Topics Language

Question What constitutes vulgar and obscene language: the heart or intended meaning, or the words in and of themseves? Are there words which are intrinsically bad, like the word "fuck" for instance. If I said "fuck you" that would definitely be a bad thing, but if I simply said "fuck that", implying that, for instance, I did not want anything to do with a particular thing, is that word still bad?

Accepted:
February 19, 2007

Comments

I'm inclined to think that there are differences of opinion about this, but my own view (for what it is worth) is that what counts as vulgar and obscene are a matter of cultural (and perhaps even situational) context. For one thing, the origin of the word "vulgar" simply associates a thing with the masses, or the common people--so identifying a term as "vulgar" really only associates that term with a certain social class. Only if we think of that class as a whole as somehow morally debased would vulgarity (in this sense) count as a kind of evil. But I understand that "vulgar" has lost its "classist" bias and now means something like "dirty" or "obscene."

At any rate, the word "fuck" doesn't seem to me to have some intrinsic feature that makes it obscene. What it does have is a kind of resonance or set of connotations, which are culture-bound, that make its uses rude in "polite company."

Now, some might object to the connections between the word "fuck" and the sex act to which it refers. So just as "fuck you" is an expression of agresssion, "fucking" might well be seen as a picture of the sex act in which one partner aggresses against another. One might well object to this characterization of the act--and more broadly, to instances of the act in which aggression of the relevant sort is actually a feature. But by this reasoning "Why don't you take a long walk off a short peer?" should also be obscene, but it's not (though it is aggressive).

So, notice, neither can the obscenity of an obscene term reside in the reference of the term--for every obscene term there may also be some non-obscene alternative with the same referent (though admittedly certain subjects--including excretion and sex--are generally regarded as inappropriate for polite conversation even if one scrupulously sticks to euphemisms and clinical terms).

I suspect, therefore, that all of the obscenity in an obscene term is in the way that term happens to be viewed or received in the context within which it is uttered. Between happy lovers, "let's fuck" may not feel or sound obscene. Said to one of one's undergraduates, however, such an utterance is inevitably bad policy indeed. Context is all. But that means that there's nothing intrinsically wrong with this (or, I think) any other term generally regarded as obscene.