I recently read a scene in a glowfic thread in which a wife, speaking to her husband, uses “fuck” where I would use “make love to.” While the primary meaning of both locutions is “copulate with,” they have very different connotations. “Fuck” has the secondary meaning of “injure, destroy, harm.” The sexual meaning, perhaps as a result, is closer to “rape” than “make love to.”
There certainly is that process, and not only in English; the French foutre, originally meaning "fuck" (and derived from Latin futuo, which means the same thing), has now come to mean simply "do."
At the same time, there's a process in which words originally intended to be neutral and descriptive become abusive epithets. The words "moron," "imbecile," and "idiot" supposedly used to indicate different degrees of cognitive subnormality; certainly by the time I was in high school they had become insults (and there were also "moron" jokes), and the professional terms were educable, trainable, and custodial mental retardation; but then "retarded" and "retard" and "MR" became abusive epithets, and the conditions apparently are now called "intellectual disability." I expect that if "ID" becomes a term of abuse we will see yet another neologism.
Consider, too, the adoption of metaphorical expressions, as when the slightly learned word "pregnant," in the sense of "having numerous implications" ("a pregnant utterance"), was adopted to mean "with child" or "gravid," and then came to mean that primarily, and so strongly that people looked for less blunt expressions, such as "expectant."
Words seem to take on emotional overtones from the way people tend to regard the things those words refer to, regardless of how people intend them to be used.
A pair of words that have not so much changed their meanings but get substituted for one another according to the lay of the land is "progressive" and "liberal". I'm not so sure of the initial replacement of "progressive" with "liberal", likely at the beginning of the New Deal, but it must have been that "progressive" was becoming less popular, so they stole our word. I'm on firmer ground with the recent reversion, eschewing "liberal" and substituting "progressive". That was completely conscious and intentional, because "liberal" had become malodorous to much of the population.
After watching the series Deadwood, I wondered if the words motherfucker and cocksucker were actually used in the 1800's. From what I have learned, they were not. The really bad words in those days were God damn, hell, and other religious profanities. But today, those words don't have the shock value they did then, so they used the more modern profanities. It is also interesting how today's euphemisms will become tomorrow's prohibited words. It seems like an endless cycle.
"If I describe the American public school system as a socialist institution that will be interpreted by almost anyone, with the possible exception of a fellow economist, as a right wing complaint against what is taught, not as the observation, obviously true, that it is a means of production owned and controlled by a government."
Spot on! On an education discussion board, populated by leftists, I once called the public school system "government schools" [to avoid the positive connotation of "socialist" in that circle]. The uproar! Against what was obviously a factual statement.
How far back are we looking? Apparently the proto-Indo-European root meant "to hit." Latin futuo referred to penetrating a vagina with a penis; I don't know if it had a hostile meaning. French foutre seems to have had some hostile meanings: va te faire foutre, "go make yourself fuck," is the equivalent of "go fuck yourself." And apparently the Old French fotre had a variety of hostile meanings, or so says Wiktionary.
There is an even earlier meaning of the word "gay" that you might be interested in. In the late 19th century, "gay" also denoted a prostitute or who worked in what we now call the sex industry.
When guys in the joint say 'bitch', it's a rape threat. In social circles where many people have done time, it's still fighting words. When nice people say 'bitch', it's schoolgirlish poddymouthing.
There's an awful lot of schoolgirlish poddymouthing around respectable center-left journalism these last twenty years. Freddie deBoer, The New Republic crowd, the New York Times or Washington Post crowd and people who trust their taste, learn their great language, catch their clear accents.
My wife doesn’t like the use of vulgar words at all, and I had already grown out of my F-speak phase, modeled a bit on Lou Reed Live, Take No Prisoners, also seen in Liar’s Poker (Michael Lewis) with a senior bond salesman using fucked and fucking as emphasis words more than shock.
WTF can be seen on kids’ T shirts. What the fuck? No fucking respect for fucking adult words that the fucked up parents are fucking allowing their kids to fucking wear.
That’s sad for culture, and might be contributing to increased hate speech and violence. Comparing “kill the rich” to “fuck the rich”, or kill/fuck Trump, or Jews, or any target, I’d prefer more anger opposition expressed as fuck rather than kill. Fuck ‘em.
OT: Has there ever been a legal system (or has anyone proposed) with a chance based death penalty instead of jail? More severe crimes would have a higher chance of resulting in a death penalty.
But why do some other words get more pejorative in time? In my own language the word "lavatory" has been replaced several times through near history because each new term becomes pejorative in time and has to be replaced for polite texts. The totally neutral terms for cognitive disabilities were already mentioned above. These two examples could otherwise perhaps be explained by the phenomena themselves being unliked by people and therefore also dragging down the words they are labelled with. But this cannot explain the terms for minority groups (which are good or at least neutral, because humans as such have a good connotation) having to be replaced the same way. As a non-native speaker I used to be constantly anxious if I'm using the latest correct terms that haven't been degraded yet. So while some words lose their pejorative meaning, others gain it, and we need an explanation for the difference.
The word in your first example has long had a pejorative connotation but, as others have pointed out, the shock value has dwindled considerably over time, especially through overuse. A hackneyed phrase to the extent that, as you point out, is used “…to express a vaguely negative emotion with no sexual content at all.” I was in an airport recently and at a nearby table, with families and children nearby, two guys interjected the F-bomb in almost every sentence as they talked sports. So, with this word we have: a cultural shift, broadened meaning, and perhaps even metaphorical extension all in play. I would add there is a certain disrespect for others in the careless way it is used (my airport example).
There certainly is that process, and not only in English; the French foutre, originally meaning "fuck" (and derived from Latin futuo, which means the same thing), has now come to mean simply "do."
