Forbidden Words: Taboo and the Censoring of Language

Notes to pages 211–29 273
23 With the exception, of course, that men’s genitalia, like the genitalia of women, are
frequently likened to animals in the vocabulary people use to talk about these
‘unmentionables.’
24 Margaret Cavendish (née Lucas), Duchess of Newcastle (1623–73), was so unusual
in writing about philosophy and many other topics that in the nineteenth century
she was nicknamed Mad Madge (Whitaker 2002: 347–59). In her lifetime she
published prolifically, which was very unusual for the period, and only possible
because of her exalted position among the Restoration nobility, her supportive
husband and, not least, her own very strong character.
25 In the west, many buildings have no thirteenth floor, in Japan no fourth floor (for
the same reason).
26 Field 1976: 355.
27 Field 1976: 358; Sontag 1979: 6.
28 The same is true for Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.
29 Morse 1999.
30 Gillis 1972: 177.
31 The practice ended in 1770.
32 Gillis 1972: 175–9.
33 Ayto 1993: 213.
34 Black 1986: 40; see also Callen 1990: 172. In the 1970s, AIDS happened to be
homophonous with the name of an American brand of diet-candy, AYDS, now
withdrawn from the market, at least under that name.
35 http://www.4-h-canada.ca/what_is_4-h.html. Accessed October 2004.
36 http://www.actupny.org/documents/Denver.html. Accessed October 2004.
37 Grover 1990: 56.
38 ‘[T]he question of who has the power to name is an on-going turf battle between
people with AIDS and those who insist on defining us as victims’ (AIDS activist in
Callen 1990: 177).
39 Hinton 1976: 303–14.
40 Stephenson 1985: 103–9.
41 Patterson 1987: 329, n7.
42 Quoted in Sontag 1989: 66. Reagan acting the Gipper, perhaps.
43 Some readers believe Christopher Robin is speaking of growing up, not dying.
44 Cf. Peterson 1986: 48.
45 Cf. Gorer 1965; Brain 1979; Gross 1985.
46 Stephenson 1985: 41.
47 Baird 1976: 87.
48 Deetz 1977.
49 The Melbourne Sun, Saturday 21 May 1988.
50 Shakespeare, Macbeth, II.ii.52f.
51 A T[otalizator] A[gency] B[oard] outlet is a betting shop.
52 Medical Observer, 19 January 1990.
53 This, at least, is the folk belief; some etymologists dispute it and claim (among
other things) that bucket denotes the ‘beam, yoke’ where a pig was hung for
slaughter – the dying pig would presumably kick the bucket.
54 See Douglas 1966: ch. 5; Simons 1982: 194, 206.
55 Cf. Frazer 1911: 394ff; Cove 1978; Knipe 1984; Knipe and Bromley 1984.