The idea that words have unique powers for good or evil goes way back to the dawn of history and perhaps even before that. Who know what early humans may have muttered as they painted on the walls of their caves? We do know that, all through recorded time, the incantation was part of every prayer and every spell. If you just got the words right, there would be no limit to your power. Everything from turning lead to gold and defeating a powerful army in the field depended upon knowledge of the proper phrase. Today, it is still commonly believed that certain words have a magical power to corrupt souls and create chaos in the land.
In looking at lists of objectionable words, one finds that they fall into several, separate categories. For example, there are those that address supernatural forces - appealing to Beelzebub or damning the god of your choice...from A for Apollo to Z for Zeus. In fact, Clark Gable's use of the word "damn" in Gone with the Wind so shocked audiences in 1939 that proper folks were aghast...fearing the end must indeed be near.
Then there are ethnic slurs. It's hard to tell even a very funny Frenchman, Englishman, Irishman Get-on-a-Bus joke, in today's Politically Correct climate. This mean spirited temper of the time has gotten so extreme that a mayor of Washington D.C. was forced to dump his staff member (one David Howard) for using the word "niggardly" in a meeting.
Threatening words also include vulgar references to body parts and wastes. Medical terms for such appendages and effluvia are, on the other hand, perfectly acceptable. For that reason, television commercials can tout products designed to deal with all sorts of disgusting disorders without fear of offending anyone.
And finally, there are those "dirty words" that instantly come to mind whenever someone complains about dirty words. These, of course, refer to sex. In any reasonably calm analysis of this time and place, one can only conclude that we are living in a sexually frustrated/fixated society. Why a perfectly normal, natural behavior should be invested with such mind-boggling concerns is beyond any rational explanation. Suffice it to say, anything to do with mating can well and truly tip an otherwise semi-sane person off the deep end.
Bad words (whether curses or slurs, profane or just plain course) all seem to have one thing in common. They are familiar enough to be immediately recognized in even the most abbreviated form: as in the A-word, the B-word, the C-word and so through the alphabet. That eyes and ears will be irrevocably damaged by seeing or hearing the complete word takes the Puritanical to the maniacal...the prissy to the silly.
But that's not to say that bad words never do. There are times when they may be used to signal informality as at a gathering where such usage says we're all friends here and not on a formal footing or, conversely, to get attention. Researchers have found increased activity in an area of the brain - the amygdaloid complex - when presented with bad words so it may actually be said that some words can indeed have a physical effect, however inconsequential, on others. But the line between acceptable and unacceptable speech is rapidly being burred by the Internet, satellite radio and cable TV. Hear a "BLEEP" on this channel and one station down you can hear the word. But please don't demand more censorship from the government. In trading freedom for protection you're sure to eventually lose both.
As for bad words having an especially deleterious effect on children, understand that youngsters will quickly pick up on the powerful effect certain words can have and then store them away for future use. Were the X-word, the Y-word and the Z-word met with indifference by adults, this would not be the case. In that regard, I was recently on-hand when a mass exodus of grade school students erupted. A friend had agreed to pick up her granddaughter after classes so, sitting in the car, we found ourselves subjected to a roar of colorful expletives as the doors burst open. Once seated and driving home, I comment to this ten-year-old student that I'd heard an amazing assortment of bad words on the campus...to which she responded:
"Which ones didn't you understand? They're just words after all. Real evil is in things like incompetent government, Dark Age religions, resource depletion...and they're all being piled on my generation's plate. Thank you very much."
Out of the mouths of babes....
