# 'Vulgar But Not Slang'. **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 17, 2020, 10:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vulgar-but-not-slang/852021 "2020-04-17T22:48:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2020, 4:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vulgar-but-not-slang/852021/21 "2020-04-19T04:53:43Z")
> [@hajario](#): > > Geez. It was a joke after the OP had been answered. Not a remotely funny one. ---
**Author:** ![hajario](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hajario/32/171_2.png) [@hajario](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hajario)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2020, 4:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vulgar-but-not-slang/852021/22 "2020-04-19T04:54:58Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > Not a remotely funny one. Sorry. It wasn’t my intention to cause butthurt. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2020, 5:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vulgar-but-not-slang/852021/23 "2020-04-19T05:12:16Z")
> [@hajario](#): > > Sorry. It wasn’t my intention to cause butthurt. Not butthurt, just an absurdly specific in-joke that even somebody who has been a member for 20 years didn’t recognize. To be funny, someone has to actually recognize the joke. If you make a joke, and nobody understands what you are on about, then it isn’t a very good joke, is it? ---
**Author:** ![hajario](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hajario/32/171_2.png) [@hajario](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hajario)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2020, 5:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vulgar-but-not-slang/852021/24 "2020-04-19T05:21:22Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > Not butthurt, just an absurdly specific in-joke that even somebody who has been a member for 20 years didn’t recognize. To be funny, someone has to actually recognize the joke. If you make a joke, and nobody understands what you are on about, then it isn’t a very good joke, is it? Touché. Clearly you’re the final arbiter on what’s funny and what isn’t. Thanks for your expert input. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2020, 5:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vulgar-but-not-slang/852021/25 "2020-04-19T05:41:22Z")
> [@hajario](#): > > Touché. Clearly you’re the final arbiter on what’s funny and what isn’t. Thanks for your expert input. I must say, still harboring resentment over a policy established 11 years ago by someone who is no longer even associated with the site signifies a level of butthurt that I can’t even fathom. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![guizot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guizot/32/3636_2.png) [@guizot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/guizot)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2020, 7:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vulgar-but-not-slang/852021/26 "2020-04-19T07:40:02Z")
> [@bibliophage](#): > > **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. Right. The OP is trying to treat these labels as though they were like the terms in zoological classification or something. That’s not how they work. In any case, the “correct” label for a word can be disputed, at least open to debate. For example, for the word _**[icebox](https://www.ldoceonline.com/dictionary/icebox)**_, the Longman dictionary for English language learners includes the label “_ **old-fashioned** _,” [but Merriam-Webster does not](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/icebox). Maybe they don’t think it’s “old-fashioned,” or maybe they just don’t think it’s necessary to say it’s “old-fashioned” for their audience. But these things are often judgement calls, rather than scientific categories. ---
**Author:** ![SciFiSam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/47e85d/32.png) [@SciFiSam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SciFiSam)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2020, 7:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vulgar-but-not-slang/852021/27 "2020-04-19T07:47:43Z")
Vulgar - you could probably go by which words are generally allowed to be used in U-rated movies (or possibly PG), and which aren’t. A lot of vulgar words, like the ones in your OP, aren’t also slang because they’re widely used. Slang - used in a specific area or for a specific group of people. Not necessarily widely understood outside that group of area. Most slang is not vulgar. There’s [this incomplete list of words not allowed before the watershed](https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/read-what-ofcom-thinks-47-8987533). Some of those words are slang, and most are considered vulgar to some degree, and you can probably easily spot which ones are slang _and_ vulgar and which are merely vulgar or merely slang. It’s a British list so there might be some words you’re not used to hearing so often that they have to be put on a circumscribed list - I’m sure other English speaking areas have vulgar slang words that aren’t used outside that area, but not being from there, obviously I don’t know them. The words you cited are universal among native English speakers - it doesn’t matter if they use them or not, they do know them. Common among non-English speakers too, but in some of those languages they might be slang. As a counter-example, there’s a vulgar Hindi word for female genitals that briefly entered the British lexicon among some young people in the late 90s, and for us it was vulgar and slang. In its original language it was simply vulgar; it