Chapter 11

Taboo words and language: an overview

KEITH ALLAN

1.1 Taboo applies to behaviour

Taboo refers to a proscription of behaviour for a specifiable community of one or more
persons at a specifiable time in specifiable contexts. (Allan and Burridge 2006: 11)

The Oxford Handbook of Taboo Words and Language is a book about taboo words and
language, but as I hope to make clear in the course of this chapter, what is in fact tabooed is
the use of those words and language in certain contexts; in short, the taboo applies to
instances of language behaviour.

As originally recognized in the Pacific islands when first visited by Europeans, taboos
prohibited certain people, particularly women, either permanently or temporarily, from
certain actions, from contact with certain things and certain other people. A tabooed person
was ostracized. The term taboo came to be used of similar customs elsewhere in the world,
especially where taboos arose from respect for and fear of metaphysical powers; it was
extended to political and social affairs and generalized to the interdiction of the use or
practice of anything, especially an expression or topic considered offensive and therefore
shunned or prohibited by social custom.

Where something physical or metaphysical is said to be tabooed, what is in fact tabooed is

its interaction with an individual, with a specified group of persons or even with the whole
community. In principle any kind of behaviour can be tabooed. For behaviour to be
proscribed it must be perceived as in some way harmful to an individual or their community;
but the degree of harm can fall anywhere on a scale from a breach of etiquette to out-and-out
fatality.

In this book we are principally concerned with language behaviour. There are people who
would like to erase from the English language obscene terms like cunt and slurs like idiot or
nigger; less passionate people recognize after a few moments reflection that this is a wish
impossible to grant. Such words are as much a part of English as all the other words in the
Oxford English Dictionary (see Allan 2015, 2016b, 2018 for discussion). However, there is
evidence that ‘swear words’ occupy a different brain location from other vocabulary; part of

1
To appear in Keith Allan (ed.) Oxford Handbook of Taboo Words and Language, Oxford:
Oxford University Press. (In press, 2018.)
the evidence is that people said never to have uttered taboo language earlier in their lifetime
sometimes, when senile dementia has set in, lose the ability to speak normally but do readily
recall and utter taboo words (cf. Comings and Comings 1985, Van Lancker and Cummings
1999, Jay 2000, Chapter 7 of this volume). It is possible to taboo language behaviour in
certain specified contexts; in fact it is often done. Some tabooed behaviours are prohibited by
law; all are deprecated and lead to social if not legal sanction.

To engage in tabooed behaviour is to cause offence to others and so it is dysphemistic. The

use of tabooed words to insult someone is dysphemistic. The use of swear words has a
number of motivations, one of them is the auto-cathartic ‘letting off steam’ e.g. with
expletives such as Fuck! or Shit!.2 A standard way of trying to avoid giving offense is to
substitute a euphemistic locution for such dysphemisms, e.g. Fiddle-di-dee! and Sugar!,
which might be called euphemistic dysphemisms – though just plain euphemism seems
acceptable. In many circumstances it is dysphemistic to refer to faecal matter as shit; a
standard euphemism for it is poo. Or, to call a spade a spade, the orthophemism is faecal
matter or faeces. Although the context of use affects such judgments, dysphemism is
typically impolite because it is offensive; orthophemism (‘straight-talking’) is polite and so is
euphemism (‘sweet-talking’). Typically, euphemism is more figurative and colloquial,
orthophemism more literal and more formal. Sometimes euphemisms are flamboyant
verbiage, as when a traffic bottleneck is described as a localised capacity deficiency. Where
such jargon causes offence, these are dysphemistic euphemisms.

There can be sound reasons for mandating specific parts of our lives out of bounds. Rules
against incest are eminently sensible from an evolutionary point of view. Communities
remain healthier if human waste is kept at a distance. Many food prejudices have a rational
origin. Avoidance-speech styles help prevent conflict in relationships that are potentially
volatile. To an outsider many prohibitions are perplexing and seem silly. But they are among
the common values that link the people of a community together. What one group values
another scorns. So, shared taboos are a sign of social cohesion.

1.2 Origin of the term taboo

Taboos are proscriptions of behaviour arising out of social constraints on the individual’s
behaviour where it is perceived to be a potential cause of discomfort, harm or injury. The
English word taboo derives from the Tongan tabu which came to notice towards the end of
the 18th century. According to Radcliffe-Brown:

2
This actually works, see Stephens, Atkins, and Kingston (2009).
 In the languages of Polynesia the word means simply ‘to forbid’, ‘forbidden’, and can be
applied to any sort of prohibition. A rule of etiquette, an order issued by a chief, an injunction
to children not to meddle with the possessions of their elders, may all be expressed by the use
of the word tabu. (Radcliffe-Brown 1939: 5f)

On his first voyage of 1768–1771 Captain James Cook was sent to Tahiti to observe the
transit of the planet Venus across the Sun. In his logbook he wrote of the Tahitians that

the women never upon any account eat with the men, but always by themselves. […] They
were often Asked the reason, but they never gave no other Answer, but that they did it because
it was right. [… I]t hath sometimes hapned that when a woman was alone in our company she
would eat with us, but always took care that her own people should not know what she had
donn, so that whatever may be the reasons for this custom, it certainly affects their outward
manners more than their Principle. (Cook 1893: 91)

Assuming that the constraint against Tahitian women eating with men was a taboo on such
behaviour (cf. Steiner 1967), it looks comparable to the constraint against using your fingers
instead of cutlery when dining in a British restaurant. It is an example of a taboo on bad
manners, one subject to the social sanction of severe disapproval – rather than putting the
violator’s life in danger, as some taboos do. Alternatively, we can look at this taboo as the
function of a kind of caste system in which women are a lower caste than men in a way not
dissimilar from the caste difference based on race that operated in the south of the United
States of America until the later 1960s such that it was acceptable for an African American to
prepare food for whites, but not to share it at table with them. This is the same caste system
which permitted white men to take blacks for mistresses but not marry them; a system found
in Colonial Africa and under the British Raj in India.

Captain Cook does not name the proscription against Tahitian women eating with men as
either taboo or by the equivalent Tahitian term raa. It is in the log of his third voyage, 1776–
1779, that he first uses the term tabu in an entry for June 15, 1777 (Cook 1967: 129): ‘When
dinner came on table not one of my guests would sit down or eat a bit of any thing that was
there. Every one was Tabu, a word of very comprehensive meaning but in general signifies
forbidden.’ And on June 20, 1777:

In this walk we met with about half a dozen Women in one place at supper, two of the
Company were fed by the others, on our asking the reason, they said Tabu Mattee. On further
enquiry, found that one of them had, two months before, washed the dead corps of a Chief, on
which account she was not to handle Victuals for five Months, the other had done the same
thing to another of inferior rank, and was under the same restriction but not for so long a time.
(Cook 1967: 135)

In the entry for July 17, 1777, Cook wrote:

 Taboo in general signifies forbidden. […]
Taboo as I have before observed is a word of extensive signification; Human Sacrifices are
called Tangata Taboo, and when any thing is forbid to be eaten, or made use of they say such a
thing is Taboo; they say that if the King should happen to go into a house belonging to a
subject, that house would be Taboo and never more be inhabited by the owner; so that when
ever he travels there are houses for his reception. (Cook 1967: 176)

Also in the journal entry for July 1777, the Surgeon on the Resolution, William Anderson,
wrote:

[Taboo] is the common expression when any thing is not to be touch’d, unless the transgressor
will risque some very severe punishment as appears from the great apprehension they have of
approaching any thing prohibited by it. In some cases it appears to resemble the Levitical law
of purification, for we have seen several women who were not allow’d the use of their hands in
eating but were fed by other people. On enquiring the reason of it at one time they said that one
of the women had wash’d the dead body of the chief already mentioned who died at Tonga, and
another who had assisted was in the same predicament, though then a month after the
circumstance had happen’d. It also serves as a temporary law or edict of their chiefs, for
sometimes certainly articles of food are laid under restriction, and there are other circumstances
regulated in the same manner as trading &c when it is thought necessary to stop it. (Cook 1967:
948)

Cook and Anderson use taboo/tabu to describe the behaviour of Polynesians towards
things that were not to be done, entered, seen, or touched. Such taboos are, in some form,
almost universal. For instance, there are food taboos in most societies: many Hindus are
vegetarian; pork is prescribed in Judaism and Islam; Jews fast at Passover and Muslims
during Ramadan; meat is unacceptable on Fridays among some Roman Catholics. Today
almost all human groups proscribe the eating of human flesh. Some used to allow the flesh of
a defeated enemy to be eaten; a few, such as the Aztecs, used to eat human flesh as a
religious ritual. Today, cannibalism is only excused as a survival mechanism such as when,
after an air crash in the Andes in 1972, surviving members of the Uruguayan rugby team ate
the dead in order to stay alive.

1.3 Fatal taboos

From the early 19th century many people came to believe that so-called ‘primitive peoples’
fear a ‘demonic’ power within a tabooed object comparable with the dangerous power of a
Polynesian chief or the Emperor of Japan or Satan himself. The effect on a person who comes
into contact with a tabooed person or thing is severely detrimental (cf. Freud 1950: 21-24);
such contact is at least inappropriate and often unlawful. This was the standard interpretation
of the term taboo among anthropologists (though see Chapter 20, this volume). Margaret
Mead 1937, for instance, restricts the term taboo to ‘prohibition against participation in any
situation of such inherent danger that the very act of participation will recoil upon the violator
of the taboo.’ It is as if the tabooed object were like a radioactive fuel rod which will have
dire effects on anyone who comes into direct contact with it unless they know how to protect
themselves. ‘Cases are on record in which persons who had unwittingly broken a taboo
actually died of terror on discovering their fatal error’ writes Frazer (1875: 17). To violate a
taboo can lead to the auto da fé of the perpetrator. In old Hawai‘i a commoner who had sex
with his sister was put to death. A woman who commits adultery can be stoned to death under
Sharia law in Mauritania, Nigeria, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, the United
Arab Emirates, and Yemen. In the USA, as at 1 February 2017, 1446 people had been
executed for murder since 1976, four in the first month of 2017. According to the Bible, God
told Moses ‘You shall not permit a sorceress to live’ (Exodus 22:18); implementing scripture,
hundreds of heretics and witches were burned in Europe when Christianity had more political
power than it does today. Although most taboo violations do not result in capital punishment,
there are plenty of other sanctions on behaviour prohibited under the law – whether this is
law as conceived and promulgated in a modern nation state, or traditional lore in 18th century
Polynesia, or under the Spanish Inquisition (1478–1834). That which is illegal is ipso facto
taboo – it is prohibited behaviour. But, as we have already seen there is more that falls under
the heading of taboo.

Violation of linguistic taboos is only fatal when there is serious disparagement of a

revered personage such as a monarch or tyrant, a god, or an ideology. Apostate Christians
(heretics) were executed in medieval Europe, apostate Muslims may be put to death in some
Islamic states today, namely Afghanistan, Iran, Malaysia, Maldives, Mauritania, Nigeria,
Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, United Arab Emirates, and Yemen – though
most of these do not in practice impose a death penalty.

1.4 Uncleanliness taboos

There are taboos in which notions of uncleanliness are the motivating factor. Many
communities taboo physical contact with a menstruating woman, believing that it pollutes
males in particular; so some Orthodox New York Jews will avoid public transport lest they sit
where a menstruating woman has sat. Many places of worship in this world taboo
menstruating women because they would defile holy sites (on the menstruation taboo in
many cultures see Allan and Burridge 2006: 162-170, Agyekum 2002, Ernster 1975, Hays
1987, Joffe 1948).3 The Balinese used to prefer one storey buildings so that unclean feet (and
worse) would not pass above their heads; they still avoid walking under washing lines where
garments that have been in contact with unclean parts of the body might pass over their
heads. Many communities taboo contact with a corpse such that no-one who has touched the
cadaver is permitted to handle food.

Linguistic taboos on death and disease and those on the body parts and effluvia associated
with sex, micturition, and defecation are uncleanliness taboos. It is such taboos which
motivate the plethora of taboo language expressions in English invoking sex organs and
practices, and the body parts and effluvia of urination and defecation. Only certain terms can
function as swearwords. For instance, learned words for sexual organs and effluvia generally
do not (cf. You faeces! Urine off!) because they typically function as orthophemisms; but nor
do certain mild obscenities and nursery terms – at least among adults (cf. You willie! Wee-wee
on you!).

1.5 Turning the tables on taboo

There is an assumption that both accidental breach and deliberate defiance of a taboo will be
followed by some kind of penalty to the offender, such as lack of success in hunting, fishing,
or other business, and the sickness or the death of the offender or one of their relatives. In
many communities, a person who meets with an accident or fails to achieve some goal will
infer, as will others, that s/he has in some manner committed a breach of taboo.

Generally speaking we do have the power to avoid tabooed behaviour. When a breach can
be ascribed to bad luck, there remains a suspicion that the perpetrator is somehow responsible
for having previously sinned; note the negative presupposition of ‘Why is this person’s luck
bad?’ One concludes that any violation of taboo, however innocently committed, risks
condemnation. People who commit crimes under severe stress or aggravation can seek to
ameliorate censure by pleading extreme provocation, diminished responsibility, or temporary
insanity; but they do not escape reproach.

Those who violate a taboo can often purify themselves or be purified by confessing their
sin and submitting to a ritual. The Oxford English Dictionary quotes from Cook’s Voyage
to the Pacific ii. xi. (1785) I. 410: ‘When the taboo is incurred, by paying obeisance to a great

3
In 2017 Swedish artist Liv Strömquist’s almost lifesized sketches of women with bloodstained
underpants at Slussen metro station in Stockholm have generated huge controversy, both positive
and negative. See https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2017/nov/02/enjoy-menstruation-subway-
stockholm-art-row-liv-stromquist.
personage, it is thus easily washed off.’ Cook also notes that tabooed objects may cease to be
tabooed:

I now went and examined several Baskets which had been brought in, a thing I was not allowed
to do before because every thing was then Tabu, but the ceremony being over they became
simply what they really were, viz. empty baskets. (July 9, 1777, Cook 1967: 153)

Hobley describes a Kikuyu ritual for legitimizing and purifying an incestuous relationship.

It sometimes happens, however, that a young man unwittingly marries a cousin; for instance, if
a part of the family moves away to another locality a man might become acquainted with a girl
and marry her before he discovered the relationship. In such a case the thahu [or ngahu, the
result of the violation of the taboo] is removable, the elders take a sheep and place it on the
woman’s shoulders, and it is then killed, the intestines are taken out and the elders solemnly
sever them with a sharp splinter of wood [...] and they announce that they are cutting the clan
“kutinyarurira,” by which they mean that they are severing the bond of blood relationship that
exists between the pair. A medicine man then comes and purifies the couple. (Hobley 1910:
438)

Some Nguni societies of southern Africa practise hlonipha under which it is forbidden for a
woman to use her father-in-law’s name or even to utter words containing the syllables of his
name (above all in his presence); inadvertent violation of the taboo may be mitigated by
spitting on the ground (see Herbert 1990: 460, 468). Christians confess their sins to a priest
and are given absolution on behalf of God. According to Hughes (1987: 379) in the 1820s a
convict seeking escape from the particularly vicious penal settlement at Macquarie Harbour
in Tasmania stabbed a fellow convict in order to be hanged. Asked by the chaplain why he
didn’t just commit suicide: ‘Oh,’ he replied, ‘the case is quite different. If I kill myself I shall
immediately descend to the bottomless pit, but if I kill another I would sent to Hobart Town
and tried for my life; if found guilty, the parson would attend me, and then I would be sure of
going to Heaven.’ This is comparable with the foolish but comforting belief of a radical
Islamist suicide bomber that s/he is assured of direct entry to Paradise if s/he kills an infidel.

Within many minorities and oppressed groups a term of abuse used by outsiders is often
reclaimed to wear as a badge of honour to mark identification with and camaraderie within
the in-group. To this end many African Americans have adopted the term nigger (often
respelled nigga, but it remains homophonous) to use to or about their fellows (Allan 2015,
2016b, 2017, Allan and Burridge 1991, 2006, Asim 2007, Croom 2013, Folb 1980, Kennedy
2000, 2003, McWhorter 2002, 2010, Rahman 2012, inter alios). The speaker identifies as a
person who has attracted or might attract the slur nigger: in other words s/he trades on the
hurtful, contemptuous connotation and subverts it.4 Many examples can be found, e.g. in
films by Spike Lee and Quentin Tarantino. (1)–(3) are from ‘Pulp Fiction’ (1994).5

(1) JULES: I wouldn’t go so far as to call the brother fat. He’s got a weight problem. What’s
the nigger gonna do, he’s Samoan. (Tarantino 1999: 18)

(2) ENGLISH DAVE [a young black man from Baldwin Park]: Vincent Vega, our man in
Amsterdam. Jules Winnfield, our man in Inglewood. Git your asses on in here. (Vincent
and Jules, wearing hideous shorts and T-shirts, step inside.) Goddam, nigger, what’s up
with them clothes?
JULES: You don’t even want to know. (Tarantino 1999: 35–36)

(3) VINCENT: Alright, it was a miracle. Can we go now? (Opens the door and leaves.)
JULES (to the dazed Marvin): Let’s go nigger. [1:49:55] Come on. Shit. (They hustle out
the door.)

In (1) Jules, who is black, is addressing a white guy (Vincent) while speaking of a shared
acquaintance, Antwan, whom he had earlier described as ‘Half-black, half-Samoan’. Here
Jules counts him as one of an in-group of black ‘brothers’. Secondly, Jules thinks well
enough of Antwan to be kindly euphemistic about his size. So when he says ‘What’s the
nigger gonna do, he’s Samoan’ he is using nigger as a colloquial descriptive that is in no way
a slur. In (2) Jules himself is addressed as ‘nigger’ by a fellow African American (the epithet
‘English’ is unexplained); incidentally, Inglewood is a dominantly black neighbourhood. In
(3), which is not in the published script, Jules addressing Marvin as ‘nigger’ is in the spirit of
camaraderie, though this may be bolstered by the fact that Marvin is lower in the pecking
order than Jules and also at that moment stupefied by the murder of three people he had
befriended to spy on.6

4
Where nigger1 is a slur and nigger2 expresses camaraderie, it is classic polysemy; one cannot say
Ordell is a nigger1 and so is Beaumont [a nigger2] because it violates the Q-principle of both
Horn (1984), Levinson (2000); however, it is perfectly possible for one African American to say
to another That honkey called me a nigger1, nigger2.
5
The actors are: Samuel L. Jackson (Jules), Paul Calderón (English Dave), John Travolta
(Vincent), Phil LaMarr (Marvin), Bruce Willis (Butch), Ving Rhames (Marsellus), Duane
Whitaker (Maynard) in (4). One objection to Quentin Tarantino using nigger is that he is white
and as such has no right or sanction to have the word nigger uttered by anyone; a number of
African Americans explicitly refute this, see Allan (2015: 6).
6
See Allan (2015) for an explanation of this point.
 Quotes (1)–(3) illustrate what has many times been demonstrated: that nigger is not
necessarily used as a slur. The same can usually be said of other potential slurring terms (see
Allan 2016b). Lest it be thought that ‘Pulp Fiction’ has no such slurs, there are racist slurs
against Asian and Jewish shopkeepers at Tarantino (1999: 10) and nigger is also used in that
vein in (4), which is not in the published script. White hillbilly Maynard’s shop was invaded
by two men fighting: Butch (white) has pinned Marsellus (black) to the floor of the pawnshop
and is pointing Marsellus’ own .45 handgun in his face.

