"profanity" (topic drift from Re: FPGA VAX update)

Can you guys please take this off-list? I have to read enough of this sort of stuff on other messaging systems I'm on, I never thought I'd have to read it here. -----Original Message----- From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of der Mouse Sent: Wednesday, October 26, 2005 6:36 PM To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: "profanity" (topic drift from Re: FPGA VAX update) Actually, the two words in question were not profanity but vulgarity, if you want to get picky about it. (That is, they were expressing profane things vulgarly rather than profaning sacred things. But note that one dictionary entry I've seen implies that one meaning of "profanity" is a subset of "vulgarity", so it's not totally clear-cut.) Still, though, your point is well taken. I haven't studied it enough to really know precisely why the words in question are taboo. But it seems very likely to me that it's because of the "body = profane = bad, spirit = sacred = good" dichotomy, and that is, AIUI, mostly restricted to (the cultures of) the Peoples of the Book. /~\ The ASCII der Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse at rodents.montreal.qc.ca / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B