When people say they are cursing, swearing, or otherwise indulging in whatever we tend to acknowledge as 'bad speech' or 'verbal insults', what possible kinds of activity are they discussing? There are actually academic tomes and histories of such maledictory arts, and having read a few, I know that a mere blog post cannot adequately describe the range. Yet, I will now attempt to give a brief account of how to classify such activities, while supplying mild and non-lethal examples.
1. Verbal insults can be classified firstly by parts of speech. Generally, a noun is applied with the intention of giving an unflattering image of the target (e.g. 'Pig!') Similarly, an adjective attributes an unflattering characteristic to the target (e.g. 'Ugly!') A verb is normally an action that you hope will result in negative outcome (e.g. 'Die!'). These are the main ones. However, note that centuries of bad grammar and misuse have made some words take on the properties of several different parts of speech — one such word, now taken to connote the act of defaecation, is discussed
here.
2. Verbal insults can be classified by conversational function. An expletive is an exclamation that serves to fill a lacuna or void in conversation, when the speaker cannot think of anything else that will serve. For example, 'My pet snail died yesterday...' is a sad observation to which the expletive reply might be, 'Damn!' — a word that has no meaning but expresses the negative (possibly sympathetic) response of the respondent. On the other hand, an ejaculation is more forceful, and occurs when the respondent is taken by surprise. You can hear such ejaculative responses, for example, when a person using a hammer misses and hits a finger instead. A third kind of conversational function is insulting banter, in which friends trade random insults as a means of re-establishing old ties; for example, 'Hey, you old cow, I haven't seen you in ages!'
3. Verbal insults can also have rhetorical function. However, these are more elaborate cases, such as satire, sarcasm, and other forms of witty assault. I shall not attempt to cover this.
4. Verbal insults can be classified by their material content. If an insult has to do with bodily functions that are normally executed in private (I'm sure you need no elaboration), then technically, it is obscenity. If an insult has to do with irreligious (or secular) matters or behaviours (e.g. 'Dammit!') then it is profanity. If an insult involves taking the Divine name (or any other revered spiritual being's name) in vain, then it is blasphemy. If the insult contains aspersions intended to defame the target, then it is denigration: often, the denigration is indirect and has to do with the target's ancestry (which is why so many insults begin with 'your mother'). Lastly, if the insult contains material that is intended to invoke ill-fortune or other negative consequences upon someone, then it is malediction. [Note: technically, all 'bad speech' is malediction, but from an historical point of view, the word 'malediction' has slowly come to mean 'cursing' in the sense of inviting bad things to happen to someone.]
5. Finally, there are legal classifications of verbal insults. The most well-known is 'slander', which is interpreted differently in different jurisdictions. I won't go there, since I am not a legal scholar.
=====
In conclusion, I have to say that this is not intended as a manual for the would-be maledictor. Rather, it's a list of personal observations about the creative use of language when the human animal is feeling negative about something and needs to vent. I don't recommend any of this, but being human, I have occasionally fallen prey to such verbal behaviours. It's probably best to try to control the tongue; perhaps reciting this post before saying anything will engage the brain enough to prevent anything else from emerging. And may you indulge in better speech, 'with God to guide the way', as a certain school's anthem says.
Labels: Etymology, Language, Speech