(4) MAYNARD [pointing his shotgun ]: Toss the weapon. (After a brief delay Butch throws
the gun to his left.) Take your foot off the nigger [1:33:2]. Put your hands behind your
head. Approach the counter, right now. (Maynard slugs Butch with the butt of his
shotgun.)

This occurs after Butch has deliberately driven a car into Marsellus and the latter has been
shooting at him. Butch has sought shelter in the pawnshop and was followed in by Marsellus.
A vicious fight ensued in which Butch floors Marsellus. Needless to say, Maynard is enraged
by this violent invasion of his premises, so we cannot expect him to be courteous to either of
them. He refers to the groggy Marsellus as ‘nigger’ and he slugs Butch with his shotgun.
Under these circumstances the racial slur is not out of place from a dramatic point of view;
whatever term was used to refer to Marsellus was going to be insulting and there are not a lot
of choices that would pass the censor.

(5) is a wife reporting a series of slurs from her husband.

(5) [W]hen he called me a slut, cunt, worthless bitch, I slapped him at some point, then he
followed me to the porch, where I’d gone to cry, to tell me how I spread my legs for
anyone who walks by[. …] This is not the first time he’s called me a
slut/whore/cunt/bitch/etc. (http://forums.thenest.com/discussion/12002898/husband-
called-me-a-c-t-b-ch-sl-t, September 2013)

In (5) slut, cunt, bitch and whore are slurs, as is the accusation that she spreads her legs for
anyone. There’s a song by P¡nk called ‘Slut like you’ in which a guy says he’s looking for a
quick fuck and she responds ‘me too’ because ‘I’m a slut like you’ (https://
www.youtube.com/watch?v=HjU0xAZbZkA). This is playing with an apparent dysphemism,
converting it into something closer to an orthophemism. There is a similar example of this in
(6), which moves from dysphemism towards orthophemism in reclaiming the lemma slut on a
similar basis to that for racist reclamations (see also Neal 2012).

(6) So we are proud to reclaim the word “slut” as a term of approval, even endearment. To
us, a slut is a person of any gender who celebrates sexuality according to the radical
 proposition that sex is nice and pleasure is good for you. Sluts may choose to have solo
sex or to get cozy with the Fifth Fleet. They may be heterosexual, homosexual, or
bisexual, radical activists or peaceful suburbanites. (Easton and Hardy 2009: 4)

As with other terms I have been discussing, whether or not slut is a slur, and therefore a
tabooed dysphemism, depends on the context of use.

Cunt is used orthophemistically (as well as dysphemistically) in academic essays such as

this one. It may be used as an expression of bantering camaraderie – as can silly, ass, idiot,
bastard, and fucker, cf. (7) or showing camaraderie and empathy in (8) – which is in the Leith
dialect of Edinburgh (Scotland).

(7) DAVEEE; crazy hockey cunt. Love him (Bugeja 2008)

wookey is a gem love that cunt (Bugeja 2008)
[laughs] you’re a gross cunt [laughs] (Wellington Corpus of Spoken New Zealand
English J 2)

(8) — Granty … ye didnae hear? … Coke looked straight at Lenny.

— Naw. Wha …
— Deid. Potted heid.
— Yir jokin! Eh? Gies a fuckin brek ya cunt …
— Gen up. Last night, likes.
— Whit the fuck happened …
— Ticker. Boom. Coke snapped his fingers. — Dodgy hert, apparently. Nae cunt kent
aboot it. Perr Granty wis workin wi Pete Gilleghan, oan the side likesay. It wis aboot
five, n Granty wis helpin Pete tidy up, ready to shoot the craw n that likes, whin he jist
hauds his chist n cowps ower. Gilly gits an ambulance, n they take the perr cunt tae the
hospital, but he dies a couple of ooirs later. Perr Granty. Good cunt n aw. You play
cairds wi the guy, eh?
— Eh … aye … one ay the nicest cunts ye could hope tae meet. That’s gutted us, that
hus. (Welsh 2001: 99f.)

A newspaper report of Phil Grant’s fatal heart attack, even if equally sympathetic, would
necessarily use very different language – as a matter of social appropriateness. Taboo is
conditioned by context.

1.6 Exploiting taboo

Taboos are open to beneficial exploitation. A person’s body is, unless they are a slave,
sacrosanct. By tradition, a Māori chief’s body is taboo. Once it was possible for a chief to
claim land by saying that the land is his backbone – which makes invading it taboo. And he
could claim possession by saying things like Those two canoes are my two thighs! (Steiner
1967: 42f). The taboos on a chief could be utilized by their minions: ‘they gave the names of
important chiefs to their pet animals and thus prevented others from killing them’ wrote
Steiner (1967: 43). Samoans sometimes tabooed their plantation trees by placing certain signs
close to them to warn off thieves (cf. Turner 1884: 185-187 cited in Steiner 1967: 44f.). One
sign indicated that it would induce ulcerous sores; an afflicted thief could pay off the
plantation owner who would supply a (supposed) remedy. Most dire was the death taboo,
made by pouring some oil into a small calabash buried near the tree; a mound of white sand
marked the taboo, which was said to be very effective in keeping thieves at bay in old Samoa.

The genital organs of humans are always subject to some sort of taboo; those of women
are usually more strongly tabooed than those of men, partly for social and economic reasons,
but ultimately because they are source of new human life. Few women today are aware of the
supposed power of the exposed vulva (commonly referred to as ‘vagina’) to defeat evil. The
great Greek mythical warrior Bellerophon, who tamed Pegasus and the Amazons and slew
the dragon-like Chimaera, called on the sea-god Poseidon to inundate the Lycian city of
Xanthos; he was defeated by the women of Xanthos raising their skirts, driving back the
waves, and frightening Bellerophon’s horse Pegasus. Images of a woman exposing her vulva
are found above doors and gateways in Europe, Indonesia, and South America; in many
European countries such figures are also located in medieval castles and, surprisingly, many
churches (see Allan and Burridge 2006: 8; Blackledge 2003: 9). The display of the tabooed
body-part is a potent means of defeating evil.7

Linguistic exploitations of taboo are frequent in comedy. The British sitcom ‘Are You
Being Served?’ (Jeremy Lloyd and David Croft 1972–1985) is celebrated for innuendo. The
fifty-something year old battle-axe, Mrs Slocombe, made frequent reference to her ‘pussy’, as
in (9)–(11).

(9) Well, the central heating broke down. I had to light the oven and hold my pussy in
front. (‘Mrs. Slocombe Expects’ 1977)
(10) I’ve got to get home. If my pussy isn’t attended to by 8 o’clock, I shall be strokin’ it for
the rest of the evening. (‘The Junior’ 1979)
(11) Well, you know how clumsy those removal men are. I’m not havin’ ’em handlin’ my
pussy. (‘The Apartment’ 1979)

7
On the other hand, singer Britney Spears had to pay out a large sum of money to her former
bodyguard Fernando Flores in 2010 after she allegedly repeatedly ‘exposed her uncovered
genitals’ to him.
See these and many more in ‘Mrs Slocombe’s Pussy’ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=
vRJlItzalJY.

Shakespeare was the master of bawdy wit much more subtle than is found in ‘Are You
Being Served?’. Witness (12) from Much Ado About Nothing V.ii.9ff; Margaret is a
gentlewoman-in-waiting, Benedick is a gentleman.

(12) MARGARET To have no man come over me! why, shall I always keep below stairs?
BENEDICK Thy wit is as quick as the greyhound’s mouth, – it catches.
MARGARET And yours as blunt as the fencer’s foils, which hit, but hurt not.
BENEDICK A most manly wit, Margaret; it will not hurt a woman: and so, I pray thee,
call Beatrice: I give thee the bucklers.
MARGARET Give us the swords; we have bucklers of our own.
BENEDICK If you use them, Margaret, you must put in pikes with a vice; and they are
dangerous weapons for maids.

The images here include: (a) a man coming over a woman (suggesting sex play); (b) the
woman keeping her private parts hidden (‘below stairs’); (c) womanhood as mouth; (d) a
man’s foil which scores a hit but does not hurt (suggesting encounter with a tumescent penis);
(e) a buckler is a small shield with a boss to ward off thrusts from daggers, swords, and pikes;
a woman’s buckler is the boss of her mons veneris (‘mound of Venus’, note the metaphor in
this term, described in a dictionary of 1693 as ‘the upper part of a Womans Secrets,
something higher than the rest’); (f) a woman’s vagina between her open legs forms a vice
(vise) in which to put the pike; (g) if swords and pikes are penises they are indeed dangerous
to maidenhead.

The interchange in (12) is superficially innocent banter; but the figures evoke impassioned
sexuality.

It behoves me to distinguish banter from insult (see Allan 2016a, Chapter 18, this volume).
With insult the agent has the perlocutionary intention when making the utterance to assail the
target with offensively dishonouring or contemptuous speech or action and/or to treat the
target with scornful abuse or offensive disrespect. The utterance has the perlocutionary effect
(perhaps realising the agent’s perlocutionary intention) of demeaning someone and/or of
affronting or outraging them by manifest arrogance, scorn, contempt, or insolence. Banter, on
the other hand, is a form of competitive verbal play and upmanship in circumstances where it
is mutually understood that there is no serious attempt to wound or belittle the interlocutor:
the agent needles a sparring partner with critical observations on their physical appearance,
mental ability, character, behaviour, beliefs, and/or familial and social relations. Thus insult is
blatantly dysphemistic whereas banter is not, though because the locution is often
superficially dysphemistic it might be branded as dysphemistic euphemism.

