Anna Otto

California state legislators have long pushed self-improvement schemes on their constituents. Remember the “State Task Force to Promote Self-Esteem” (1986)? The latest such effort was a “Cuss Free Week” designated last month aimed at reducing profanity in public places.

The crusade was ridiculed, but is it a lost cause? It would seem so, at least among vice presidents. When Vice President Joseph Biden used an expletive in a private aside to President Obama after the health care victory, the remark was picked up by a microphone and spread quickly on the Web. In 2004 Vice President Cheney used a form of the same word on the Senate floor to tell Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont what to do to himself.

Have people’s attitudes changed toward what’s considered socially acceptable language? Have public forums on the Web worsened this reflex, since people whose identities are shielded can use words they might not have said out loud?

Our Comfort With Cuss Words

John McWhorter, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, is the author of “Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue: The Untold Story of English.”

Cursing in casual settings has never been alien to American life. In 1864, the engineer of the Brooklyn Bridge, Washington Roebling wrote to his fiancee in tones like these: “unless it be the spirit of some man just made perfect, come to torment me while I am writing to my love” — but in the same letter mentioned that he had been “building bridges and swearing all day.”

In our society, the main taboo is no longer sex, but race.

We can be sure that Vice President Andrew Johnson, hardly being the most refined of persons, wasn’t popping off with, shall we say, crudities as Abraham Lincoln signed off on legislation. But our society differs profoundly from that one.

In a hatless America of T-shirts and visible underwear, where what were once written speeches are now baggy “talks” and we barely flinch to see nudity and simulated copulation in movies, what would be strange is if people weren’t increasingly comfortable using cuss words in public. We cherish the “reality” of so much of what makes us different from our grandparents — but maintain a peculiar battle pose against its extension to a few pungent words.

Read more… The America where words connected to sex and excretion were never uttered in the public forum was, at least, consistent. When a slang dictionary could have trouble finding a publisher, people sequestered themselves under reams of fabric, and illegitimate birth was a scandal, calling chicken thighs “dark meat” to avoid saying “leg” made sense, felt right, and was easily enforced. In our society, the main taboo is no longer sex, but race. Such things evolve: the big taboo for medievals was religion, and thus evasions like “Egads” for “Ye Gods.” Then came sex; that time is all but gone. Now even the edgiest satire tiptoes around using the N-word — and if a comedian like Michael Richards slips up on it, he is burned in effigy for weeks. We consider racial slurs an offense against human beings for concrete reasons — but would be harder pressed to express why Joe Biden’s use of an expletive makes him a bad human being. Give it a while, and people clutching at their pearls at things like that will look as quaint as people considering it a big deal that Clark Gable said “damn” in “Gone With the Wind.”

When Mere Words Aren’t Enough

Deborah Tannen is a professor of linguistics at Georgetown University. Among her many books are “You Just Don’t Understand,” “You’re Wearing THAT?,” and, most recently, “You Were Always Mom’s Favorite!: Sisters in Conversation Throughout Their Lives.”

Vice Presidents Joe Biden’s and Dick Cheney’s uses of the same expletive, on the surface, could not be more different. Biden’s whispered utterance, unexpectedly picked up by a microphone, was a moment of intimacy, a private acknowledgment that the excitement about a momentous event was appreciated and shared.

Cheney’s utterance was an expression of anger that was meant to be heard. Yet these contrasting uses of the same word had something in common: the expression of intense emotion. That’s one reason profanity is used — and will continue to be.

For those who use them, swear words are linked to emotion in a visceral way.

People need special words to convey emotion, which is, by nature, ineffable. For those who use them, swear words are linked to emotion in a visceral way. People who speak more than one language report that they always curse in their native tongue; they can say swear words in a second language but they don’t feel them — the gut link to emotions just isn’t there.

