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From: charli@cylixd.UUCP (Charli Phillips)
Newsgroups: net.nlang
Subject: Re: Taboo words
Message-ID: <496@cylixd.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 15-Nov-85 13:31:20 EST
Article-I.D.: cylixd.496
Posted: Fri Nov 15 13:31:20 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 18-Nov-85 07:06:48 EST
References: <578@unc.unc.UUCP>
Reply-To: charli@cylixd.UUCP (Charli Phillips)
Organization: RCA Cylix Communications , Memphis, TN
Lines: 26

>. . . "the seven words
>you cannot say on televison."  . . . . have ancient anglo-saxon roots,
>. . . .
>They must have been used fairly frequently, to survive so long.
>Yet, in many social groups, these words are forbidden. . . .
>. . .  We MUST have words to describe them.  So,
>how and why did these words become taboo? [Frank Silbermann]

From _Modern_American_Usage_ by Wilson Follett (Copyright MCMLXVI by
Hill and Wang (now a division of Farrar, Straus and Giroux, Inc.)):

forbidden words.  1. By reason of obscenity. . . . .
    1.  The words called "good old Anglo-Saxon" and also "four-letter
words" are no longer excluded from high literature, though they are
still rare in the periodical press and in civil conversation. . . . .
The restoration to good repute of the strongest two or three among
those words has been tried in vain, . . . .  The obstacle, it is clear,
does not consist in a stubborn remnant of prudishness among the public.
It consists in the widespread spoken and fictional use of these words
to express hate, disgust, and contempt.  These are powerful emotions,
which war against the return of the forbidden words in their simple and
friendly aspect.  The result is that there are no words but euphemisms
or clinical terms for what many scenes of modern fiction profess to
describe.

	charli