While it's interesting to consider what words are consider bad / dirty / obscene / naughty, what's just as interesting is comparisons between them. Is "shit" worse than "asshole"? What about "fuck"? And how do racial slurs fit into the scatological / sexual equation of Words Not To Use Around Your Mother?
Apparently across the Atlantic there's been a contretemps or two recently regarding the public use of the term "bollocks" ("balls" in American, though the adjective "bollixed" enjoyed a brief popularity here after WWII), a word that apparently used to be completely verboten in polite (or at least broadcast) company, but now is seen as less awful than it once was.
That leads to the article below mentioning the UK's Advertising Standard Authority reporting in 2000 (http://www.ofcom.org.uk/static/archive/itc/uploads/Delete_Expletives.pdf)on obscene words, and, more interestingly, the comparative "severity" of various obscene words based on a public survey.
A figure from that table is shown below, and I find it academically fascinating in a variety of ways, including differences (in my own perception) between the US and the UK, and differences (in the UK) in what's seen as worse than what (and speculation about why in both cases).
Humans are kind of weird sometimes.
Never mind the bollocking, here’s the slang data
An unlikely swearword hit the headlines twice in recent days, thanks to its use on mainstream television from two prominent figures. In the first clip below, celebrity journalist Piers Morgan uses …
Huh, every racial slur is worse than 'cunt' in my book. I would never use a racial slur; it would be hard for me even to quote someone using one. Avoiding other words in the list is a motherfucking cunt for me.
+Bobby Martin I tend to agree — indeed, it's hard for me not to consider them separate categories (and some of the sexual words are misogynistic in usage such that I'd lump them with racial slurs).
Yeah, I couldn't use the c word to refer to a woman.
Is this the American list? Because I don't think bollocks or bloody are used/not culturally relevant to Americans, probably Canadians as well. I've seen posts from UK that use cunt, but I don't think its as serious a word there as here in America.
Oh one more thing: there are racial slurs we don't use here that are REALLY bad in UK and South Africa, like kaffir. And gyp or gypsy are bad too, though apparently not to alot of people. Funny how words evolve their use…
+Sally Moen Yes, as the article notes, that's a list from the UK.