Read more… Cursing is most often heard, as Biden’s was intended to be, in private conversation. Using language that can’t (or shouldn’t) be used in public in itself creates intimacy. But we hear more and more examples of cursing in public — sometimes to recreate private conversation, as in fiction or on TV, and sometimes, as with Biden, because of technology. Whatever the reason, the public airing of words once confined to private conversation is one of many ways that the barriers between public and private are crumbling, just as topics previously whispered only in private are now discussed publicly. We’re unlikely to sweep those topics back under the rug; the same is true of profanity. Legislating language rarely works, because language develops to serve human purposes. Some people will always swear in private to show strong feelings — or to sound cool. Given our culture’s inexorable tendency to make the private public, the increasing use of profanity in public — by intention or accident — seems inevitable.

Purity of Speech and Power

Tony McEnery, a professor of English language and linguistics at Lancaster University in Britain, is the author of “Swearing in English: Bad Language, Purity and Power from 1586 to the Present.”

Purity of speech has been associated for so long with power in public life in the English speaking world that it is almost inconceivable that it could ever have been different. Yet it was — a powerful example of this comes from James I’s participation in an ecclesiastical debate in the early 17th century. When he said that he did not give a “turd” for the argument of a leading cleric, James did not attract opprobrium. He attracted praise — those present were impressed by his debating skills, not appalled at his choice of words. This is unimaginable now. How did the change come about?

Historical campaigns that linked bad language with moral degeneracy endure in the English language to this day.

Starting in the late 17th century a movement swept the English speaking world which firmly linked purity of speech with power. Groups like the Society for the Reformation of Manners in the British Isles and the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts in the colonies began to fight against sin in all of its forms by preaching and prosecution.

A main target for them was bad language. From time to time these campaigns rise again — as happened recently in the California Assembly.

Read more… Such proposals are directly influenced by the campaigners from the 17th century who argued that moral probity, as evidenced, for example, by an avoidance of bad language, was a prerequisite for the exercise of power. Mike Simons/Getty Images The effects of these groups on the English language has been profound and endures to this day — in the past couple of years in the U.K. (look at David Cameron’s description of Twitter users), Ireland (see Paul Gogarty’s forthright attack on fellow lawmaker Emmet Stagg) and the U.S. (notably by Joe Biden and Dick Cheney), lawmakers have been called upon to apologize for using words in the public sphere that they almost certainly use in private with impunity. The hypocrisy of public purity but private impurity also has deep roots. Eighteenth-century campaigners gave up on any attempt to regulate behavior in the private sphere, quickly accepting that people could use whatever language they wished in private as long as their public speech was pure. It is to such campaigners that we can ascribe examples such as Richard Nixon, who simultaneously managed to crusade for an improvement in public morals while revealing himself on the White House tapes to have a full command of bad language. The campaigns of the late 17th and early 18th century that linked bad language with moral degeneracy, low education and general brutishness were incredibly successful in forming views of bad language that endure in the English language to this day. They were also successful at establishing the nascent middle classes of the English speaking world as a locus of purity and hence a locus of power. The moral triumph of the middle classes was also a political triumph. The triumph endures and still sets the rules of the game for public political discourse to this day.

What the Internet Unleashes

Lee Siegel is senior columnist for the Daily Beast and the author, most recently, of “Against the Machine: How The Web Is Reshaping Culture and Commerce–And Why It Matters.”

Public language in America has always been less constrained than public rhetoric in other places. But there’s no doubt that, just as styles of dress have become more casual, language has become either more liberated or coarser, depending on your perspective. Just five years ago, I probably would not have been able to say in this newspaper that something “sucks.”

Uttering a taboo word in public is a great hierarchy-buster.

I’m not sure that the Web is the cause, though. It’s true that Internet anonymity has created a style of expression that is unprecedentedly obscene. But the Web, with all its leveling and equalizing ambitions, is the product of ever-expanding democratic forces.

So is vulgarity. Uttering a taboo word in public is a great hierarchy-buster. It also gives you an extra boost in a society that is becoming ever more competitive. The word Joe Biden was overheard using to characterize the outcome of the epic struggle for health care reform was, after all the anger and acrimony, the winner’s language. It was a power word meant to triumphantly drown out the failed opposition.

