Four-letter word

The phrase four-letter word refers to a set of English-language words written with four letters which are considered profane, including common popular or slang terms for excretory functions, sexual activity and genitalia, terms relating to Hell or damnation when used outside of religious contexts or slurs. The "four-letter" claim refers to the fact that a large number of (but not all) English "swear words" are incidentally four-character monosyllables. This description came into use during the first half of the twentieth century.[1]

History

Campaign button used in the 1976 United States presidential election.

Common four-letter words (in this sense) that are widely considered vulgar or offensive to a notable degree include: cunt, fuck (and regional variants such as feck, fick and foak), jism (or gism), jizz, shit, twat and tits. Piss (formerly an offensive swear word) in particular, however, may be used in non-excretory contexts (pissed off, i.e. "angry", in US English and British UK English ; pissed, i.e. "drunk" in UK English) that are often not considered particularly offensive, and the word also occurs several times with its excretory meaning in the King James Bible. Several of these have been declared legally indecent under the United States Federal Communications Commission (FCC) TV and radio open-airwave broadcasting regulations.

A number of additional words of this length are upsetting to some, for religious or personal sensitivity reasons, such as: arse (UK), damn, crap, hell, piss, wang, and wank (UK). Racist, ableist, and slurs pertaining to an individual's sexual orientation may also qualify, such as mong (in the UK not a racial slur, but short for Mongol, or someone with Down's Syndrome - previously called Mongolism), gook, kike, spic, coon, dago and dyke. Several "four-letter words" have multiple meanings (some even serving as given names), and usually only offend when used in their vulgar senses, for example: cock, dick, knob, muff, puss, shag (UK) and toss (UK). A borderline category includes words that are euphemistic evasions of "stronger" words, as well as those that happen to be short and have both an expletive sound to some listeners as well as a sexual or excretory meaning (many also have other, non-vulgar meanings): butt (US), crud, darn, dump, heck, poop (US), slag (UK, NZ, AUS), slut and turd, as several examples. Finally, certain four-lettered terms with limited usage can be considered offensive by some, within the regional dialect in which they are used, such as mong and mary.

Occasionally the phrase "four-letter word" is humorously used to describe common words composed of four letters. Typical examples include the word work, implying that work can be unpleasant, or the game of golf, jokingly referred to as a four-letter word when a player's pastime becomes an exercise in frustration. Charlotte Observer journalist Doug Robarchek noted in 1993 how many politicians have names with four letters, "Ever notice how many U.S. politicians have names that are also four-letter words? Ford, Dole, Duke, Bush, Gore . . . and how many make us think of four-letter words?"[2]

Similar euphemisms in other languages

See also

References

  1. ↑ Ammer, Christine (1997). The American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms. New York: Houghton Mifflin Reference Books. ISBN 0-395-72774-X.
  2. ↑ Doug Robarchek (September 29, 1993). "Outfront If You Ignore Deaths, Those State Rest Areas Are Perfectly Safe". Living. Charlotte Observer. p. 6C.
  3. ↑ "love is a four letter word". Australian Broadcasting Corporation. 2001. Retrieved 2014-08-13.
  4. ↑ Freddie Gibbs, How We Do ('93 Til) lyrics
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.