Rude Words, Semantic Field of
Modern English has the peculiar feature in its semantic structure whereby certain intimate physical actions such as defecation, urination, and copulation and their related organs cannot be referred to politely by their native equivalents, that is, shitting, pissing, and fucking, since these are regarded as obscene or taboo. In each case, in formal, especially in professional discourse, the classical Latin or Greek term is preferred. This division of such terms into “polite” and “impolite” is not a feature of all languages. In French, for example, coarse terms like merde (“shit”), con (“cunt”), and foutu (“fucked up”) are used in public discourse. Nor has it always been a practice in English.
The problem caused by this separation of registers is that there are no common or neutral terms to refer to these basic “bodily functions” or organs, only the extremes of the rude or demotic and the formal and polite. C.S. Lewis put it incisively: “As soon as you deal with [sex] explicitly, you have to choose between the language of the nursery, the gutter and the anatomy class” (Tynan 1975, 154). Furthermore, while the native terms are “transparent,” that is to say their meaning is obvious, the classical terms are generally “opaque” to the bulk of native speakers, since their roots are understood only by those with some classical education. Most readers coming across excrement, micturate , and copulate for the first time would not immediately understand their meanings. This opaque quality makes these terms ideal for euphemisms, and therefore suitable for polite general discourse. Several, like fundament, posterior , and pudendum are in reality exclusively written terms. However, opaqueness can be carried too far: under micturate the Oxford English Dictionary has the curiously ironic note: “The sense is incorrect as well as the form.” In the layout of the semantic field, the classical terms are set in bold type, to distinguish them from native terms, which are set in standard type, while those with an asterisk are of uncertain etymology.
The historical arrangement of the field illuminates a number of significant points. First is that the commonly retailed generalization that the rude words are “Anglo-Saxon” is only partially true, since fuck, cunt , and piss are all recorded after the Anglo-Saxon period and the first two are of uncertain origin. Second, the bulk of the classically derived terms are found in the Renaissance period, when such terms began to be borrowed in great numbers, and in the Augustan period, when they became very fashionable. Third, some Anglo-Saxon terms, like weapon and sleep with , have always had a neutral or euphemistic sense. Thus thing has been used of both the male and female genitalia since Middle English. More surprising, up to the Middle Ages medical terminology included obscene and taboo terms like shit, cunt , and piss , all used in the translation of Lanfrank’s Cirurgery (“Surgery,” ca. 1400) and The Cyrurgie of Guy de Chauliac (ca. 1425). Conversely there is the curious obsolescence and disappearance of swive , the principal medieval term for “copulate,” and the comparatively late appearance of the staple term fuck . The scheme necessarily involves some crudification: for instance, make love , originally make love to , was used from Renaissance times in a Platonic or nonsexual sense, slowly becoming more explicit in referring to romantic or amorous relationships during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, before the meaning of coitus is attained.
Turning to the classical element, the opaque and euphemistic senses clearly predominate. However, in some cases the action itself is so suffused with emotion and shame that its articulation is in itself an embarrassment: thus former president Bill Clinton reportedly fired his surgeon-general for using the term masturbation in a press conference (Laqueur 2003, 416). More “exotic” sexual practices are termed fellatio and cunnilingus , resorting totally to what Edmund Burke called the “the decent obscurity of a learned language.” This element cannot, in general, be used in swearing: copulating pandemonium! makes no sense and carries no impact, even in a community of classical scholars, alongside fucking hell! In swearing and vituperation it is commonly the juxtaposition of registers, setting native and classical elements alongside each other, which creates the most potent effects: for example, you obsequi- ous little turd! or the conceited old fart! In conclusion, all the polite or standard terms are Renaissance or Augustan in origin.
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