The linguistics of swearing explain why we substitute darn for damn | Hacker News Reader

The linguistics of swearing explain why we substitute darn for damn

scientificamerican.com

40 pointspseudolus32 comments

My niece was asking about "the T-word" when I was visiting family for Thanksgiving. Her mom was in favor of letting the matter go undiscussed, but I'm never one to back down from being a bad influence or the fun uncle (a lot of overlap there, actually). Plus, I might get to learn a new swear word.

My niece asked about "tewkin'". (long 'u' sound, like Duke Nukem)

I informed her that that was a new one for me.

Mom, now intrigued, asked "Could the person you heard use it be referring to a bird called a toucan?"

"I don't think so"

"Well, what did they say?"

"Aww, I forgot my tewkin mittens!"

At which point, I informed my niece that she had likely encountered a Canadian who was underdressed for the weather and was lamenting that they had forgotten their toque and mittens, and we were all disappointed that she hadn't taught us all a new swear. Except mom.

Tying this back to TFA, I find it interesting that my niece seems to have (at the age of 8) intuited the relation of hard-sounding consonants to swearing. Tewkin' meets the criteria of having a 't' and a 'k' and seems pretty plausible.

Well done! I wish there were more tewkin uncles around.

I would assume that tewkin is a substitute for fucking (like I assume with hecking, freaking, frigging).

I would have too but the toque explanation makes more sense.

I've been pondering this for a while, and while of course you are right, the explanation is right there I'm not fully satisfied with that. Even though the word arose due to a misunderstanding it then took on a life on its own (however brief). If she used it as a mince for "fucking", and the people listening to her understood it as a mince for "fucking", isn't that what it meant in that moment?

> "Could the person you heard use it be referring to a bird called a toucan?"

The wishful thinking in that is just adorable.

I've heard people advocate for removing the taboo about swearing, and making it socially acceptable in most (or all) circumstances.

What they don't realize is if we did that, the swear would lose all power. "Golly" was at one point a really bad swear.

People who want to swear need conservative people who are against swearing, in order for the swears to retain their meaning/shock value.

The people I have seen advocate for that absolutely realize that as they want to rob these words of their power to offend.

And then people will create new offensive words, because people sometimes need such words.

So what have they accomplished?

Just another revolution on the euphemism treadmill: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euphemism#Lifespan

Well, they would accomplish a reverse revolution for once.

While it’s a shopworn example Japanese really does not have something like swear words. There are terms that are considered offensive but they’re generally disfavored terms for ethnic groups or medical conditions or that sort of thing, not things you’d shout if you were upset.

People who're upset might shout e.g. kuso or chikushou.

Those aren’t “swear words.” Nobody would object to their being used in children’s programming, for instance. While most people would be scandalized to hear characters in a children’s cartoon saying “shit!”

I would say the taboo is gone in many places. Like podcasts or youtube, where the existing moderation controls hold no power. I wouldn't call it a great victory. It certainly reveals who has a shallow vocabulary and leans on the f-word like a crutch.

That all depends on how the word is used, no? I swear often, but it's never at people, rather I use them as adjectives or whatnot (eg, "Take the fucking trash out,") or during times of frustration (eg, "God fucking damnit", "Jesus fucking christ"). That's where I think the argument can be made about removing the taboo, because really, at least when I say it (and perhaps that's where this argument falls apart? Because it all boils down to intent...), there's no difference between, "Aww man," and "Oh for fucks sake", or, "Take the stupid trash out," and "Take the fucking trash out".

I feel the same way. Often it comes down to swearing to me vs swearing at me.

Try saying "Golly" instead. Would it work as well?

I suspect not. That's what will happen if you succeed in removing the taboo.

Bloody is pretty satisfying and Ron Weasley can say that in a Pg film.

There's a conjecture (I hesitate to call it theory because it's not very well fleshed out) that profanity tends to reflect the taboo and/or sacred things of a society.

Quebec used to be a highly religious society heavily controlled by the Catholic Church until the 1960s. Quebec profanities are full of slangy modifications of terms that, translated literally, mean things like "chalice" or "eucharist". English used to be like that as well. Damn and Hell were harsh words. With the decline in our religiosity has come a decline in the severity of the words. Most societies have taboos about sex and bodily waste, so little surprise that there's a profane term for those things in most languages.

And what about today? Some of the most profane words in contemporary English are slurs used against racial and sexual minorities. N-word, F-word (no, not that one, the other F-word), and so on. Speaking these words invokes transgression of the most sacred values of society. Some are considered so powerful or dangerous, that simply saying them aloud is believed to have the ability to cause psychic harm, which is more than a little reminiscent of the old beliefs about the risk of supernatural destruction being inflicted on communities by God that tolerate blasphemy.

As you note, I think this is likely a universal human tendency. There's always going to be the sacred and the taboo. And taking a big fat verbal shit on them will always outrage people.

I lived for a few years in a place where no word is taboo.

What you don't realize is that when no word is taboo people tend to invent nontrivial sequences, or entire monologues to regain and further enhance the effect. Which I think is better than inventing pitiful euphemisms. It's almost poetry.

That’s super interesting! Where was this place? Any examples of the sequences?

Various ports in Adriatic back when I was sailing around.

It is not translatable to english I'm afraid. Most probably UK/US guys have their own variants, but I don't know them. Something like rhythmic slang taken to 11. But you have to have a ton of background to fully appreciate the art.

Golly, I'd never have thought of that.

I assumed it was just poor kerning.

Slurs seem to share some of this violence in expression.

In English, at least, many unspeakable words used to describe Blacks, Asians, Jews, gay men, lesbian women, and others seem to have some of these "k" (or "g" (voiced)) features, harsh consonant endings, etc.

I wonder if it is like this in other languages too.

K and g are very regular sounds in Dutch. For any word. But they do show up also in ‘bad’ words.

Our worst words are about giving other people terrible diseases.

Well, gol-dang it to heck…

I don't think it's a substitution. Lexicographically, there is a difference between an alternative (colour / color) and a synonym (hue). Now darn might look like a variant if you don't know the etymology, but ignorance is no basis for etymology. The substitution might abuse this fact somehow, but it isn't fooling nobody, is it? I hope the article will explain, but I expect they are blissfully unaware of how intricate soundchange is.

For example, dang seems to be a cognate of danger, a francophone form of damage, evident in quelle domage "what a pitty", very far away from damnit "may he burn in hell", but the details are hazy. So people err on the safe side of I know what you are doing with the minced oath. In reality, it's prudishness mixed with language racism, excuse my french.

> a pilot study of 100 people who spoke one of five languages that are only distantly related: Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Korean or Russian

That's where I stopped reading. Because my statistics isn't up to the task of engaging their methods, and not because I were a militant defender of multiple language genesis. I just really need an excuse to spend my time better, elsewhere.

>The substitution might abuse this fact somehow, but it isn't fooling nobody, is it?

That's the whole point of the substitution. To use something that sounds similar enough as to be defensively inoffensive, while still alluding to the intended word as to no actually fool anybody. Thus the etymology is irrelevant.

here, hear it from a linguist

https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=57262#comments

https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=45769

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