I’ve been a student of language for a long time. It’s clear that language is constantly changing, and the change is certainly accelerating in the past few decades. New words come along (sometimes needlessly: see “crispy”; “crisp” is a perfectly usable, meaningful word, but someone in the food industry decided that it wasn’t enough) and are adopted into the common English culture. Old words fall into disuse. Words are coined by or appropriated by various in-groups. I say all this, even though I’ve frequently been a defender of the importance of standard, “correct” usage.
When it comes to strong language, there’s also been a lot of change. The most obvious change, to me, is the acceptance of the f-word, which is pretty much everywhere. Never mind that the word has its origin and primary usage as a sexual-violence term; nowadays it seems to have lost that force. That, at least, is what informants from the next generation have told me. It’s used by people of all sexual orientations without a sense of where the word came from. I’m personally enough steeped in older attitudes that it rings in my ears with some of the old force. This seems at least partly generational to me.
It’s also a fact that strong language varies even among the different users of English: compare British “cuss words” with American, and you get a sense of this.
When I was of college age, raised as I was, one didn’t use any of the “4-letter words” that were deemed to be “cursing.” (Cursing actually is a quite different matter from strong language, even if cursing sometimes does involve words that are primarily strong language.) Students at the college I attended managed with a euphemism of sorts, “frit,” as in “oh, frit!” This was sometimes geekily spelled as if derived from Greek, φριτ.
However, here’s my real question: where will the strong language of the future come from? If we’ve adapted violent (or, in some cases, unpleasant things such as “dung” —> “shit” used as an exclamation of disgust) words as strong language and in the process mostly wrung the strength, the original meaning out of those words, what will we do in the future? In part, my concern is that words that have been reserved for violence in the past are now being used as something less (I hope), with some loss of meaning, then where do we reasonably go in the future with our language?
Perhaps you’ve seen this “comedy” riff from George Carlin. If not, you should. (Laughter is often a sign of recognizing truth.)
Carlin’s point is different but similar to mine, although there are 2 streams to the changes: (a) in one case, we’re changing out older terms to modern ones in a way that diminishes the meaning of something (in Carlin’s example, one of the horrors of war); (b) in the other case, we’re using older violent terms in ways that strips them of their original horror.
By no means have I even begun to list those terms in this post. As much as I’m trying to make a point, I’m also very, very curious: what do you make of these changes in language? What do you personally practice, and why?
Your interaction with my questions, or thoughts of your own, are welcomed in the comments. I especially am curious to hear from any younger persons about the changes in language that they’ve experienced.
Please tell me what you think!
Another positive aspect of this, however, is minorities reclaiming slurs against them and making those words as a part of their own subculture so they cannot be used harmfully. The LGBTQ+ community excels at this. For example, the words queer, butch, and fag all contain a lot less venom than they used to (the last one is in-process of reclamation, and should only be used by queer people for queer people who have expressed comfortability with it).
BIPOC communities have reclaimed slurs. Sex workers have, as well. Language evolving to diminish the power of oppressors and transfer that power to the oppressed is beautiful, IMO.
Because I did not grow up in a extreme right wing Evangelical home, phrases like “I’ll be damned,” “come hell or high water,” “I’m having a hell of a day,” and the occasional use of “shit” when trying to fix stuff; was common! Naturally, when I began attending right wing Evangelical institutions, those expressions were deemed “wordy durds.” Nevertheless, such expressions as well of the use of the “f…” word does not bother me at all. Consequently, one’s family and religious background is a factor! For instance, “grumbling and complaining” in Scripture are two words that may be conveyed with one English word … “b..ching.” Some gen-X Evangelical students had no problem saying the word, while others had ears that were quite “virgin” to hearing such language and easily offended. Yet, it’s difficult to watch television or movies today without hearing a four letter word. We are far removed from the Puritan culture that tried to forced people to conformed to their personal convictions about such matters.
What bothers me more are Christians who are so concerned about the words people say while turning a blind eye to the authority of Scripture that’s specifically concerned about our deeds like integrity, justice, sacrifice, lust, etc. It’s been my experience that far too many Christians strain at gnats while swallowing a camel 🐪.
They remind me of the folks that said I couldn’t attend a Bible college unless I cut my hair, stop attending movies, stop dancing, stop drinking beer or wine (as an older student living on their own), stop cussing, etc.
Does this make sense, Jim!