In Praise of Profanity: New at Reason

Kevin Currie-Knight reviews In Praise of Profanity in the January issue of Reason:

To talk about the ins and outs and shoulds and shouldn’ts of profanity, we need to distinguish it from slang, obscenity, or just plain coarse language. Adams, a linguistic historian at Indiana University Bloomington, rejects the idea that profanity is inherent in certain words. The profanity of any particular word depends on contextual factors, including the norms of the group where the word is uttered. “Fuck” can be profane (“Go fuck yourself!”), or it can simply be slang (“What the fucking fuck?”). “I’m sick of this shit!” might not be profane among one group of friends; “I’m about to drop a deuce!” would qualify among another, even though the sentence contains no profane words. As with any evolved social system, language’s rules are context-dependent, and the rules about what differentiates profanity from slang or just bad manners is context-driven.

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