Read more… That’s not to say that the growing frequency of public figures using vulgarity is romantic. It is also the symptom of a general anger and despair, as well as an expression of contempt for any type of authority, even the most benign. An imprecation expresses finality, an exasperation with rational expression, a wish for violent words to become reality-changing deeds. In the hands of the powerless, it can be an ominous weapon of almost sacred power. But when powerful figures like politicians and various types of celebrities use obscenity in public, you begin to feel that power itself has become angry and desperate. When our Eisenhowers start to talk like our Lenny Bruces, it’s time to reclaim expletives in the name of fairness and decency.

Social Sanctions Do Work

Ilya Somin is an associate professor at George Mason University School of Law. He is co-editor of the Supreme Court Economic Review and blogs at The Volokh Conspiracy.

For generations, moralists have denounced supposed degradation of public discourse. In the 1950s, critics claimed that innocent children were being corrupted by Batman comics. Elvis Presley’s music raised similar fears.

Associated Press

Despite constant claims of decline, in some ways discourse norms have actually become less permissive. For example, racist, sexist and homophobic remarks are far less tolerated today than a generation ago. Even practitioners of garden-variety obnoxiousness don’t pass unscathed.

People who regularly insult others or use language widely considered to be inappropriate suffer tremendous damage to their reputation. They have fewer friends, contacts and business opportunities than they would otherwise. If they are public figures, they face severe criticism in the media and elsewhere. When Vice President Cheney and Vice President Biden used expletives that got caught on tape, they were both widely denounced.

Read more… Social sanctions work even in the online blogosphere. Bloggers can and often do ban commenters whose statements get too nasty. When prominent bloggers themselves say offensive things, they get denounced by other bloggers eager to take their competitors down a peg. The government makes a poor moral arbiter. Nonetheless, some still argue for government regulation as a solution. Yet the state makes a poor moral arbiter. Government power is far more likely to be deployed against politically unpopular speakers than against those who whose speech is offensive in some objective sense. Moreover, language is constantly evolving as a result of social and technological development; consider just the impact of the rise of the Internet. The cumbersome processes of government are unlikely to be able to keep up. Finally, if anyone can be trusted to restrict supposedly immoral speech, it should be those whose own moral rectitude is unimpeachable. Few if any politicians qualify.

Say It – It’s Cathartic

Timothy Jay, a psychology professor at Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts, is the author of “Cursing in America” and “Why We Curse.”

We now have legal rulings prohibiting sexual harassment, road rage, racial and gender discrimination, bullying and hate crimes. These did not exist before.

Attitudes about profanity have swung like a pendulum. Maybe we’re paying for the ’60s now?

Our speech is sanctioned in the workplace through voicemail, email, and with video recordings. The F.C.C. has larger fines and a wider net to catch nasty words in the media. Conservative media groups, a growing trend, now have electronic networks to voice their attitudes. What you say can and will be held against you.

On the other end, there are more offensive words on more offensive television programs than ever before, and music lyrics aren’t getting any cleaner.

This doesn’t mean the average person is swearing more. But we have recorded more women swearing in public than before, and more young children using offensive language and at younger ages than before. By the time they enter school, most children know the words their parents complain about on television, though there is no evidence that children are harmed by words on television.

Read more… Truth is we don’t have complete freedom of speech here, we never did. Attitudes about profanity have swung like a pendulum from the liberal in the 1960s to the conservative the 2000s. Maybe we’re paying for the ’60s now? People swear more when anonymous and where there is little chance for retaliation whether on the Internet or in public. This is neither good nor bad per se. It’s good when people are more honest, direct and explicit – like reporting the Iraq war accurately without censorship or producing movies that show how people really talk. It’s bad when someone is abused on the Web, but verbal abuse was not born on the Internet. There’s not that much more swearing on the Internet than there is in public, on a percentage basis. In a way, it’s more cathartic to say a word than to type it.

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