[PLUG-TALK] Swearing in multiple languages ...

[Rich Shepard]

On Sat, 10 Dec 2022, John Jason Jordan wrote:

> The above link describes a detailed analysis of the sounds used in swear
> words, but linguists have been generally aware for over a century that
> swear words almost never contain an approximant, while their euphemism
> counterparts usually do, although not always, e.g., 'darn' contains [ɹ],
> but 'dang' has no approximants at all. The reason, as the article points
> out at the end, is that approximants are not very salient phones. It would
> be interesting to study swear words in a language that uses clicks,
> because clicks are very powerful sounds, and I would guess that they might
> appear with higher than normal frequency in swear words.

Thanks, John. Between your expositions and Johnson's column in The Econmist
every other week I've learned more about language than I thought I should
know.

So much to learn, so little time.

Regards,

Rich