10 Dirty Words You Don’t Know (Part 3)
Dysphemism
The abusive British word berk is a euphemism for the c-word. It comes from cockney rhyming slang, berk being short for Berkshire Hunt. Oxford is another euphemism with a rhyming slang origin; it is short for “Oxford punt.”
Other non-rhyming slang euphemisms include the velvet glove, the oval office and the sausage wallet. There are many more. Euphemisms grow wild in the field of latrinology, but dysphemisms are less common.
A dysphemism is the opposite of a euphemism. It refers to the deliberate use of a more, rather than a less, vulgar term. A simple example would be to call someone a fuckwit rather than a fool. The meaning is the same, but the word used is somewhat more expressive.
It’s interesting that some apparent dysphemisms are, technically, not dysphemisms at all. The word cock-up, for instance, derives from the brewer’s practice of turning the spigot — or cock — of a barrel upwards if the beer inside had spoiled.
If you choose to describe a fool as a prick rather than a fuckwit, you might believe you’re inferring that he’s a penis. That’s the common belief, but the derivation is otherwise. It harks back to the early days of agriculture and the farming equipment used to yoke oxen to ploughs (plows for American English speakers). A shaft of sharpened wood, called a prick, was used to keep the oxen in place. If the oxen didn’t pull as directed, the prick dug into them. Kicking against the prick, as oxen sometimes did, thus became a metaphor for resisting authority stupidly.
In the U.K., the French Connection, a chain of boutiques, hit on the idea of re-branding itself as French Connection UK, or FCUK for short. To my mind, that counts as a deliberate dysphemism. Nevertheless, it turned out to be a fcuking brilliant marketing ploy that attracted more than a little attention — especially when they came out with their eau de toilette, which they called simply, “FCUK Her.”
Grawlix
Grawlixes are typographical symbols that appear in dialogue balloons in graphical comics to indicate that some swear word or other is implied. The term was coined by Mort Walker, the Beetle Bailey cartoonist, after he’d been employing grawlixes for a while. As a grawlix, the f-word becomes something like f@&#. And if you want to be less specific about which unacceptably offensive word you are using, you can simply plump for something like *$&#%!
This is not the only strategy available for partially censoring words. You can modify the words with asterisks, as in “what the f***,” or disemvowel them, as in “what the fck,” or resort to abbreviation, as in “WTF.” You can substitute a euphemism, like effing or freaking — but please, in deference to Dorothy Parker, not fugging.
There’s also bleeping, as in “Why don’t you take a flying bleep at a rolling doughnut?” This technique is often used for text that is intended to be read aloud. However, as the example demonstrates, with bleeping you can easily lose a very effective alliteration.
Apropos of which, the flying fuck is not a meaningless poetic idea. In earlier times, it was a term used to describe having sex on horseback while the horse was in motion and, thus, gaining entry to the 5-Foot High Club.
Scatolinguistics
Scatolinguistics started out as meaning the study of words related to excrement. The word was coined by James McCawley, an influential linguist and, for much of his life, professor of linguistics at the University of Chicago. He wrote his cromulent scatolinguistic treatises under the pseudonyms of Quang Phuc Dong and Yuck Foo of the nonexistent South Hanoi Institute of Technology. For want of appropriate terms, scatolinguistics has now come to mean the study of the etymology and usage of all vulgar and profane expressions.
To my mind, there ought to be a special subset within the broader area of study for the distinction between British and American profanity. In some places the words are identical, which is fine, but there are jarring differences. For example, fanny in America is a mild alternative to ass (buttocks), whereas in the U.K. it is schizophrenic. It’s a less offensive alternative for the c-word when it is referring to the female parts, but it’s completely inoffensive slang when it means spending time ineffectively, as in fannying around.
The British commonly use both wanker and tosser as insults (meaning masturbator). Neither word is used in America, although the word jackoff is used, but with much less frequency.
The British don’t use motherfucker, which has to do with tradition. African slaves coined the word to describe the slave owners who raped their mothers.
While Americans are likely to say buck- or butt-naked, the British equivalent is bollock-naked. Americans say bullshit when Brits would say bollocks. The word bollocks is from the Old English word beallucas, meaning testicles. One can only assume that the word bollocks was regarded as offensive to high-minded Protestants and, for that reason, didn’t make it onto the Mayflower.
10 Dirty Words You Don’t Know (Part 1)
10 Dirty Words You Don’t Know (Part 2)
If you’re interested in other obscure words you don’t know, click here.
Robin Bloor is the author of Words You Don’t Know. For the record, he is also the Technology Evangelist for Permission.io, author of The “Common Sense” of Crypto Currency, cofounder of The Bloor Group and webmaster of TheDataRightsofMan.com.
