What follows my dear and
long-suffering readers is an honest
and frank discussion about words
considered by many to be profane
or vulgar. This is in no way meant
to be a gauche or crass attempt to
use obscenities for the sake of en-
tertainment. While I present these
terms with no apology - indeed,
I would argue that none is need-
ed - this is a “hot-button” issue for
many people.
* * * * *
R
iddle me this: What makes
a word “profane?” Where
does the line get drawn be-
tween honest language and, in the
words of Mr. Spock in Star Trek IV:
The Voyage Home “colourful met-
aphors?”
We have simple, direct words for
acts like sleeping and eating, but
for acts of reproduction, we limit
ourselves either to cumbersome
medical terminology such as cop-
ulation, coition, or to such effusive
euphemisms as love-making, inti-
macy and so on. We have similar
issues when describing the frank-
ly universal act of expelling solid
waste from our bodies: Evacuat-
ing, passing stools, defecating, ex-
creting and of course, “doing num-
ber two.”
Side Note: One must, in this in-
stance, feel some sympathy for
poor, put upon number two. How
such an august member of our nu-
merical system go t couched with
the burden of our fecal deposits is
frankly a mystery to me.
Anyway, this kind of sanitized, eu-
phemistic circumlocution reveals
a deep seated embarrassment and
a shame of natural bodily functions
that borders on the unhealthy.
On the other hand, words such as
shit - and, it must be said - fuck,
have an honesty and directness
which betrays no such puerile
embarrassment, nor do they suffer
from excessive discursiveness.
Let this piece of intel rattle about
in your brainbox for a moment:
What if we discovered a culture
who expressed embarrassment
over breathing, or stretching and
yawning when tired, insisting that
we use words such as “respire”
or “pandiculate” to describe those
acts? Methinks we’d chortle over
our frappuccinos at such bizarre
nonsense.
It strikes me as equally bizarre and
nonsensical (not to mention a little
worrying) that we try to - linguis-
tically at least - sterilize the act of
sex, an act associated with plea-
sure, joy and the creation of new
life.
Perhaps a historical example will
illustrate my point more clearly.
In 1960 Penguin Books was taken
to court for the publication of the
novel “Lady Chatterly’s Lover” by
D. H. Lawrence. The prosecution
maintained that the book had bro-
ken the Obscene Publications Act
due to its use of vulgar language,
most specifically the word “fuck,”
used to describe sexual acts be-
tween the characters. During the
trial, the sociologist Richard Hog-
gart was called to testify to the lit-
erary value of the book. He argued:
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