PInker on Taboo Words

These two videos show Pinker lecturing on language in relation to cognition, in a rather entertaining manner, a great continuation to his article that we read for class this week. He deals with here primarily profanity and language deemed "taboo", and why such words carry a negative connotation and produce strong responses. What I find most interesting is that so many of these words do not necessarily denote something negative, but over time have been given such strong emotions that their adverse associations are both undeniable and universal. As in the reading, many words with identical definitions can draw very different responses. Society has, over time, undeniably altered the definitions of many words, creating the profane where it not once was, and listening to some of the statements Pinker mentions of years past are no longer nearly as offensive as they are now humorous. The etymology of words is for this reason I find very interesting, though when looking up such profanities it seems that their origin is hard to trace as the authors of such dictionaries tended to overlook that which was not deemed socially acceptable, but this site is great to look up different words and how their meaning has changed over time. http://www.etymonline.com/index.php

I also think it is very interesting how, once we know about the power of language and the emotional response drawn from certain words, we can better control those with whom we interact....