{"id":4656,"date":"2019-11-24T18:56:00","date_gmt":"2019-11-24T18:56:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/?p=4656"},"modified":"2019-11-24T19:00:22","modified_gmt":"2019-11-24T19:00:22","slug":"billingsgate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/2019\/11\/24\/billingsgate\/","title":{"rendered":"Billingsgate"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The Mirriam-Webster Word of the Day for this Sunday is billingsgate<\/em>. It defines the word as \u201ccoarsely\nabusive language.\u201d The website says the following: \u201cFrom its beginnings during\nthe time of the Roman occupation, the Billingsgate fish market in London,\nEngland, has been notorious for the crude language that has resounded through\nits stalls. In fact, the fish merchants of Billingsgate were so famous for their\nswearing centuries ago that their feats of vulgar language were recorded in\nBritish chronicler Raphael Holinshed’s 1577 account of King Leir\u2026. In\nHolinshed’s volume, a messenger’s language is said to be “as bad a tongue\n\u2026 as any oyster-wife at Billingsgate hath.” By the middle of the 17th\ncentury, billingsgate had become a byword for foul language.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to www.etymonline.com<\/a>,\n\u201cThe place name is Old English Billingesgate, “gate of (a man called)\nBilling;” the “gate” probably being a gap in the Roman river\nwall. The market is from mid-13c.; it was not exclusively a fish market until\nlate 17c.\u201d It also quotes an old dictionary: \u201cBillingsgate is the market where\nthe fishwomen assemble to purchase fish; and where, in their dealings and\ndisputes they are somewhat apt to leave decency and good manners a little on\nthe left hand. [Grose, “A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue,”\n1788].\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What exactly is a bad word? I know that any of you can\nprobably think of a dozen or more without much effort, but what is it that\nmakes such words \u201cbad.\u201d Let\u2019s take a look at some synonyms to see if they give\nus a clue. One is profanity, which comes from the adjective profane, which\nmeans \u201ccharacterized by irreverence or contempt for God or sacred principles or\nthings\u201d (www.dictionary.com\/browse\/profane?s=t<\/a>).\nBut I think we know that not all bad words are specifically religious, or at\nleast not anymore now that the religious and secular worlds are so separate in\nour culture. Another synonym is curse<\/em>,\nwhich means \u201cthe expression of a wish that misfortune, evil, doom, etc., befall\na person, group, etc.\u201d (https:\/\/www.dictionary.com\/browse\/curse?s=t<\/a>).\nBut very few of us in the modern world believe in such curses, just as we no\nlonger believe in witches. Of course, some people simplify the pronunciation to\ncuss<\/em>, but it means the same thing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another synonym is swear<\/em>,\nwhich is a verb meaning \u201cto make a solemn declaration or affirmation by some\nsacred being or object.\u201d So the notion of profanity is introduced again into\nwhat makes a bad word. Another synonym is vulgarity<\/em>,\nfrom the adjective vulgar<\/em>, meaning \u201ccharacterized\nby ignorance of or lack of good breeding or taste\u201d (https:\/\/www.dictionary.com\/browse\/vulgar?s=t<\/a>).\nSome synonyms for vulgar include indecent<\/em>,\nobscence<\/em>, and lewd<\/em>. And with lewd<\/em> we\nget to the crux of the matter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lewd<\/em> comes from\nthe Old English word lawede<\/em>: \u201cMiddle\nEnglish leued<\/em>, from Old English l\u00e6wede \u2018<\/em>nonclerical,\nunlearned,\u2019 of uncertain origin but according to OED probably ultimately from\nVulgar Latin *laigo-<\/em>, from Late Latin laicus <\/em>\u2018belonging to the\npeople.\u2019” The word lay, as in a lay person at church, comes from the same source.\nSo bad words are the words used by the ignorant, the unlearned, and ultimately\nthe lower classes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are no words which are inherently bad. There are words\nthat refer to bodily functions, some of which are learned, meaning that they\nhave a Latin root or come from a Romance language or are used by scientists or\nchurchmen, and some of which are used by common people, and it is the latter\nwhich are considered lewd. There are words that refer to a person\u2019s character\nor upbringing, some of which are used by the upper classes, and some of which\nare used by the common people, and it is the latter which are considered bad\nwords. It is not the words that are bad or good but the cultural associations\nthose words have. Some people say that gender is a cultural construction, but\nthe notion that some words are acceptable and some words are bad is definitely a\ncultural construction. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What makes your language good or bad is not the words you choose to use but rather how you use them, the intent with which you use them. If you intend to slander someone by accusing them of things of which they are not guilty, it really does not matter what specific words you use\u2014all your words are bad. And it makes no difference whether you are highly educated like, say, a university president or provost, or a fishwife from Billingsgate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This view by Arnold van Haecken depicts Billingsgate in 1736. It captures the everyday market bustle: featuring fishwives, sailors, porters, thieves, quack-medicine men and casual strollers. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Mirriam-Webster Word of the Day for this Sunday is billingsgate. It defines the word as \u201ccoarsely abusive language.\u201d The website says the following: \u201cFrom its beginnings during the time […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":4658,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4656","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-word-of-the-day","clearfix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4656","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4656"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4656\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4666,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4656\/revisions\/4666"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4658"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4656"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4656"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4656"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}