Being Funny Ain't Easy Anymore! Got to watch your words!

A society in which authority decides what you can hear, think and say will not only be a
society lacking in humor, it will be one lacking in humanity. I believe this is where we are
heading as a society, to a place where no joke, is just a joke, where a joke is just another
statement that offends somebody.
For instance, among the usual unproductive stuff that happens on my college Facebook
group, the other day I found a group of my batchmates getting petrified over this one
comment.
“Can BTS be made the National Anthem of India?”
Initially, I thought the post would get flooded by BTS haters. But Nope, my batchmates had
got offended over making BTS the national anthem. My Patriotic, Nationalistic, Liberal Arts
College classmates had been offended by that silly comment. See, this is what I’m talking
about. People need to learn to treat jokes to be just jokes. Stop overly analyzing them, they
are called jokes and not critical thinking exercises for a reason.
Every joke uplifts one person or an idea, at the expense of another. Remember every time
somebody cracked a joke on you, it cracked everybody up, at your expense. And for obvious
reasons, nobody likes gags on them, for they put them down, so they retaliate and dismiss it.
But, if we start getting defensive and accuse the funny person of being politically incorrect,
are we actually doing any good? I don’t think so. Instead, if something is actually wrong and
degrading, we should debate it, not dismiss the joke altogether.
What I’m trying to say, is not that people should stop standing up for themselves nor am I
telling people to stop being sensitive. Because I know that standing up for yourself takes a lot
of effort and being sensitive is a natural emotion. And degrading jokes aren’t funny. I don’t
support any sort of sexist, homophobic or any other sort of demeaning humor.
My problem is when people self-censor jokes in fear of offending other people. And these
people who get offended are usually not offended personally, they are just offended for a
certain third party who isn’t even present there.
Today, even meme pages are places for hate comments. Every meme is bombarded with hate
comments towards the creator. This makes creators conscious of being politically correct as
well and even prevents them from making memes in the future in fear of the backlash they
will have to endure. Memes that were created with the sole purpose of pointing out social
injustices in a humorous manner are failing. This shows that, in our conscious efforts of being
politically correct, we have crushed our inner funny bones.
Another thing that I notice with digital content is that many people enjoy a joke but it offends
very few people. However, these minorities are quite flashy about their opinion while the
majority, who crack up for the joke never come forward in defense of the creator. I believe
that we should stand up for our creators as well, we shouldn’t shy away from doing so, in fear
of being branded as politically incorrect. Politically incorrect is a relative term, it depends on
the situation and context. Next time you enjoy a meme, let the creator know that as well. Just
a small comment or even a defensive stand for the creator will do. By doing so, we stand in
solidarity with our creators. As humorous content creators, knowing that a major part of our
audience enjoyed a joke, motivates us to keep going with the memes and jokes, and not stop
just because some deserted individual got offended. This is the only way to keep our funny
bones alive. If this fails, we are heading towards a dark place as a society. One where being
funny is a crime, a society where people don’t have the guts to be funny.

The Evolution of Profanity and Gendered Swear Words

Words are powerful. Some more than others. Profane words are the most potent of all. They have the drive to blatantly cause and invoke emotional reactions of anger and frustration on others. These words are versatile as they can elicit any emotion. Studies show that swearing can do wonders, from creating sexual arousal to increasing the ability to resist pain. Moreover, it is also a good sign that we might be about to snap, which means that it anticipates violence. Without swearing, we would have to resort to the biting, gouging, and shit flinging that our other primate cousins used to keep their societies in check. When deployed appropriately as comedians do, profanity can even create delight and happiness.

However, when wrongly used, the same words can seem offensive. In their darkest forms, they can be part of verbal abuse, which can degrade society. Furthermore, since these words could bring about such a huge impact, we ban them, we punish children from using them and frown upon adults who use these words. Is this a worldwide phenomenon that has existed from the beginning of civilization? Today, most abusive swear words are gendered swear words, mostly related to a woman and her sexual desires. Has it always been this way? Have patriarchal notions influenced even the way people swear?