1.7 Swearing
Swearing is the strongly emotive use of taboo terms. There are four functions for swearing
which often overlap: expletive, insult, solidarity/camaraderie, and vividness (cf. Allan and
Burridge 2009).

(i) the expletive function: ‘Oh sugar. We’ve burnt it’ (ICE-AUS S1A-058(A):284)
(ii) abuse and insult: ‘Don’t phone me yet as I am having both my ears transplanted to my
nuts so I can listen to you talk through your arse.’ (ACE S05 873) This also falls under (iv)
below.
Both (i) and (ii) are exemplified in ‘What the fuck are youse doing here. My fuckin’ son had
to get me out of bed. I can’t believe youse are here. What the fuck are youse doing here?’
(Police v Butler [2003] NSWLC 2 before Heilpern J, June 14, 2002)

(iii) expression of social solidarity: ‘S1: pray to baby Jesus open up your heart let god’s love
come pouring in let god’s love shine down on you like it has me and Miss Suzanne over
here. / S2: oh fuck off (ICE-NZ S1A)
(iv) stylistic choice – the marking of attitude to what is said: ‘How in the HELL do they think
they can change it by sitting on their arses doing nothing?’ (WSC P). ‘Welfare, my
arsehole’ (ACE F10 1953)

One aspect of the stylistic function is to use bad language to spice up what is being said: to
make it more vivid and memorable than if orthophemism had been used. An example is
former Prime Minister Paul Keating’s alleged description of Australia as ‘the arse end of the
world’8. Another, not unrelated aspect, is to display an attitude of emotional intensity towards
what is being said or referred to in the utterance. A possible combination of (iii) and (iv) is:
‘Yeah we’re hooking up with them in Adelaide we’ll swab the decks finger each other in the
arses y’know all that sorta shit’ (AUSTGRAM ABCNAT7:[C7]).

Concatenated with nouns, adjectives, participles and verbs, swearwords like bloody and
fucking emphasize the emotive often urgent attachment to the speaker’s speech act as in (13)–
(19). In the initial brackets is a typical interpretation of the emotive force that might be
provided by these expletives.

(13) [warning] It’s a bloody/fucking crocodile!

(14) [nothing to make a fuss about] It’s only a bloody/fucking picture!

8
Alleged by Prime Minister Bob Hawke in 1990.
(15) [lamentation] You’ve bloody/fucking broken it!
(16) [exasperation at question asked] But I’m going on bloody/fucking holiday!
(17) [condemnation] You’re driving too bloody/fucking fast!
(18) [complaint, exasperation] This train is bloody/fucking late/slow.
(19) [surprise] It’s turned bloody/fucking red!

Skilled use of swearing demonstrates a great command of rhetoric, albeit one that cannot be
employed in formal discourse.

Children of both sexes use swearwords from as young as one year old (see Chapter 6) and
the practice continues into old age – even when other critical linguistic abilities have been
lost. People with certain kinds of dementia and/or aphasia can curse profusely, producing
what sound like exclamatory interjections as an emotional reaction. However, when called
upon to repeat the performance, they are unable to do so because they have lost the capacity
to construct ordinary language. The fact that dirty words, abusive words, and slurs pour forth
in these particular mental disorders is only possible because they are stored separately (or at
9
least accessed differently) from other language.

1.8 Less dangerous taboos

Infractions of taboos can be dangerous to the individual and to his or her society; they can
lead to illness or death. But there are also milder kinds of taboo whose violation results in the
lesser penalties of corporal punishment, incarceration, social ostracism, or mere disapproval.
Humans are social creatures and every human being is a member of at least a gender, a
family, a generation; usually they are also members of friendship, recreational, and
occupational groups. An individual’s behaviour is subject to sanction within these groups and
by the larger community. Some groups, e.g. family and sports team supporters, have
unwritten conventions governing behavioural standards; others have written regulations or
laws. Groups with written regulations also have unwritten conventions governing appropriate
behaviour. In all cases sanctions on behaviour arise from beliefs supposedly held in common
by a consensus of members of the community or from an authoritative body within the group.
Taboos normally arise out of social constraints on the individual’s behaviour. They arise in
cases where the individual’s acts can cause discomfort, harm or injury to him- or herself and
to others. The constraint on behaviour is imposed by someone or some physical or
metaphysical force that the individual believes has some authority or power over them – the

9
Jay (2000) offers a comprehensive account of the mental disorders associated with coprolalia,
copropraxia, and other coprophenomena. See also Chapters 6 and 7, in this volume.
law, the gods, the society in which one lives, even proprioceptions (as in the self-imposed
proscription Chocolates are taboo for me, they give me migraine).

1.9 There is no such thing as an absolute taboo

Nothing is taboo for all people under all circumstances for all time. There is an endless list of
behaviours ‘tabooed’ yet nonetheless practised at some time in (pre)history by people for
whom they are presumably not taboo. This raises a philosophical question: if Sue recognizes
the existence of a taboo against mariticide and then deliberately flouts it by murdering her
husband, is mariticide not a taboo for Sue? Any answer to this is controversial; my position is
that at the time the so-called taboo is flouted it does not function as a taboo for the
perpetrator. This does not affect the status of mariticide as a taboo in the community of which
Sue is a member, nor the status of mariticide as a taboo for Sue at other times in her life.
Although a taboo can be accidentally breached without the violator putting aside the taboo,
when the violation is deliberate, the taboo is not merely ineffectual but inoperative.

Quite commonly one community recognizes a taboo (e.g. late 18th century Tahitian
women not eating with men) whereas another (Captain Cook’s men) does not. In 17th century
Europe women from all social classes, among them King Charles I’s wife Henrietta Maria,
commonly exposed one or both breasts in public as a display of youth and beauty. No
European queen nor Prime Minister would do that today. Australian news services speak,
write, and show pictures of a person recently dead, a practice which is taboo in many
Australian Aboriginal communities. You may be squeamish about saying fuck when on a
public stage, but lots of people are not. No place of worship today would be allowed to create
a display of the vulva like that of the 12th century Église de Ste Radegonde (Poitiers, France).
You may believe it taboo for an adult to have sex with a minor, but hundreds of thousands of
people have not shared that taboo or else they have put it aside. Incest is tabooed in most
communities, but Pharaoh Ramses II (fl. 1279–1213 BCE) married several of his daughters.
Voltaire (1694–1778) had an affair with his widowed niece Mme Marie Louise Denis (née
Mignot, 1712–1790), to whom he wrote passionately:

My child, I shall adore you until I’m in my grave. … I would like to be the only one to have
had the happiness of fucking you, and I now wish I had slept with no-one but you, and had
never come but with you. I have a hard on as I write to you and I kiss a thousand times your
beautiful breasts and beautiful arse. (Besterman 1957, Letter 4856 from Strasbourg September
3, 1753. My translation.)

In most jurisdictions it is taboo to marry a sibling, but some of the Pharaohs did it; so did
the Hawai‘ian royal family. Killing people is taboo in most societies; though from time to
time and in various places, human sacrifice has been practised, usually to propitiate gods or
natural forces that it is thought would otherwise harm the community. Killing enemies gets
rewarded everywhere and judicial execution of traitors and murderers is still common. Some
Islamists believe that blowing themselves up along with a few infidels leads to Paradise. The
Christian God said to Moses ‘He that smiteth a man, so that he die, shall be surely put to
death’ (Exodus 21: 12). Yet in the Bible we find human sacrifice approved in the murder of
an Israelite and a Midianitish woman ‘so [that] the plague was stayed from the children of
Israel’ (Numbers 25: 8). God persecuted the Midianites; he told Moses to ‘vex ... and smite
them’ (Numbers 25: 17) ‘And [the Israelites] warred against the Midianites as the Lord
commanded Moses; and they slew all the males’, burned their cities, and looted their cattle
and chattels (Numbers 31: 7–11). Then Moses sent the Israelites back to complete the Lord’s
work by killing all male children and women of child-bearing age, keeping other females ‘for
yourselves’ (Numbers 31: 17–18). God’s work or not, this is military behaviour that would be
tabooed today and might lead to a war crimes trial.

In Anglo communities (and those of many other cultures too) it is today tabooed for an
adult to touch the sexual organs of another person without at least implicit permission to do
so because in the least it is disrespectful, and at worst it is illegal assault. Many celebrities
have been convicted of rape (Mike Tyson, Roman Polański), sexual harassment
(Congressman Mark Foley, Rolf Harris), or child molestation (Gary Glitter, Michael
Jackson). During 2016 it emerged that then presidential candidate Donald J. Trump (later 45th
POTUS) had boasted on tape in 2005:

I did try and fuck her. She was married. [A few seconds later, of a different woman] I’ve gotta
use some tic tacs, just in case I start kissing her. […] You know I’m automatically attracted to
beautiful — I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait. […] And
when you’re a star they let you do it. […] You can do anything. […] Grab them by the pussy.
10
[…] You can do anything.

