Forbidden Words: Taboo and the Censoring of Language

32 Forbidden Words
Table 2.1. Contrasting X-phemisms
Orthophemism Euphemism Dysphemism
faeces poo shit
toilet loo shithouse
menstruate have a period bleed
my vagina my bits my cunt
Jesus Lord Christ! [blasphemy]
quadruped. If the referent were human, then the expression is dysphemistic:
the speaker is accusing the male human referent of being worthless and
despicable, or a woman of being ill-dressed and ugly. The affective meaning,
social and expressive information about the speaker’s feelings, is what is most
significant. Connotations differ from context to context, from one community
to another, and occasionally from one individual to another.
Because impolite behaviour is offensive, it is dysphemistic, and because
polite behaviour is more or less the opposite of impolite behaviour, polite
behaviour is non-dysphemistic. Once again, the classification is wedded to
context, place and time. The context makes all the difference, as the following
examples show. At moments of intimacy, lovers may pleasurably and inoffensively
refer to tabooed body parts using terms that would be dysphemistic in
a doctor’s surgery. Among a group of male squaddies in a boozer (soldiers in a
bar), the term shithouse would most likely be non-dysphemistic and if one of
them used the euphemism loo instead (other than jokingly), he would probably
be laughed at; the term could be regarded as dysphemistic because it would be
as insulting to the others as addressing them using baby language.
Compare a small set of orthophemisms, euphemisms and dysphemisms in
Table 2.1. The dysphemism is tabooed as the impolite choice, or in the case of
bleed perhaps merely dispreferred; it is the expression most likely to be
deemed offensive. What is the difference between orthophemisms and euphemisms?
Orthophemisms and euphemisms are words or phrases used as
an alternative to a dispreferred expression. They avoid possible loss of face by
the speaker, and also the hearer or some third party. A dispreferred language
expression is simply one that is not the preferred, desired or appropriate
expression. For instance, under most circumstances the dispreferred response
to an invitation is refusal; dispreferred responses to a greeting are a dismissal
or a cold stare. 3 Dispreferred expressions might alternatively be dubbed
tabooed expressions.
Our definition refers to face. This is extremely significant in any discussion
of politeness. Social interaction is generally oriented towards maintaining