The Bad Boys of Language

by Madeleine Kando

It is common knowledge that you are not fluent in a language until you know how to swear in it. When a large part of your vocabulary is made up of words that you are not supposed to use, that’s when you know you have mastered that language.

Young Philippino kids know this instinctively. They try to sound cool by using swear words even when they don’t know a word of English: ‘Okkay, you buhsheet. Okkay yankee buhsheet.’

As Steven Pinker explains in ‘The Stuff of Thought’, the historical roots of swearing are in religion. Swearing was a means to bind yourself to an agreement, which we now do by signing legal contracts. In earlier times God and Hell were very real to people, not just abstractions. By swearing that you would keep your word, you voluntarily submitted to punishment (the wrath of God) if you didn’t meet your obligation.

But the religious authorities didn’t like this trend of using God’s name for such mundane purposes as promising your neighbor to give him your daughter in marriage in return for his cows. They said: ‘Don’t take the name of the Lord in vain’. And that’s how swearing became taboo.

The other reason, according to Pinker, is that swearing is aggressive and conjures up negative thoughts. It is the human equivalent of the yelps and grunts of animals.

Other words that are taboo in most languages are words for bodily excretions. The reason for this is that blood, feces, etc, carry diseases. Therefore touching, smelling, ingesting, even talking about those substances is bad for your health. Hence they became taboo. You won’t hear guests at a fancy dinner gathering say: ‘Holy crap! Look at this shitload of food!’

Sexuality is also taboo, of course. Pinker explains that the reason for this is not necessarily prudishness, but the fact that having sex is pretty serious business. It’s not exactly like playing tennis Beyond the participants, there are the parents, the community and the potential future children who are affected by someone ‘doing it’.

Having sex is also more of a big deal for women than men. Women get pregnant, have to breastfeed… Women do not benefit from casual sex, whereas men do - emotionally and otherwise - since they don’t have to pay such a high price for it. This difference is the reason that men use sexual words more in swearing than women. It is less of a taboo for them.

Swearing is aggressive and using swear words is to show that you can withstand pain. That’s why in the army, navy and other all-male circles, there is more swearing, to show how tough you are.

Swearing has become less of a taboo in our day and age and there are a gazillion expressions that use swear words but are very innocent. They are ways to give more color to your diction. The person who taught me how to do that is my daughter, Aniko.

Because using the s-word will cause this blog to be banned for all eternity, I have replaced it with a less offensive word. Here are a few examples:

No tomatoes Sherlock.
He has tomatoes for brains.
They are like two pigs in tomatoes.
We were just shooting the tomatoes.
You are full of tomatoes.
I am in deep tomatoes.
I am tomatoeing bricks.
I am up tomatoes creek.
He beat the tomatoes out of him.
I don’t give a tomatoe.
He has tomatoes for brains.
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