This very public violation of taboo was treated as a breach of etiquette that was never denied
by Trump, who frequently self-contradicts and blatantly lies. Trump has been both pro-choice
(1999) and pro-life (2015). He has said (February 13, 2016): ‘I do listen to people. I hire
experts. I hire top, top people. And I do listen.’ But on March 16, 2016 he said: ‘I’m speaking
with myself, number 1, because I have a very good brain and I’ve said a lot of things. … My
primary consultant is myself.’ On September 24, 2015 he boasted: ‘I don’t mind being
criticized. I’ll never, ever complain.’ Yet on May 18, 2017 he did, childishly, complain:
‘Look at the way I have been treated lately. Especially by the media. No politician in history,

10
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-recorded-having-extremely-lewd-conversation-
about-women-in-2005/2016/10/07/3b9ce776-8cb4-11e6-bf8a-3d26847eeed4_story.html.
and I say this with great surety, has been treated worse or more unfairly.’ And then there is
his claim that at his January 20, 2017 inauguration: ‘The audience was the biggest ever.’
However, aerial photos clearly show it was barely half the size of the audience at Obama’s
inauguration in 2009.11 It is accepted, i.e. not tabooed, that politicians regularly lie and
frequently contradict themselves, but Donald J. Trump is in a class of his own.

We are forced to conclude that every taboo must be specified for a particular community
of people for a specified context at a given place and time. There is no such thing as an
absolute taboo that holds for all worlds, times, and contexts.

1.10 Censorship and censoring

Censorship is the suppression or prohibition of speech or writing that is condemned as
subversive of the common good. The censoring of language is the proscription of language
expressions that are taboo for the censor at a given time in contexts which are specified or
specifiable because those proscribed language expressions are condemned for being
subversive of the good of some specified, specifiable, or contextually identifiable community.

The problem lies in the interpretation of the phrase ‘subversive of the common good’. For
instance, the censorship of incitement to (as well as actual) violence against any citizen
supposedly guards against their physical harm. The censorship of profanity and blasphemy
supposedly guards against their moral harm. In Tudor Britain, taking the Lord’s name in vain
was frowned upon and eventually banned – which is mild retribution compared with what the
Bible sanctions in Leviticus 24: 16: ‘he blasphemeth the name of the LORD, shall be put to
death’. Elizabeth I is reputed to have favoured God’s wounds as an oath (Montagu 1968:
139). During her reign there arose euphemisms like ’sblood  ’s’lood  ’slud,12 ’sbody,
’sfoot, ’slid [eyelid], ’slight, ’snails, ’sprecious [body], and zounds foreclipped of God and
occasionally additionally remodeled, e.g. God’s wounds  ’swounds  zounds pronounced
/zuːnz/  zaunds pronounced /zaunz/. Henry Fielding’s The History of Tom Jones (Fielding
1749) omits letters to euphemize, e.g. ‘Z—ds and bl—d, sister’ (XVI.4) and contains
‘Sbodlikins (X.5) and Odsbud! (XVI.7) as variants of God’s body, along with Odsooks!
(XII.7) and Odzookers! (XVIII.9) from God’s hooks (nailing Christ to the cross) and
Odrabbet it! (XVI.2) or Od rabbit it (XVII.3, XVIII.9) from God rot it! (“confound it”)

11
See incontrovertible evidence at https://twitter.com/realEricTyson/status/861122546875478016.
12
All three forms occur in Ben Jonson’s Bartholomew Fair of 1614, cf. Jonson (1981). The
sequence A  B symbolizes ‘A is the source of B, or B derives from A’; and C  D ‘D is the
source for C, or C derives from D’.
which lives on in drat it. I’ fackins (X.9) is a variant of i’ faith and Icod! (XVIII.8) derives
from either in God’s name or By God.

How does remodelling work? (20) says something about misspellings, which one might
look upon as accidental remodellings.

(20) Aoccdrnig to a rsecherear at an Elingsh uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the
ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is that frist and lsat ltteer is at the rghit
pclae. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is
bcuseae we do not raed ervey lteter by itslef but the wrod as a wlohe.

No fluent speaker of English has any trouble reading (20) – which explains the power of the
designer label FCUK (French Connection UK). Taking context into account and working on
a system of analysis-by-synthesis we match misspelled words with their normal forms.
Similarly with euphemisms like Sugar! and Shivers! substituted for Shit!, fudge and frig for
fuck, Gee!, Goodness! or Lordy! for God!, and Jeepers! for Jesus!

Criticism of monarchs, heads of state and other persons of rank is often severely censored,
particularly in times of national instability. On the face of it, language censorship – like the
restriction on gun ownership – is a reasonable constraint against abuses of social interaction
amongst human beings. However, history shows that censorship empowers people who are
by inclination illiberal and unlikely to be artistically creative or broadly schooled. The
judgment of a censor is open to error, fashion, whim, and corruption. Moreover, censorship
fails to prevent people intent on flouting it; censorship is like whistling in the wind – not that
such infelicity has ever stopped the imposition of censorship.

There is another argument against censorship: as Publius Cornelius Tacitus (56–120 CE)
pointed out (The Annals Book XIV: 50, Tacitus 1908: 444), banned writings are eagerly
sought and read; once the proscription is dropped, interest in them wanes. Censorship nearly
always has such confounding effects. The prohibition on the manufacture and sale of alcohol
in the United States 1920–1933 was notoriously ineffective and counterproductive in that it
led to the establishment of organized crime syndicates. The experience has had little effect on
today’s law-makers, who insist on banning recreational drugs with similar results. Attempts
by Senator Jesse Helms and others to ban a 1988 retrospective of photographer Robert
Mapplethorpe’s work led to its universal notoriety and a ten-fold increase in prices.13

13
. Robert Mapplethorpe’s photos of gays, fisting, sado-masochism, a man pissing into another’s
mouth, himself dressed as Satan with a bull-whip in his arse for a tail, and the fact that he was to
die of AIDS led to a notoriety that increased his saleability. See Hughes (1993: 163).
1.11 Language change and development
The avoidance of linguistic taboos can cause language change and give rise to linguistic
creativity as revealed by remodelling, especially as a source for euphemisms and as a
function of verbal play. There are predominantly two ways in which novel terms and
expressions are created leading to language change: formally through remodelling and
semantically through figurative language. Consider some of the words for nakedness. There
is the orthophemistic term nude, from Latin nudus, often used of photographic or painted
representations of naked women and, much more rarely, of a naked man – hence the marked
term male nude. Whether a nude is artistic or pornographic depends on viewer belief. A
colloquial Australian euphemism for being in the nude is in the nuddie. Other euphemisms
include as nature intended, in one’s birthday suit, in the altogether, and in the buff (
buff[alo] leather, buff skin transferred to humans). Being naked is captured by the
dysphemism bare-arsed and the more euphemistic butt / buck naked in which buck  butt.
The orthophemistic term stark naked and the connected colloquial euphemism starkers also
arose by replacing a final /t/ with a /k/: stark  start “tail, arse”. Nudists like to go about in
the open air without clothes on and, being as nature intended when in natural surroundings,
they are euphemistically called naturists.

Such expressions display folk-culture in a remarkable inventiveness of metaphor and

figurative language sourced in the perceived characteristics of whatever is being talked about.
For instance, terms for tabooed objects and events provide ready-made material for the
dysphemistic language of curses, insults, epithets, and expletives. X-phemisms, i.e.
orthophemisms and/or euphemisms and/or dysphemisms, are motivated by a speaker/writer’s
want to be seen to take a certain stance by upgrading, downgrading, obfuscating, and
deceiving; and they extensively manifest indulgence in verbal play. Although the discussion
here focuses on English, the categories illustrated occur across the world’s languages, and
many of them are significant for the study of language change.

X-phemism motivates language change by promoting new expressions, or new meanings

for old expressions, and causing some existing vocabulary to be abandoned. Consider
avoidance expressions for profane use of the expletive God!: Cor! Cor lumme! Golly! Gosh!
Gorblimey! Gordonbennet! Gordon’ighlanders! Goodness (knows)! (Good) gracious! For
goodness’ sake! Such remodellings of the word god are deliberate ploys to avoid explicit
profanity (i.e. careless irreverence for the deity or other religious icon). This avoidance
displays a certain stance: an altruistic desire not to offend and/or the face-saving aspiration
not to seem to be offensive.
 Chaucer’s Canon’s Yeoman uses ‘Marie’ for Mary, mother of God (Chaucer 1396 l.
1062); Marie was later remodelled to Marry as in Marry forbid! and Marry come up!. Rather
similar in meaning to the expostulary Marry! were Fie! and Fackins! remodelled from Faith!
all of them having much the same force as today’s profane God!. These are more archaic than
Holy Mary! and Holy mother! whence, probably, Holy cow! and the double dysphemisms
Holy shit! Holy fuck!. Less profane than Holy Mary! are Holy Moses! Holy mackerel! What in
Hades?! is perhaps polite variation on What in hell?! Curiously, although What the deuce?! is
analogous to What the dickens?! and What the devil?!, ‘deuce’ here derives from the Norman
French oath Deus! “God”. What the dickens?! avoids calling up by name the malevolent
spirit of Old Nick, Old Harry, Old Bendy, Old Bogey, Old Poker, Old Roger, Old Split-Foot,
the Old Gentleman, Old Billy. Confounding someone or something was euphemized in Od
rabbit it from God rot it! – which lives on in Drat it! or simply Drat!. There was always the
explicit Damnation! remodelled to Tarnation! as Damn! is remodelled to Darn! and Dang!

There are similar processes for other taboo terms, e.g. cunt is reformed into cooch,
coochie, hoochie-coochie and oochamagoochi. Cunny “cunt”, retained in modern
cunnilingus, derives from Latin cunnus, probably originally a euphemism. There may also
have been some input from French con, itself derived from Latin cunnus and used for the
bawdy-part from (at least) the 14th century (cf. Boch and Wartburg 1975, Picoche 1979), and
perhaps from Spanish coño, too. Coney /kʌni, kouni/ was the word for “rabbit” until the late
19th century, when it dropped out of use because of the taboo homonym. In Latin, rabbit is
cuniculus, and its burrow cuniculum; end-clip either and you are left with cuni[e] (spelled
variously as coney, cony, conny, conye, conie, connie, conni, cuny, cunny, cunnie14). One of
the many euphemisms for cunt was cunny-burrow, hence the picturesque term for a penis as
the cunny-burrow ferret (Farmer and Henley 1890-1904). There is a long-time link between
rabbits, bunnies, and cunts. On the same topic, well, bottle and pond all mix configuration
with function and/or effluvia in their imagery. The vulva is seen as a mouth, with lips and
tongue (clitoris) – hence, nether-lips. Like the mouth it salivates and drinks, and can flash an
upright grin. Such metaphors, like others for tabooed body parts, liken it to a non-taboo part.
Terms like bite, snatch, vice/vise, snapper, clam and oyster extend the metaphor by
suggesting a mouth ready to snap up a penis; the myth of vagina dentata – the vagina with
teeth that may mutilate a man – is found in Africa, America, Europe, and India. Vice/vise
“tool for gripping” is doubtless immorally inspired, too. Note that snapper, clam and oyster
are also fishy – a fishy odour being commonly attributed to this organ when washing was less

14
In Robert Greene’s 1591 book A Notable Discovery of Coosnage, cited in Baugh and Cable
(1978: 208).
prevalent than it is today; we therefore find terms like fish(tail) and ling for “vagina” (and
hook for “penis”); mermaid was a euphemism for “whore”. The plant Chenopodium vulvaria,
also known as stinking goosefoot, is ‘readily told by its repulsive smell of decaying fish’
(Fitter 1971). The noun and verb fishfinger denote “digital stimulation of a woman” (for which
my favourite term is firkytoodling (Farmer and Henley 1890-1904); and fishing or angling
“digital stimulation of the vagina; copulation”, and fishbreath arises from “oral sex”. Grose and
others (1811) list the wonderful metaphor the miraculous pitcher, that holds water with the
mouth downwards: it seems unlikely that this lengthy example of verbal play was widely
used, and its flippancy is reminiscent of euphemisms like kick the bucket15 for “die” with
their real or pretended disdain for a taboo.

Copulation is picturesquely described in figures such as ‘making the beast with two backs’
(Shakespeare Othello I.i.114), banging, belly slapping, bonking, coupling, covering, doggy-
dancing, folk-dancing, horizontal dancing, horizontal jogging, humping, jigjogging,
mounting, riding, rolling in the hay, screwing, stitching, tupping, uptails all, etc. as well as
many terms of attack and penetration.

Most if not all of these can be classed euphemistic dysphemisms: many of them are
phonetically similar to the dysphemism they replace and have a similar communicative
function to that dysphemism; others are figurative evocations of the denotatum. So we see
that there are basically two ways in which X-phemisms are created: by a changed form for
the word or expression and by figurative language that results from the perceived
characteristics of the denotatum. Both processes, but particularly the latter, are pragmatically
controlled. X-phemisms are motivated by a speaker’s want to be seen to take a certain stance
to a taboo expression, and by playfulness.

Many X-phemisms are figurative; many have been or are causing semantic change; some
show remarkable inventiveness of either figure or form; and some are indubitably playful.
Euphemism, for instance, can be achieved antithetically by both hyperbole (to be in the hot
seat) and understatement (anatomically correct doll), by the use of learned terms or technical
jargon instead of common terms (faeces for shit), and conversely by the use of colloquial
instead of formal terms (period for menstrual cycle), by both general-for-specific substitution
(nether regions and down there for genitals) and part-for-whole substitution (tit for breast),
by both circumlocution (companion animal for pet) and abbreviation (bra), acronym (snafu

15
It is probable that bucket denotes “beam, yoke” to which an animal was trussed by its hind-legs
while its throat was cut. This could be one source for the idiom, but the folk belief has a bucket
kicked away as a person hangs.
/ˈsnafu/, alphabetism (s.o.b /ˈɛsˈˀouˈbi:/) or even complete omission (the ladies/gents omits
lavatory/toilet), as well as by one-for-one substitution from the existing resources of the
language (f***) or by borrowing from another language (po “chamber pot” from French pot
/po/).

Dysphemism employs most of the same strategies as euphemism, but there are two main
differences. One is that part-for-whole dysphemisms are far more frequent than general-for-
specific ones, which is the converse of the situation with euphemisms: e.g. the use of tits for
breasts16 is part-for-whole, as are figurative epithets like in He’s a prick which contrast with
euphemistic counterparts showing whole-for-part substitutions like chest (speaking of a
woman’s breasts) and (legal) person (referring to genitalia). Other differences between the
strategies for euphemism and those for dysphemism are predictable: circumlocution is most
usually dysphemistic when it manifests an unwanted jargon; the use of borrowed terms and
technical jargon is only dysphemistic when intended to obfuscate or offend the audience; and
so forth.

Euphemism as a work of art falls into three categories: there are the artful euphemisms,
like many of those used in street language, which make a striking figure, but which are the
everyday vocabulary of a particular jargon; there are the artful euphemisms which mask their
original taboo denotations to such an extent that the latter are not generally recognized; and
finally there are the artful euphemisms which are meant to be as revealing – and in their own
way as provocative – as diaphanous lingerie. As bawdy authors like Shakespeare and political
satirists like Swift and Orwell well know, titillation of the audience is the best way to draw
attention to their message.

X-phemisms of all kinds display folk-culture, and arise through similar linguistic
stratagems to achieve different effects. An interesting perspective on the human psyche is to
be gained from the study of language expressions used as a shield against the disapprobation
of our fellows or malign fate, and others used as a weapon against those we dislike or as a
release valve against the vicissitudes of life. Many euphemisms and dysphemisms
demonstrate the poetic inventiveness of ordinary people: they reveal a folk culture that has
been paid too little attention by lexicographers, linguists, literaticians, and pragmaticists.

16
Germanic tit is cognate with Romance-based teat. It is curious that the latter is apparently never
used to denote a breast.
1.12 The contents of this Handbook
The aim of the Oxford Handbook of Taboo Words and Language is to offer comprehensive
coverage of tabooed language as perceived by experts in general linguistics, cultural
linguistics, sociolinguistics, anthropological linguistics, psycholinguistics, neurolinguistics,
historical linguistics, linguistic philosophy, forensic linguistics, politeness research,
publishing, advertising, and theology. Although the principal focus is the English language,
reference is occasionally made to linguistic taboos in other languages in order to compare
socio-cultural attitudes. The volume defines and describes taboo while investigating the
reasons and beliefs behind linguistic taboos. The existence of taboos and the need to manage
taboo lead not only to the censoring of behaviour and the imposition of censorship but also to
language change and language development.

In Chapter 2, ‘Taboo language and impoliteness’, Jonathan Culpeper examines how taboo
language interacts with linguistic politeness and impoliteness. Taboo topics typically threaten
positive face – the positive values people feel the right to claim for themselves. Taboo words
operate as general-purpose emotional aggravators. Taboo words like Paki, nigger, and spastic
have relatively direct connections with social identity and are used to target positive face;
others such as fuck and shit potentially violate sociality rights – expectations about what
should and should not occur in the prevailing context. Taboo language often intensifies
impoliteness; for example, Go away! may be impolite, but Fuck off! is much more so. Thus,
taboo language occurs in concert with impoliteness with markedly high-frequency across a
range of impoliteness formulae, but especially in insults.

In Chapter 3, ‘Taboos in speaking of sex and sexuality’, Eliecer Crespo Fernández

elaborates on the powerful taboos that shape human behaviour and communication in respect
of sex and sexuality. He discusses X-phemistic naming in the fields of homosexuality,
conventional and unconventional sexual practices, masturbation, prostitution, pornography,
and body parts. Because metaphor is a potent source for sexual vocabulary, close attention is
paid to the role of figurative language. Sexual taboo is a breeding ground for X-phemistic
references that perform communicative functions ranging from attenuation to offence, and
from solidarity to dissimilation. Taboo terms may be used tenderly and lyrically, or brutally,
lasciviously, and offensively. Context is vitally important to the way in which a potentially
taboo word is interpreted (see Allan 2018).

In Chapter 4, ‘Speaking of disease and death’, Réka Benczes and Kate Burridge
investigate the X-phemistic language use associated with serious medical conditions such as
HIV/AIDS, cancer, and mental illness, and with death. The challenges of confronting the
biological limits of our own bodies have brought forth a vast repository of X-phemistic
language for these topics that relies heavily on metaphor. The chapter questions whether such
metaphors control or modify our attitudes towards diseases and death. Harking back to
medieval superstitions, today’s taboos on diseases arise from a fear of inducing a malady and
from the stigma attached to diseases like AIDS/HIV, cancer, and dementia. Individuals might
be lucky enough to avoid such horrible diseases, but everyone faces death sooner or later.

In Chapter 5, ‘The psychology of expressing and interpreting linguistic taboos’, Timothy

Jay discusses the psychology of expressing and interpreting linguistic taboos in American
English, warning that universal statements cannot be made about the production or
interpretation of taboo word expressions because these are always influenced by the
particular social, cultural, and physical context in which they occur. Citing large quantities of
experimental data, Jay surveys frequencies with which different taboo terms are used, the
perceptions of degrees of offensiveness, the significance of personality traits, the presence of
emotional factors such as anger, injury, and frustration, and speaker intentions such as to
insult, to be humorous, or to express catharsis. The chapter reveals that, far from
demonstrating poverty of expressive ability, the use of tabooed epithets is normally a
strategic indication of language fluency.