Linguistically, a swearword is one that kidnaps our attention and forces us to consider its unpleasant connotation. The connotation is a word’s baggage, the emotional associations that go along with it, and denotation is its dictionary meaning. Consider, for example, the word ‘fuck.’ The denotation of this word is “the act of sexual intercourse.” However, it has numerous connotations ranging from ‘extraordinarily good’ to ‘extremely bad.’ Almost all swear words are connotations; they carry an emotional charge that exceeds the taboo status of their referents.

In his book What the F, Benjamin K. Bergen points out that, of the 7,000 known languages in the world, there is massive variation in the type, the use, and even the number of swear words. In Russian, there are numerous ways of swearing, most of them related to the moral standing of one’s interlocutor’s mother. In Japanese, where the excretory taboo is almost non-existent, there is no equivalent to “shit” but, contrary to popular belief, there are several swear words in the language. ‘Kichigai’ loosely translates as a retard and is usually bleeped in the media, as is ‘yariman’(slut). Swearing has a long history and is believed to have existed since the beginning of human civilization. However, there are no earlier records of swearing, and from the time writing came along, swearing seems to be well developed.

In Latin, there are numerous mentions of swearing in the name of God, in the form of an oath. Such references can even be found in the Bible. From the Bible, you can infer that “you must swear by God, or by some synecdoche for him, in which an attribute or a part of god stands for god himself- his name, his holiness, or his arm. You must swear seriously and only in weighty matters. And you must never use an oath as expletive or insult’’ (Mohr, 2013). Much of the swearing, at this time was connected to the idea of swearing as an oath and other sorts of swearing was largely considered taboo and nearly non-existent. To swear meant to make a declaration, invoking a deity or an honorable person to confirm the honesty of the one swearing the oaths to fulfill the declaration.

The middle ages, however, saw a slight evolution from this form of swearing. Words such as bollocks, sard, and even cunt were not considered as obscene in the Middle Ages. People of medieval England did not really share the modern concept of obscenity, in which words for certain taboo functions possess a power higher than their literal meaning and must be cut off from polite conversations. A word such as cunt (vagina) was an ordinary word -having only biological connotations- in the Middle Ages, not wielding any extraordinary power to raise hackles or offend. However, this is not to say that medieval people had no concept of bad language. They adopted the New Testament’s stance on the immorality of idle speech. Idle speech meaning any word used without a purpose. They were primarily concerned with what were called ‘foule wordes’. Any word that “could lead people into sin” was considered ‘foule wordes’. The worst, most dangerous kind of language in the Middle Ages, however, was swearing in the name of god. Frivolously done, it threatened to wreak havoc with the smooth running of society and was believed to even disturb god himself. This was the reason why gendered swear words weren’t in use during these times. Even if they existed, they would have been considered taboo and against the religious sentiments of that time.

Towards the end of the Middle Ages and the start of the Renaissance, the culture surrounding swearing and profanity changed profoundly. This shift is attributed to numerous other social and cultural changes in Europe. One of which is the rise of Protestantism, which led to the weakening and the devaluing of oaths. Even post-renaissance, this trend of rapid decline in swearing in the name of god continued. This is attributed to the decline in faith amongst the masses and the rise in stronger, emotionally triggering cuss words. These include present-day profane words related to feces and sexual immorality. Medieval English had many words that are no longer in use. If these words were still in use today, they would probably be obscene—they are vernacular words for taboo parts of the