At the same time, there's a process in which words originally intended to be neutral and descriptive become abusive epithets. The words "moron," "imbecile," and "idiot" supposedly used to indicate different degrees of cognitive subnormality; certainly by the time I was in high school they had become insults (and there were also "moron" jokes), and the professional terms were educable, trainable, and custodial mental retardation; but then "retarded" and "retard" and "MR" became abusive epithets, and the conditions apparently are now called "intellectual disability." I expect that if "ID" becomes a term of abuse we will see yet another neologism.
Consider, too, the adoption of metaphorical expressions, as when the slightly learned word "pregnant," in the sense of "having numerous implications" ("a pregnant utterance"), was adopted to mean "with child" or "gravid," and then came to mean that primarily, and so strongly that people looked for less blunt expressions, such as "expectant."
Words seem to take on emotional overtones from the way people tend to regard the things those words refer to, regardless of how people intend them to be used.
A pair of words that have not so much changed their meanings but get substituted for one another according to the lay of the land is "progressive" and "liberal". I'm not so sure of the initial replacement of "progressive" with "liberal", likely at the beginning of the New Deal, but it must have been that "progressive" was becoming less popular, so they stole our word. I'm on firmer ground with the recent reversion, eschewing "liberal" and substituting "progressive". That was completely conscious and intentional, because "liberal" had become malodorous to much of the population.
After watching the series Deadwood, I wondered if the words motherfucker and cocksucker were actually used in the 1800's. From what I have learned, they were not. The really bad words in those days were God damn, hell, and other religious profanities. But today, those words don't have the shock value they did then, so they used the more modern profanities. It is also interesting how today's euphemisms will become tomorrow's prohibited words. It seems like an endless cycle.
Using "make love" is totally boomer language.
My girlfriend and I use "fuck" as a synonym for sex, no negative connotation, no violence, nothing bad, it's just another word.
If I asked her to "make love" she'd laugh and then she'd say, "what's wrong with you?"
"If I describe the American public school system as a socialist institution that will be interpreted by almost anyone, with the possible exception of a fellow economist, as a right wing complaint against what is taught, not as the observation, obviously true, that it is a means of production owned and controlled by a government."
Spot on! On an education discussion board, populated by leftists, I once called the public school system "government schools" [to avoid the positive connotation of "socialist" in that circle]. The uproar! Against what was obviously a factual statement.
How far back are we looking? Apparently the proto-Indo-European root meant "to hit." Latin futuo referred to penetrating a vagina with a penis; I don't know if it had a hostile meaning. French foutre seems to have had some hostile meanings: va te faire foutre, "go make yourself fuck," is the equivalent of "go fuck yourself." And apparently the Old French fotre had a variety of hostile meanings, or so says Wiktionary.
There is an even earlier meaning of the word "gay" that you might be interested in. In the late 19th century, "gay" also denoted a prostitute or who worked in what we now call the sex industry.
When guys in the joint say 'bitch', it's a rape threat. In social circles where many people have done time, it's still fighting words. When nice people say 'bitch', it's schoolgirlish poddymouthing.
There's an awful lot of schoolgirlish poddymouthing around respectable center-left journalism these last twenty years. Freddie deBoer, The New Republic crowd, the New York Times or Washington Post crowd and people who trust their taste, learn their great language, catch their clear accents.
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43762/the-lost-leader
My wife doesn’t like the use of vulgar words at all, and I had already grown out of my F-speak phase, modeled a bit on Lou Reed Live, Take No Prisoners, also seen in Liar’s Poker (Michael Lewis) with a senior bond salesman using fucked and fucking as emphasis words more than shock.
WTF can be seen on kids’ T shirts. What the fuck? No fucking respect for fucking adult words that the fucked up parents are fucking allowing their kids to fucking wear.
That’s sad for culture, and might be contributing to increased hate speech and violence. Comparing “kill the rich” to “fuck the rich”, or kill/fuck Trump, or Jews, or any target, I’d prefer more anger opposition expressed as fuck rather than kill. Fuck ‘em.
Fuck ‘em, he said. And fuck ‘em they did.
Because in those days, the King’s word was law.
Your comments on socialism being washed clean inspired my simple post on communism and socialism today. Thanks Prof. Friedman.
https://scottgibb.substack.com/p/communism-a-history
OT: Has there ever been a legal system (or has anyone proposed) with a chance based death penalty instead of jail? More severe crimes would have a higher chance of resulting in a death penalty.
But why do some other words get more pejorative in time? In my own language the word "lavatory" has been replaced several times through near history because each new term becomes pejorative in time and has to be replaced for polite texts. The totally neutral terms for cognitive disabilities were already mentioned above. These two examples could otherwise perhaps be explained by the phenomena themselves being unliked by people and therefore also dragging down the words they are labelled with. But this cannot explain the terms for minority groups (which are good or at least neutral, because humans as such have a good connotation) having to be replaced the same way. As a non-native speaker I used to be constantly anxious if I'm using the latest correct terms that haven't been degraded yet. So while some words lose their pejorative meaning, others gain it, and we need an explanation for the difference.
The word in your first example has long had a pejorative connotation but, as others have pointed out, the shock value has dwindled considerably over time, especially through overuse. A hackneyed phrase to the extent that, as you point out, is used “…to express a vaguely negative emotion with no sexual content at all.” I was in an airport recently and at a nearby table, with families and children nearby, two guys interjected the F-bomb in almost every sentence as they talked sports. So, with this word we have: a cultural shift, broadened meaning, and perhaps even metaphorical extension all in play. I would add there is a certain disrespect for others in the careless way it is used (my airport example).
I believe "socialist" started as a self-identifier.