In Chapter 6, ‘Taboo language awareness in early childhood’, Timothy Jay takes us

through taboo language awareness of English-speaking children between one and twelve
years of age. Not surprisingly, children begin with a very small taboo lexicon of swearwords,
insults and offensive words that becomes more adult-like by age twelve. Evaluations of taboo
words by young children show that they are likely to judge mild terms much worse than older
children and adults do. This may be because younger children most probably don’t know so
well as adults what the words mean but they do seem to recognise their communicative
function and social effect. Jay raises the ethical problems of researching children’s use of
taboo words and proposes techniques for dealing with them.

In Chapter 7, ‘Swearing and the brain’, Shlomit Ritz Finkelstein examines taboo and the
brain through the lens of involuntary swearing in neuropsychiatric disorders. The chapter
explores and summarizes current knowledge about the neurophysiological substrata of the utterance
of expletives – the relevant brain regions, pathways, neurotransmitters, and interactions with
hormones. Clinical data are presented from patients of aphasia, Tourette syndrome, Alzheimer’s
disease, and brain injuries. Expletives and other automatic language abilities (like counting
numbers, intonation) rely on the right hemisphere, whereas the left hemisphere is normally
important for propositional language. Damage to the left inferior frontal gyrus typically stops
inhibition of swearing, allowing the involuntary utterance of expletives. Finkelstein discusses
swearing as a response to pain and aggression. She ends by proposing directions for research on the
biological substrata of swearing.

In Chapter 8, ‘STICKY: Taboo topics in deaf communities’, Jami N. Fisher, Gene Mirus,
and Donna Jo Napoli write about taboo issues not obvious to those outside them. What is
taboo in deaf communities (there is no homogenous ‘deaf community’) comprehends all
those things which are taboo within the co-located hearing community, including taboos
arising from personal identity characteristics such as gender and race. We should not be
surprised that, typically, a deaf woman identifies as a woman rather than as a deaf person, a
deaf African American as Black rather than as deaf, and so on and so forth. Fisher et al. draw
our attention to additional taboos within deaf communities based on differing degrees of
hearing loss and differing capabilities speaking and signing. There is ‘hearing privilege’
which advantages those with normal hearing and leads to deaf people often being at a social
or informational handicap within the wider community, creating strained relationships
between the hearing and the deaf. As Fisher et al. say ‘Communities of hearing people that
are oppressed or marginalized, and of which only a small, privileged group interacts with the
majority culture, may well have analogous taboos.’

In Chapter 9, ‘Taboo terms and their grammar’, Jack Hoeksema examines the grammar of
taboo terms in English, Dutch, and – briefly – German, Estonian, Polish, and modern Hebrew. He
shows that taboo terms typically have an emotionally loaded effect that serves to strengthen both
positive and negative statements, questions, commands, and even exclamatives (like WTF!?!). There
are fascinating cultural differences: e.g. other than the archaic A plague on both your houses English
does not use disease terms in oaths, insults, and other dysphemisms whereas Polish Cholera! is about
equivalent to English Damn! and Dutch Betsy lazerde haar schoenen onder het bed ‘Betsy
tossed (literally, ‘lepered’, cf. English lazar) her shoes under the bed’. Dutch uses terms for
homosexuals e.g. flikker ‘queer, faggot’ in a manner totally foreign to English, e.g. Hij deed
geen flikker ‘He did fuck all’ (literally, ‘he did no faggot’); Ze flikkerden de boeken weg
‘They tossed (literally ‘buggered’) the books away’. On the other hand, only English allows
taboo-word infixing as in fan-fucking-tastic.

In Chapter 10, ‘Taboo as a driver of language change’, Kate Burridge and Réka Benczes
discuss taboo as a driver of language change and lexical obsolescence. Under the influence of
taboo, existing vocabulary is often abandoned as speakers either borrow words from other
languages, give new meaning to old expressions via metaphor and metonymy, deliberately
remodel existing terms by modifying the pronunciation and/or spelling, or they create new
expressions. Thus, word taboo disrupts regular change to play havoc with the conventions of
historical and comparative linguistics that depend on fairly regular and predictable processes.
The fact that taboo terms are often replaced by euphemisms which in turn become taboo
shows that the community objection is in fact to the referent of the taboo word (what it
means), although it is often the form of the word that is complained about: e.g. ‘Cunt’ is such
a vile word but the is no similar complaint about non-taboo terms like punt or country.

In Chapter 11, ‘Problems translating tabooed words from source to target language’, Pedro
Chamizo Domínguez looks at problems translating tabooed words from source to target
language. Translating is always difficult because it needs to manage ambiguities and
anachronisms in the source language as well as the differences in the semantic scope of
lexical items and cultural disparities between the source and target language. When
translating taboo expressions, matters of culture and political correctness are especially
problematic. Chamizo Domínguez examines multiple translations into several languages of
the same source language text to show how tabooed words, insults, invectives, and veiled
allusions have been handled. He concludes that, whether consciously or unconsciously,
translators have often softened or censored the exact scope of the original utterances in their
translations.

In Chapter12, ‘Linguistic taboos in a second or foreign language’, Jean-Marc Dewaele

studies the issues that arise when second and foreign language (LX) users utter or encounter taboo
words and expressions. LX users often suffer inadequate awareness of the meanings and pragmatic
functions of taboo terms, in other words they are unsure about their exact meaning, their emotional
force, their offensiveness, and their perlocutionary effects on native (L1) speakers. Because violations
of taboo often mark in-group social identity, L1 speakers can react as though the LX speaker has no
right to utter taboo expressions. Furthermore, because taboo is contextually determined, the LX
speaker often has a faulty knowledge of appropriate contexts for the use of taboo terms. Such
insecurities about the meaning, offensiveness, and appropriateness of taboo words make LX
users vulnerable in social interactions, which is why they tend to refrain from using them, or
choose less offensive ones than a L1 user would. There is also the fact that, measured by skin
conductance responses, speakers normally find LX taboo terms less emotively stimulating
than comparable terms in his or her own L1.

In Chapter13, ‘Philosophical investigations of the taboo of insult’, Luvell Anderson

examines various kinds of insult to determine what insult is. He concludes it is the
undermining of reasonable expectations of respect. Anderson also utilizes Neu’s (2008)
telling distinction between being insulted – the result of a deliberate intentional act – and
feeling insulted – which not only results from actually being insulted, but also from acts
which unintentionally insult but nonetheless seem to undermine one’s expectation of being
respected. Anderson then turns his attention to slurs, which are a kind of insult. Subtle insults
are especially pernicious given the kind of latitude a devious speaker has in how much
signaling is done versus how much is left up to the imaginative capabilities of the interpreter.

In Chapter 14, ‘Religious and ideologically motivated taboos’, I (Keith Allan) claim that
religious ideologies are distinguished from non-religious ideologies but they are closely
enough related that the proverb cuius regio, eius religio should be rephrased cuius regio, eius
idealogia with wider application and truth. I elaborate on the names for and terms of address
to gods and their cohorts, which are comparable with those used for other powerful
dominators such as sovereigns and dictators and their courts. All ideological taboos arise
from perceived traducing of dogma, and/or insult to revered and/or intimidating persons,
institutions, and objects. Focusing on the relevant applicable language, I differentiate and
discuss the taboos of heresy, blasphemy, and profanity, exemplifying from the histories and
treatment of traitors, heretics, witches, martyrs, blasphemers, and profaners from the time of
the Maccabees around 200BCE to the Charlie Hebdo massacre in 2015CE.

In Chapter 15, ‘Speech or conduct? Law, censorship, and taboo language’, Christopher
Hutton examines linguistic censorship mostly within the common law jurisdictions of UK,
USA, Australia, and Hong Kong; he appraises their legal rationale in making the distinction
between language use and non-linguistic conduct. He reviews case law in respect of
blasphemy, public order offences, obscenity, key literary trials, broadcasting, popular music,
trademark law, and personal names. In the 1960s and 1970s, censorship led to clashes
between the power-elite and progressive activists over what was to be tabooed. Today, the
new taboos are hate speech, misogyny, and on-line trolling. The rise of the internet has
allowed almost everyone ready access to tabooed topics, objects, and activities and created
difficulties for those who would censor such access. In many domains the law has retreated
from linguistic censorship, but there is continued debate over the control of the rights and
freedoms of speakers and writers as against those of their audiences.

In Chapter 16, ‘Taboo language in books, films, and the media’, Gabriele Azzaro starts
with written dysphemisms from Ancient cultures in Mesopotamia, Egypt, India, Greece, and
Rome before progressing to modern times. Censorship was imposed but failed to prevent a panoply of
sexual and scatological linguistic expressions. An essentially similar history applies to taboo usage in
the press, films, and broadcast media. All the classic functions of swearing which have been
noted in spontaneous oral taboo language are represented in print, film, and the various
electronic media. In the English speaking world today there seems to be less censoring of
published (potential) dysphemism. Whether this is true for other communities remains to be
established.
 In Chapter 17, ‘Taboos and bad language in the mouths of politicians and in advertising’,
Toby and Barnaby Ralph tell us about linguistic taboos in advertising and the mouths of
politicians – would-be persuaders of the public. Profanity is able to make the utterer seem
objectionable and dominant or amusing and companionable; thus it may have either positive effects
by forming bonds or negative effects by being interpreted (and perhaps intended) as ill-mannered,
offensive, and/or threatening. Many real examples from advertising and politics are considered and
evaluated against their use as opposed to their avoidance. As fashions in taboo change over time, such
issues as menstruation and homosexuality are less taboo while sexism and racialism have
grown more so. Expressions like damn and bloody raise few eyebrows now; shit and bugger
are fairly palatable, and the once unspeakables fuck and cunt are used in Parliament and even
in adverts.