was too widespread and official to be slang. For us it was a slang word and definitely intended to be vulgar. > [@bob\_2](#): > > This is absolute nonsense. The only people with raised eyebrows were some [vulgar] journo’s looking desperately for something to write about. Agreed, but it’s also very off-topic (not your fault, obvs). > [@hajario](#): > > I noticed a marked decrease in 2009 and then a significant uptick around two years ago. Your joke might have been more obvious as a joke if you’d included a link to the straight dope rule change you were making a joke about. Otherwise, even though I was around then, I had no effing clue what you meant and thought maybe google ngrams had a glitch or something. FWIW I’m avoiding the actual f, c and s words in case they cause search problems for people on work computers. Keeping them out of the topic title was probably a good idea. They probably won’t cause problems in the body of the thread, so I’d happily use them from here on out if I’m told it’s fine. ---
**Author:** ![guizot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guizot/32/3636_2.png) [@guizot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/guizot)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2020, 7:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vulgar-but-not-slang/852021/28 "2020-04-19T07:58:43Z")
> [@Melbourne](#): > > 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). > [@lobotomyboy63](#): > > 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. This notion of how a certain class of people _ **should** _ speak is clear, but that doesn’t mean that the upper-class or educated people did not use _vulgar_ terms in their speech, depending on the context. Code-switching is not a new thing, and vulgar language is not only used to “hurt or shock or . . . to give offense,” (as the quote from **bibliophage** says), but also to express strong feeling or complicity between interlocutors, and upper-class or educated people have just as frequent cause to do that as anyone else. ---
**Author:** ![SciFiSam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/47e85d/32.png) [@SciFiSam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SciFiSam)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2020, 9:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vulgar-but-not-slang/852021/29 "2020-04-19T09:41:25Z")
> [@guizot](#): > > This notion of how a certain class of people _ **should** _ speak is clear, but that doesn’t mean that the upper-class or educated people did not use _vulgar_ terms in their speech, depending on the context. Code-switching is not a new thing, and vulgar language is not only used to “hurt or shock or . . . to give offense,” (as the quote from **bibliophage** says), but also to express strong feeling or complicity between interlocutors, and upper-class or educated people have just as frequent cause to do that as anyone else. Obviously the Queen never swears, but I’m pretty sure other members of the royal family use the swear words in the OP. That’s how universal they are, and why they’re not slang. There are tons of swear words that would sound really weird if they said them, and they probably have their own upper-class swear words too. ---
**Author:** ![MEBuckner](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mebuckner/32/2896_2.png) [@MEBuckner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MEBuckner)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2020, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vulgar-but-not-slang/852021/30 "2020-04-19T19:40:54Z")
Even the Queen [was an Army mechanic once upon a time](https://time.com/5287517/world-war-ii-queen-elizabeth-photo/). Hey, when you’re a “wrench wench”, sometimes the %&$@! wrench slips and you bark your &%\*#! knuckles. Of course, she was only a Princess then. ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2020, 12:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vulgar-but-not-slang/852021/31 "2020-04-20T00:32:52Z")
My etymological dictionary, vintage 1930s has two entries (SE means standard English): c**t, one of two SE words that cannot appear in print anywhere in the English speaking world f**t, ditto So they are not slang but Partridge certainly wouldn’t print them in full. ---
**Author:** ![CookingWithGas](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cookingwithgas/32/485_2.png) [@CookingWithGas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CookingWithGas)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2020, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vulgar-but-not-slang/852021/32 "2020-04-21T15:39:51Z")
> [@Jim\_B](#): > > Talking about having a dirty mind. No one asked me to quote the Shakespeare joke. Here it is, in its entirety: > > _Hamlet: Act 3 Scene 2 Page 5_ > > What does it mean? Nothing at all, of course. Unless you have a dirty mind, as I said;)). > > 🙂 I read Hamlet in high school and distinctly remember this passage. The annotated version we studied from pointed out the pun here, although discreetly enough so as not to spell out “cunt” but explicitly enough so it was clear that Shakespeare meant to do it. Playing to the groundlings, as it were. ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2020, 3:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vulgar-but-not-slang/852021/33 "2020-04-21T15:56:54Z")
Shakespeare had no problem spelling anything out: > [@](#): > > _Malvolio._ > By my life, this is my Lady’s hand: these be her > very C’s, her U’s and her T’s and thus makes she her > great P’s. It is, in contempt of question, her hand. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vulgar-but-not-slang/852021.md?page=1)