Forbidden words: How we navigate linguistic taboos

The sheer lengths H-E-Double-Hockeysticks goes to makes it a favorite for me.

I once read somewhere that someone was "going to the bathroom all over the living room"

As someone who gets injured quite a bit, I've taken to yelling out 'Curses!' when it happens. Makes me feel like an old time comic book villain and I don't say the F word in front of customers.

I'm a native Portuguese speaker that basically learned English in an USA college. I actually curse a lot more when I speak English, I think it is because I learned English from a bunch of college kids instead of from my parents.

My favorite is the replacement bait and switch, where in reference to someone you want to insult by invoking a cutesy and possibly infantilizing replacement, but actually want to go hard enough that you’ll still give the utterance, you do both. For example: King Charles == Chucklef*ck

RIP gyatdamn. Yet another part of black English rendered meaningless by social media

The evolution of terminology used to describe people with intellectual deficits is an interesting example of the euphemism treadmill. In the early 20th century, psychologists devised the clinical terms "idiot," "moron," and "imbecile" as a more scientific-sounding alternative to the previously used "feeble-minded." However, as these words became derogatory slurs, medical professionals adopted the term "mental retardation." This too eventually fell out of favor and was replaced by the currently preferred "intellectual disability," a phrase that will likely be supplanted by another term in the coming generations.

This video immediately reminded me of a skit from Crank Lucas about what gangsta rap would sound like if it was edited for kids to listen to it in Disney movies: "I got mother-fathers in the streets, and I got monkey-fighters in the trenches..."

So this one is German (because I am as well): Some people replace our word for "sh*t", „Scheiße“, with „Scheibenkleister“ (a nonsense word meaning "(window) pane glue" or something like that). But I know one woman who will say „Scheibenhonig“ ((window) pane honey) instead, which really surprised me the first time and is even more nonsensical. (And thus I love it)

While offensive, it's interesting to look at tiktok change words to avoid getting their videos taken down or censored like using "acoustic" instead of autistic or "restarted" instead of r**arded. Or using "unalive" instead of died.

Every Spanish speaker I know laughed when Augustín said "Miercoles" during a tense moment in the movie Encanto. "Mierda" is the Spanish word for 💩. It's probably a common replacement euphemism, but as a second language speaker it was my first time hearing it. I was blown away by the cheeky cleverness of it 😂

- Cheese and Crackers!! - Gadzooks!! - "There's a word to describe him that is not used in polite company and I will not utter it here... but it rhymes with 'regarded'." - Narfin'-Blugin' Stickin'-Rickin' Blatter-Spattin'...!! - Mom!! Timmy's masticating in the living room again!

One of the silliest euphemisms I can think of is one we see in a grocery store when we're looking for "toilet paper", which I never found to be a particularly offensive term to begin with. Invariably the sign above the proper aisle in which find toilet paper will say "bath tissue", and indeed the packaging on the toilet paper also indicates it is "bath tissue". I turned 70 years old recently and in my whole life I've never, ever heard anyone say anything like: "I need to buy a few rolls of bath tissue because I'm running low". I sometimes wonder if when someone that is learning English reads the words "bath tissue" on a package of toilet paper will think to themselves: "do Americans really try to dry themselves after a bath using toilet paper?" On the other hand, there are less polite ways to say toilet paper that are in common usage such as "butt wipe", "bowel towel" and "poop paper"; I'm sure there are more.

I like your videos on controversial subjects because I feel like you give the proper amount of respect to the concepts, while maintaining the communication of those concepts. It feels like a proper analysis, which helps me sincerely understand things that I otherwise wouldn't have the words to describe. Thank you Dr Taylor Jones, for the very good videos.

I once listened to a visiting lecturer from Waco, Texas (Baylor University) say we didn’t know “jack taco” about a subject he was there to discuss. We were Missouri high school debaters, and “jack shit” was obviously audience-inappropriate, at least in public

In Russian, the "bear" is translated as "медведь" which is a composition of "мёд" (honey) + "ведать" (an archaic verb than means "to know" or "to experience") that literally means "honey taster" or "the one who knows about honey" instead of "honey eater". Disclaimer: not a linguist, just a native speaker.

My favourite linguistic taboo, two for the price of one! Similar to the Irish English "the fair folk" to avoid summoning fairies, we say "los mejores de mozotros", which roughly means "the best among us", or "la buena djente", which means "the good people" to avoid summoning sheydim (spirits) in Ladino - at least in the Eastern/Ottoman variant. I get a feeling you'd love reading "Ritual medical lore of Sephardic women: sweetening the spirits, healing the sick" by Isaac and Rosemary Levy. You will find lots and lots of info on Ottoman Ladino language, taboos, conversation scripts, etc! And also, yes, I enjoy hearing you talk about Yiddish but dream of the day when you talk about my own beloved Jewish dialect!

I remember my very very conservative Baptist grandmother using "fiddlesticks" which amused me once I was old enough to realize what she wasn't saying

I can't believe you did Mister Rogers dirty like that! 😂😂😂

There's demonitization pressure which led to words like "seggs" and "unalived"