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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The original meaning of the adjective profane
(Latin: "in front of", "outside the temple") referred to items not belonging
to the church, e.g. "The fort is the oldest profane building in the town,
but the local monastery is older, and is the oldest building," or "besides
designing churches, he also designed many profane buildings".
As a result, "profane" and "profanity" has therefore come to describe a
word, expression, gesture, or other social behavior which is socially
constructed or interpreted as insulting, rudeness, vulgarism, desecrating,
or showing disrespect.[1]
Other words commonly used to describe profane language or its use include:
cuss, curse, pejorative language, swearing, expletive, oath, bad word, dirty
word, strong language, irreverent language, obscenity language, choice
words, blasphemy language, foul language, and bad or adult language. In many
cultures it is less profane[citation needed] for an adult to curse than it
is for a child, who may be reprimanded for cursing.
Statistics
Tape-recorded conversations find that roughly 80–90 spoken words each
day—0.5% to 0.7% of all words—are swear words with people varying from
between 0% to 3.4%. In comparison first person plural pronouns (we, us, our)
make up 1% of spoken words.[2]
Research looking at swearing in 1986, 1997, and 2006 in America found the
same top ten words were used of a set of over 70 different taboo words. The
most used taboo words were fuck, shit, hell, damn, goddamn, Jesus Christ,
ass, oh my God, bitch, and sucks—these ten made up roughly 80% of all
profanities. Two words, fuck and shit, accounted for one third to one half
of them
Types of profanity
Steven Pinker's book The Stuff of Thought breaks profanity down into five
categories:
* Dysphemistic profanity – Exact opposite of euphemism. Forces listener to
think about negative or provocative matter. Using the wrong euphemism has a
dysphemistic effect.
* Abusive profanity – for abuse or intimidation or insulting of others
* Idiomatic profanity – swearing without really referring to the matter.
Just using the words to arouse interest, to show off, and express to peers
that the setting is informal.
* Emphatic swearing – to emphasize something with swearing.
* Cathartic profanity – when something bad happens like coffee spilling,
people curse. One evolutionary theory asserts it is meant to tell the
audience that you're undergoing a negative emotion[citation needed].
According to Pinker, the content of profane language can also be broken into
five categories of negative emotion:
* The Supernatural – Evokes emotions of awe & fear.
* Bodily effluvia & organs – Evokes disgust, since effluvia are major
disease vectors.
* Disease, Death, & Infirmity – Evokes dread, fear of death or disability.
These are words which are normally avoided or treated euphemistically.
* Sexuality – Evokes images of revulsion at depravity. Profanity of a sexual
nature conjures images of illegitimate or exploitive sexuality, jealousy,
etc.
* Disfavoured people or groups – Evokes hatred and contempt. Such groups
include infidels the disabled (e.g.: gimp,), enemies (e.g.: sand monkey), or
subordinated groups. These include racist words and/or insults based on
gender or sexual preferences.
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