I am a little confused by the classification of certain words, specifically in a dictionary I have had for some time now. That is where I first found out this fact.
Some English words are 'vulgar", but not ‘slang’.
I guess that is because they were acceptable words hundreds of years ago, when they first entered the English language. I won’t name them in full. I suppose I could. They are not legally obscene in and of themselves, the Supreme Court has already ruled. But of course I mean f—, s—, and even occasionally c—. Typically four-lettered. (Quick side note: actually c— was on the verge of becoming obsolete. But it was reïntroduced into English in the early 20th, partly inspired by a centuries-old Shakespeare joke. I’m serious. But I digress.)
I guess my main confusion is how then you can use them. Can they be used in common conversation, and not be considered nonstandard? Some people might take offense. But they are not slang. Also, could I use it in a college essay? How would the professor react, if I defended its use by the argument I just gave?
And lastly, are there any other implications of a word being vulgar but not slang, that I have not even considered?
The OP seems to presume that if a word is vulgar, then it is not slang. That might be correct, or it might not be. I suspect that vulgar words are a subset of slang words. But I don’t rally know.
“Slang” is a remarkably difficult thing to pin down. The Oxford English Dictionary defines it (noun entry 3, sub-entry 1.a.) as “The special vocabulary used by any set of persons of a low or disreputable character; language of a low and vulgar type” (harrumph!) followed by a more modern definition (n.3, 1.c.) “Language of a highly colloquial type, considered as below the level of standard educated speech, and consisting either of new words or of current words employed in some special sense.”
So, I would say that “Alice and Bob screwed every night on their honeymoon” is slang (and perhaps mildly vulgar); “screwed” is a “current word” that is here being “employed in some special sense”. (Alice and Bob are having sexual intercourse, not assembling pre-fab furniture.) “Alice and Bob fucked every night on their honeymoon” is vulgar, but not slang, since “fuck” is an old English word (of Anglo-Saxon origin) literally meaning “to have sexual intercourse with”. “Alice and Bob had sexual intercourse every night on their honeymoon” is neither slang nor vulgar (although vulgarity is also a bit hard to pin down, and really prudish types will likely consider that statement to be a bit indelicate; but perhaps the statement is part of some medical report, after Alice and/or Bob suffered some kind of sexual-intercourse-related injury). “Alice and Bob made love every night on their honeymoon” is more “polite”; it’s also euphemistic, but such euphemisms probably wouldn’t be considered “slang”.
“Bob screwed the new bookshelves together” is not slang, as the word “screwed” is here being used literally, and not in any special (colloquial or non-literal) sense; nor is it vulgar (although some low-minded or immature types might snicker at any use of the word). “Bob got totally fucked by Alice in the divorce settlement” is both vulgar and slang, since clearly we are no longer talking about literal acts of sexual intercourse.
Just to round it out, “each bathroom tile has a groovy side on the bottom and a smooth side on the top” is not slang; “Whoa, Bob! Those new bookshelves are totally groovy!” is not vulgar, but is presumably slang (unless for some reason the new bookshelves have grooves on them).
To try to add a LITTLE something to my previous answer, someone saying “I am really looking forward to being able to fuck again once this COVID-19 lockdown is over” is really not slang, but of course some people might take offense. Some people would take offense at someone saying “I am really looking forward to being able to have sex again once this COVID-19 lockdown is over”. And again, the use of the word “fuck” in the first sentence is different from the way it’s being used in “Ah, I haven’t been doing much, what with the lockdown and all, just fucking around on the Internet” or “The world economy is probably fucked thanks to COVID-19”.
You could probably use almost any word in a college essay if you pick the right topic. For literary criticism you could pick a work that itself uses those words, then quote from it in order to analyze it. You could write a sociology paper about changing attitudes towards vulgar words, or a linguistics paper analyzing the use of taboo vulgarities in different contexts in American English vernacular speech.
In class-ridden early 20’th century England, vulgar words were part of the vulgate: the speech of the common and uneducated people. You marked yourself as vulgar by using the common speech. …avoir des relations sexuelles avec… (pardon my French).
Google ngrams does not support your thesis that “cunt” died out before the 20th century and was revived early in the century. Looks more like in the late 18th century its usage decreased somewhat, then it was pretty flat from about 1840 to 1960, then rose sharply after that.
Yes, I thought of Vulgar Latin, meaning the language of the common people instead of the educated (which they now refer to as Classical Latin) Two people talking…one might say “defecate” instead of “shit,” or “domicile” instead of “home,” for instance. Really both terms might convey the same thing, essentially, but one was deemed better (more educated, less vulgar) than the other once upon a time.
The class distinction has never really left Merry Old England, where Meghan raised eyebrows by closing her own car door :eek: but in much of the world, it isn’t what it once was.
I recall at one time reading Ben Hur, where the opening sequence refers to camels as “rude farting beasts”. There’s an example of a vulgar word that maybe was not as vulgar over a hundred years ago (1880). OTOH there are certain topics that fall in the category of TMI no matter how they are described. Sometimes, of necessity, they need to be talked about and often euphemisms are used. I guess the point would be that slang is used by a group (regional or social) for its purposes, even if the meaning and context is recognized more widely - while vulgar non-slang would refer to words that are generally part of the world-wide standard vocabulary, they just happen to be unacceptable for general speech. Keep in mind that any language is a fluid thing and what may be specialized or local vocabulary one day may be general speech later.
An interesting point may be the word “fag”, where the British context - a cigarette, something you suck on - has been eclipsed over time by the North American context.
Jim B., who published the dictionary in question? Every dictionary publisher is different and they use the labels somewhat differently. If you have the print edition of the dictionary, somewhere in the front matter you will find an essay called “How to use this dictionary” or something similar. Somewhere in there is probably a section called “Status labels” or similar. This is where the lexicographers explain–or ought to explain–exactly what they mean by terms like slang, vulgar, offensive, derogatory, nonstandard, dialect, regional, archaic, obsolete, and so on. If you’re using an electronic dictionary of some sort, this information is usually there somewhere but often much harder to find. Merriam-Webster has a web page on their Usage Labels, which of course only apply to dictionaries published by Merriam-Webster. Unfortunately they are not as specific or helpful as they could be:
