that have
evaluated specifically the neurological processing of obscenities, but the
evidence seems overwhelming: taboo language is rooted deeply in human
neural anatomy; it is inbuilt, hard-wired into the limbic systems of our brains.
The socio-cultural setting then provides the expression. ‘Society shapes the
noise that is made’, to quote the mother of the five-year-old Touretter.
Both taboo and censoring represent aspects of the enduring conflict in
humans between animal and intellect. Taboo is identified with emotional
release, aggression, lack of control, intemperance and intolerance. The pleasurable
effect of an expletive employed to release pent-up anger against a
person, or to insult and wound someone, reveals the animal (deep subcortical)
part of human beings that our inhibitory mechanisms strive to suppress.
Censorship on the other hand, whether in the form of legal controls or simple
social taste constraints, reflects the intellectual (higher cortical) part of being
human that is associated with emotional control, rational thought and tolerance.
An end on’t
We know our will is free, and there’s an end on’t. (Samuel Johnson, 16 October 1769;
Boswell 1791)
This book has explored the ins and outs of many words and phrases that have,
for a variety of reasons, been subject to cultural and social proscription. They