Text-based art about the nature of taboo words.

How to discuss taboo words.

 In recent years, a number of words and terms that were once acceptable in everyday usage have become taboo or verboten.

Writing about such words is a minefield. How can you write about taboo words without mentioning the words that are taboo?

I recently watched a documentary programme on the TV that included archive footage of people from several decades ago talking about things. In the introduction to the programme a voice announced that the programme contained language “of the time” that would now be deemed unacceptable. I watched the programme with added interest to see what these controversial words were going to be. By the end of the programme I had detected ONE word that I recognised as being dodgy. It wasn’t a particularly offensive term, at least in my estimation, and was uttered within a snippet of secondary dialogue within the programme. I’d have probably missed it if I hadn’t been listening out for it. Fortunately I can’t even remember what the word was now, so I can’t be judged on my estimation of it’s offensiveness. My point is that as far as the program makers were concerned the existence of this one minor debatably offensive term in an hour long documentary warranted a warning.

The message that this sent to the watching public was that even the most trivial infringement of, or deviation from, currently acceptable linguistic usage is worthy of censure. The warning, to me, was both hilarious and sinister. It was hilarious because of the thought of the programme makers earnestly thinking that they must announce the existence of the debatably dodgy word and it was sinister for exactly the same reason. If this minor infringement of modern sensitivities is worthy of a warning, does that mean that all minor infringements are equally deserving of censure?

Hardly a week goes by without a minor celebrity or person in the public eye losing their job because they’ve been caught using a forbidden word. Sometimes they’ve been caught using it 10 years ago in a social media post and sometimes they’ve been caught using it yesterday when they didn’t realise they were being recorded. When these stories are announced on the news the person involved as often accused of using a “slur“. The annoying thing is that the word itself is rarely mentioned so it may be impossible to gauge how despicable the slur was.