Forbidden Words: Taboo and the Censoring of Language

262 Notes to pages 93–106
trivializes important issues precisely because it pays attention to trifling facts of
language. In an account of anti-sexist language reforms in her own institution,
Cameron 1995: 139–40 describes how many of the responses to the leaflet on
‘gender-free language’ also put forward the same contradiction: ‘How can intervening
in language be both a trivial diversion from politics and a threat to our most
fundamental liberties?’
12 Wendy Harmer, ‘Wounded by a Glance’, The Age, Good Weekend, 29 April 1995,
p. 16.
13 What in Australian English could be dubbed a ‘claytons’ political movement. The
label claytons derives from the name of a non-alcoholic whisky, advertised as ‘the
drink you’re having when you’re not having a drink’. The term has since extended
to refer generally to ‘something which is illusory or exists in name only’.
14 The Age, 1 February 1995, p. 16.
15 These examples were contributed by Fritz Newmeyer, Linguist List, 8 June 1996;
and Dennis Baron, Linguist List, 9 June 1996.
16 E.g. Banks and Mulder 1996.
17 Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transvestite, Intersex, Queer.
18 Bolinger 1980: 96.
19 Cameron 1995: 145.
20 Allan and Burridge 1991: ch. 10 provides an account of ‘euphemism as art’.
21 Banks and Mulder 1996: 34.
22 Hughes 1993.
23 Cameron 1995: 146
24 Eagleson 1982: 157.
25 The label ‘natural cover’ is used by Loury 1993: 615.
26 This example is given in Crystal 1995: 177.
27 Ayto 1993: 288.
28 Australian Financial Review, 22 February 1999, p. 8.
29 Hughes 1991: ch. 5 describes the ingenious circumvention that such repression
encourages. Ch. 7 also offers a splendid account of the schizoid behaviour of the
Victorians – a rich exuberance of swearing went hand in hand with the decorum
and censorship of the time.
30 Green 1996: 13.
31 Noonan 1998: 369.
32 ‘So Correct and So Funny’, The West Australian, 26 December 1998, p. 7.
33 Lakoff 2000: ch. 3 discusses the difficulty of imposing speech codes.
34 Loury 1993.
35 Cf. discussions in Osgood et al. 1957, MacWhinney et al. 1982, also Allan and
Burridge 1991: 21–4.
36 Jacobsen 2002.
37 Hughes 1993: 18–19.
38 Chair of the Human Rights Council of Australia, Morris 1997: 158.
39 Adams 1997: 19.
40 Appignanesi 1994: 156.
41 But not yet the Federal Government.
42 Hughes 1991 offers a full account of the changes to English swearing patterns.