In Chapter 18, ‘Taboo language used as banter’, Elijah Wald examines the use of taboo
terms to cement familial and peer relationships by selectively breaking taboos. In what are
known as ‘joking relationships’ people demonstrate in-group solidarity by behaving to each
other in mocking or insulting ways that would be unacceptable behaviour towards out-
groupers. Such behaviour is always verbal, sometimes physical, horseplay such as sexual
grabbing, and potentially painful tussling. Joking relationships are illustrated from
communities in Austronesia, Native America, Africa, and America. Most celebrated among
African Americans is ‘capping’ or ‘the dozens’ with insults directed at the target’s family, in
particular the mother. As Wald so rightly says: ‘Banter, even in the most friendly situation, is
a form of combat. And combat, even in the most dire situation, may be thrilling as well as
horrific.’

In Chapter 19, ‘Taboo language as source of comedy’, Barry J. Blake amuses us with a
review of taboo violations for comedic purposes. Laughter can be evoked simply by the
outrageous act of taboo violation, as with Liza Dolittle’s ‘Not bloody likely!’ in Act III of
George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion. First acted in Britain in April 1914, the so-called
‘Shavian adjective’ caused huge controversy along with the laughter. Then there are
deliberate puns and (in)advertent double entendres such as in ‘The Simpsons: A Tale of Two
Springfields’ (2000, 12,2) when the residents of Old Springfield discover gold in the river
after Homer turns off the dam; TV news personality Kent Brockman says Thanks, Mayor
Simpson! From now on, we’ll all be taking golden showers. There are word plays like in the
childish: What’s long and thin, covered in skin, red in parts, and stuck in tarts? Rhubarb.
And I recall being reprimanded by my grandfather as a preteen boy repeatedly singing: A
sod-, a sod-, a soldier I will be / Fuck you, Fuck you, for curiosity / To piss, To piss, two
pistols on my knee / To fight for the old cunt, fight for the old cunt, fight for the old country.
This ditty plays on phonetic similarity to several tabooed expressions and also exhibits verbal
circumventions of tabooed words. My Czech friends were shocked but amused when they
first encountered the place name Kunda Park (an industrial suburb in Queensland, Australia)
because kunda is a Czech cognate of English cunt: cf. Czech vlhká kunda “wet pussy”, also to
je ale kunda of a woman “what a bitch”.

Finally, in Chapter 20, ‘An anthropological approach to taboo words and language’,
Stanley H. Brandes emphasizes cultural relativity: language that is perfectly decorous in one
community is often unseemly or scandalous in another. Tabooed behaviour is viewed
negatively and, consequently, is open to public rebuke, collective scorn, ostracism, and even
physical aggression. From within the frameworks of cultural anthropology and folkloristics
Brandes discusses examples of tabooed language from sub-Saharan Africa, Spain, Latin
America, and (within the USA) Native America, and African America. Tabooed words and
expressions vary enormously from one ethnic, gender, national, and class group to another.
Offensive words, inappropriate expressions, violations of proper discourse are ubiquitous.
But they are situational, dependent on the particular contexts in which they are uttered. They
can be used to unite people under a common cultural umbrella and they can be divisively
antagonistic abusive terms of address. The chapter reviews nicknaming, verbal duelling, and
various types of joking relationships, among other speech forms, as anthropologically
prominent forms of tabooed language.

References
Agyekum, Kofi (2002). Menstruation as verbal taboo among the Akan of Ghana. Journal of
Anthropological Research 58: 367-87.

Allan, Keith (2015). When is a slur not a slur? The use of nigger in ‘Pulp Fiction’. Language
Sciences 52: 187-199.

Allan, Keith (2016a). The pragmeme of insult and some allopracts. In Keith Allan, Istvan
Kecskes and Alessandro Capone (eds) Pragmemes and Theories of Language Use. Cham:
Springer, 69-84. doi: 10.1007/978-3-319-43491-9_4

Allan, Keith (2016b). The reporting of slurs. In Alessandro Capone, Ferenc Kiefer and
Franco Lo Piparo (eds) Indirect Reports and Pragmatics. Cham: Springer, 211-232. doi:
10.1007/978-3-319-21395-8_11

Allan, Keith (2018). Getting a grip on context as a determinant of meaning, in Alessandro

Capone, Marco Carapezza, and Franco Lo Piparo (eds)Further Advances in Pragmatics
 and Philosophy. Part 1. From Theory to Practice. Cham: Springer, 177-201. doi
10.1007/978-3-319-72173-6_9

Allan, Keith and Kate Burridge (2006). Forbidden Words: Taboo and the Censoring of
Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Allan, Keith and Kate Burridge (2009). Swearing. In Pam Peters, Peter Collins and Adam
Smith (eds) Comparative Grammatical Studies in Australian and New Zealand English.
Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 361-86.

Baugh, Albert C. and Thomas Cable (1978). A History of the English Language. 3rd edn.
Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall.

Besterman, Theodore (ed.) (1957). Voltaire's Correspondence. Vol. XXIII. Geneva: Institut
et Musée Voltaire.

Blackledge, Catherine (2003). The Story of V: Opening Pandora's Box. London: Weidenfeld
and Nicolson.

Boch, Oscar and Walther von Wartburg (1975). Dictionnaire Etymologique de la Language
Française. 6th edn. Paris: Presses Universitaires.

Bugeja, Brendan M. (2008). Teenagers, Myspace and language (Unpublished paper,

Melbourne).

Chaucer, Geoffrey (1396). The Works of Geoffrey Chaucer. (Globe Edn 1898. Ed. by Alfred
W. Pollard, H. Frank Heath, Mark H. Liddell, and W.S. McCormick). London: Macmillan
and Co.

Comings, David E. and Brenda G. Comings (1985). Tourette Syndrome: Clinical and
psychological aspects of 250 cases. American Journal of Human Genetics 37: 435-50.

Cook, James (1893). Captain Cook's Journal During his First Voyage round the World made
in H.M. Bark Endeavour, 1768-71. A literal transcription of the original mss ed. by
Captain W.J.L. Wharton. London: Elliot Stock.

Cook, James (1967). The Journals of Captain James Cook. Vol. III. The Voyage of the
Resolution and Discovery 1776-1780. Ed. from the original mss by J.C. Beaglehole.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press for the Hakluyt Society.

Easton, Dossie [Dorothy] and Janet W. Hardy (2009). The Ethical Slut: A Practical Guide to
Polyamory, Open Relationships & Other Adventures. 2nd edn. [First published 1997].
Berkeley: Celestial Arts.

Ernster, Virginia L. (1975). American menstrual expressions. Sex Roles 1: 3-13.

Farmer, John S. and William E. Henley (1890-1904). Slang and Its Analogues. 7 Vols.
London: [Printed for subscribers].

Fielding, Henry (1749). The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling. London: printed for A.
Millar.

Fitter, R.S.R (1971). Finding Wild Flowers. London: Collins.

Frazer, Sir James G. (1875). Taboo. Encyclopaedia Britannica. 9th Edn.

Freud, Sigmund (1950). Totem and Taboo. Transl. by James Strachey. London: Routledge &
Kegan Paul. [First published 1913].

Grose, (Captain) Francis and others (1811). Lexicon Balatronicum: A Dictionary of Buckish
Slang, University Wit, and Pickpocket Eloquence. [Incorporating the Dictionary of the
Vulgar Tongue (1795, London: S. Hooper)]. London: C. Chappel.

Hays, Terence E. (1987). Menstrual expressions and menstrual attitudes. Sex Roles 16: 605-
14.

Herbert, Robert K. (1990). Hlonipha and the ambiguous woman. Anthropos 85: 455-73.

Hobley, Charles W. (1910). British East Africa: Kikuyu customs and belief. Thahu and its
connection with circumcision rites. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of
Great Britain and Ireland 40: 428-52.

Hughes, Robert (1987). The Fatal Shore: A History of the Transportation of Convicts to
Australia 1787-1868. London: Collins Harvill.

Hughes, Robert (1993). Culture of Complaint: The Fraying of America. New York: Oxford
University Press.

Jay, Timothy (2000). Why We Curse: A Neuro-Psycho-Social Theory of Speech. Philadelphia:

John Benjamins.

Joffe, Natalie F. (1948). The vernacular of menstruation. Word 4: 181–86.

Jonson, Ben (1981). The Complete Plays of Ben Jonson. Ed. by Gerald A. Wilkes. 4 vols.
Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Mead, Margaret (1937). Tabu. Encyclopaedia of Social Sciences. London Macmillan. Vol. 7:
502–5.

Montagu, Ashley (1968). The Anatomy of Swearing. New York: Macmillan.

Picoche, Jacqueline (1979). Dictionnaire Etymologique du Français. Paris: Le Robert.

Radcliffe-Brown, Alfred R. (1939). Taboo. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Steiner, Franz B. (1967). Taboo. Ed. by Laura Bohannan. Harmondsworth: Penguin. [First
published 1956].

Stephens, Richard, John Atkins and Andrew Kingston (2009). Swearing as a response to
pain. NeuroReport 20(12): 1056-1060. doi: 10.1097/WNR.0b013e32832e64b1

Tacitus, Publius Cornelius (1908). Tacitus, Historical Works Vol.1: The Annals. Transl. by
Arthur Murphy. London: J.M. Dent.

Turner, George (1884). Samoa a Hundred Years Ago and Long Before. London: Macmillan.

Van Lancker, Dianna and Jeffrey L. Cummings (1999). Expletives: Neurolinguistics and
neurobehavioral perspectives on swearing. Brain Research Reviews 31: 83-104.

Welsh, Irvine (2001). Trainspotting. London: Vintage Books. [First published 1993].