body and bodily functions. In the Middle Ages, though, they were merely direct words for things that medieval people had less trouble talking about. Kekir and bobrelle are such forgotten words for the clitoris. The word is said to embody those Aristotelian fears about women who use their clitorises for pleasure, while also gesturing toward a real biological homology. However, the people of this generation were not limited to direct using of profanity; just like any other society, they had a separate set of words to abuse each other. To figure out what people said to abuse and offend each other seven hundred years ago, court records for charges of defamation and assault with censorious words. At most times, scribes wrote down the precise English words at issue, so we know that when medieval English people traded insults, they were usually accusations of sexual immorality, such as whore (when directed at women) and accusations of dishonesty, such as thief or knave (when directed at men). This trend of profane words being related to women and their sexuality can be tracked down throughout generations before and even in the present. In the present day, a female dog or “bitch” is considered a swear word while a dog is considered just another animal. Sexism in the world of profanity is a widespread phenomenon; almost every existing culture has reported swear words related to a woman, her sexuality, and her genitals. From ‘Blayat’ (whore) in Russian to ‘salope’ (slut) in French, almost every language is observed to have abusive swear words connected with the sexual immorality of a woman.

Gendered swear words related to men and their sex life are relatively lower in number. However, the most offensive of swear words related to men and their sexuality are considered to be the ones related to homosexuality. The underlying power of this slur comes from the belief that homosexuals and women are devalued members of society. Most swear words in connection to men usually question their morality. These swear words have been at the tip of the tongues of human beings for centuries now.

It is also noticed that many profane words are connected with a mother, sister, or wife of a person. These cuss words have been observed to trigger strong emotional reactions. From ‘motherfucker’ in English to ‘Behenchod’ (Sister-fucker) in Hindi, almost every language is found to have cuss words related to female family members. This may be because these swear words, which are mainly used by men amongst each other, were created to trigger emotional reactions. Furthermore, what is more, triggering than accusing a genuine relationship between a mother and her child. This may also be linked to the fact that, unlike ordinary language, swear words are treated differently by our brain. Studies have shown that unlike other speech and language, swearing is deeply rooted in emotion and is processed in the right side of the brain. This is why a patient with brain damage due to stroke on the left side of the brain who has lost all speech and language skills are still proficient in swearing.

Swearing has often seen to be used excessively by men in comparison with women. Traditionally, men are viewed as bigger swearers, and women as prudish speakers, avoiding lousy language. Disparaging humor has negative consequences. This fact strongly suggests that humor, which belittles creates and reinforces negative stereotypes, prejudice, hostility towards females. Men and women have the same perception of what is obscene, but what differs is the quantitative use of these terms. In most societies, women seem to know at least as much profanity and harmful terms as men. However, they do not use much profanity because of the stereotype of the silent and polite woman. In any society, speech patterns among males and females reflect the social and traditional stereotypes on men and women’s nature and behavior. So, if women are considered to be shy, this shyness will be expected to be found in their language. Sometimes this can lead to linguistic beliefs that are not asserted to be correct, but which exist because of various socio-cultural stereotypes. Sometimes, females and males themselves attempt to adapt to what is historically thought of as a norm. This may be one of the primary reasons why there are more swear words that put women at the receiving end of the brunt of these words and why there are many categorical swear words related to women that rarely have any male parallels. As concepts of patriarchy have started falling, and as the norm of polite and shy women is blurring out, we might have to expect another massive change in the trends of swearing in the next few decades. The start of this wave of swearing amongst women has already been observed to have started. A 2016 Study conducted in the UK by Professor Tony McEnery states that British women say the word ‘fuck’ more times a day than British men. Whereas the same study, when conducted in 1990, had shown that men swear more than 5 times more than women. This mainly attributed to gender equality and burring of gender stereotypes; the ideas of masculine and feminine language are slowly vanishing. Increased swearing amongst women is highly likely to bring

about the origin of newer swear words that do not necessarily put women and their sexual immorality at the receiving end of the brunt. Hopefully, swearing evolves with times and blurs the concepts of patriarchy embedded in it in the years to come.

Bibliography

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pp.1056-60 ,2009.

3. Byrne, Emma. Swearing Is Good for You: The Amazing Science of Bad Language.

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4. McEnery, Tony. “Compiling and analysing the Spoken British National Corpus”,

International Journal of Corpus Linguistics. Vol. 22.3 ,2017.

5. Bergen, B. K. What the F: What Swearing Reveals about Our Language, Our Brains,

and Ourselves. Basic Books, 2016.

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