Phonetic Patterns

The relationship between sound and sense in swearing is predicated on the notion of “sound symbolism,” which is necessarily complex, relative, and partly a matter of personal preference. Yet particular patterns of concentration can be detected, suggesting a general or fashionable predilection for particular sounds. On the one hand there is the obvious fact that many of the most potent swearing terms in English begin with the consonant b , as in bastard, bitch, blasted, bloody , and bugger; with d , as in damn, darn, devil , and drat ; and with f , as in footling, frigging , and fucking .

Two other factors of relativity are those of time and geographical location. Thus from a historical perspective, only bitch, bugger , and devil of the listed terms were current in the Middle Ages. Furthermore, blasted, bloody, bugger, drat , and footling are not really current in the United States. These differences in currency obviously limit the notion of universality, necessary to validating any generalization of sound symbolism. Ethnic insults, on the other hand, seem clearly to fall into two distinct patterns, that of shortness and that of the diminutive. In the first category are frog, coon, jap, yid, mick, kike, hun, chink, wop, wog, kraut, spic, nip , and gook . In the second are coolie, yankee, frenchy, wiwi, sheeny, limey, jerry, eyetie, honkie , and paki . Both categories extend back over two and a half centuries.

Discussing the vocabulary of love in A Word in Your Ear (1942), Ivor Brown commented: “The strange thing about the vocabulary of passion is the inadequacy of words for love’s fulfilling. The commonest in use is a mean and ugly monosyllable which is not fit even to be an oath, while the correct and printable are heavy and dull” (89). It is left to the reader to deduce the words implied. At the other extreme was the British grandmother who wrote to Kenneth Tynan in 1965 congratulating him for having articulated what she called “the sweet word fuck ” on television (1988, 238).

In The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language , David Crystal gives emphasis to both initial and final consonants, for example final k as in bohunk, chink, dork, dyke, fuck, lunk, mick, prick, punk, schmuck , and spick (1995, 251). While the individual terms are the “building blocks” of swearing, other phonetic factors come into play, such as alliteration ( bloody bastard ) and rhythm ( absobloodylutely ). These are often more important shaping forces than semantic content of the words in question.