“Skeptics are not cynics!” Biggles ejaculated.

KY is known to Americans as a two-letter state abbreviation for Kentucky, but in Australia, where there are comparatively fewer state abbreviations (and some are three-letters), people almost invariably link KY to the Johnson & Johnson product KY Jelly; an, um, err…”personal lubricant”.

I recently made the mistake of referring to “KY” to colleagues,  in good, clean context, but this received several smutty schoolboy replies.  Perhaps I knew this could cause confusion, or at least correlation. Do we have dirty minds, or is there something else at work here?

Well, we all know that I have a dirty mind, and that you do too, dear reader.  But that’s beside the point as to why I say “cock” and you think of “male genitalia” before you think of a “rooster”; and why I say “masticate” and you think “masturbate”; and I say “lubricate” and you think of your favorite “orifice”, rather than “valves and pipes” (and why you think of an orifice when I say “valves and pipes”? Is there any end to your filth?!)

Cor. Get out the whiskey and let’s continue. You need a stiffner for this one… (shut up!)

There are several co-occurring cogntive-linguistic elements at work here involving taboo, and semantic structure. No, don’t go yet. Think about the following sentences:

1.  Do you want the breast or the leg?

2. Australia was once a penal colony.

3. You have a beautiful cock.

I put it to you that the words breast, leg, penal and cock stood out, and even though you know these can be innocuous, non-sexual sentences, these words have either made you feel embarrassed, or perhaps even a little aroused, but definitely titillated (…sorry for that last one).

…Now, let’s look at these examples a little more intimately.

1. “Do you want the breast or the leg?” By context you would assume the topic is chicken, and “breast” would normally form part of the slightly more comfortable phrase “chicken breast”. “Breast” is curious in this singular form though, and “leg” might not even get a look in as a dirty word unless it’s coupled with another anatomical word.  I bet you’re probably thinking of the phrases “I’m a breast man” and “I’m a leg man”. You’re probably wondering why I didn’t also say “thigh”.

Overall, chickens cause many linguistic problems. I once ordered a “stuffed chicken” and was told the more polite form is “seasoned chicken”.  Technically, it’s fucking stuffed, but deli staff have delicate sensibilities – even if they do force spices up a dead chicken’s ass.

Moving on…

As another example, “I’m really wet”. Was I caught out in the rain? Am I sweaty, or did I just shower? Paralinguistic factors (pitch, volume) would assist in deciphering the textual ambiguity here, but I can guess what you’re thinking. Wet is innocuous in “The car is wet” but with a human subject (esp. female), the connotations heat up.  These are examples of semantic generality – where one word has multiple related meanings (like a chip of wood, or a potato chip). Here, the naughty meaning usually wins out.

Breast, leg and wet are often innocuous in context and especially in fixed phrases, but in isolation, it’s like a word association test where every word has you responding with “sex!” Think throb, passage and stool – where would British comedy be without such double entendres?!

2.  “Australia was once a penal colony.” I said this to a trolley driver in SoCal once.  He, like you, thought I said “penis”.  Why did this happen? Because penal is phonologically similar to (sounds like) penis, and penile.  This is why “masticate” will probably make you think of “masturbate”. I once teased a fellow in a supermarket with, “Excuse me, where are the condiments?” Of course, condiments sounds like “condoms”, and this is where the poor red-faced fellow directed me to – aisle 4, right next to the KY jelly, rather than aisle 8 with the Vegemite.

This phenomenon also occurs in the title of Dr Wayne W Dyer’s book Your Erroneous Zones. Eyebrows will be raised if you read this book on a bus. People confuse “erroneous” with “errogenous”, especially when erroneous is followed by “zone”, which makes you think of “that spot” on your neck, or elsewhere…

Penal, condiment and masticate sound like taboo terms, and therefore, they become taboo by association. They are stigmatized in the same way as penis, condom and masturbate.

This process of pejoration (a word that develops negative connotations) by association can relegate an innocent word to obsolescene. That’s why some of these words sound so archaic, they’ve been spanked so hard they aren’t used much anymore. As an historical example, the word coney (meaning “rabbit”) disappeared from usage due to its phonological similarity to cunt.

Look at the photo examples that capitalize on the homophonic (audial) similarity of “Phuket” (poo-ket) to fuck it - and “Sofa King” to so fucking. This is why we laugh at the name Fanny, and make stupid jokes about Uranus.  The French Connection brand of clothing do something similar with their FCUK label, a transposition of letters that bears a structural resemblance to FUCK.

Sometimes a word looks exactly the same as a taboo word, and it is so tainted that the variant usage shrivels up altogether, like a flaccid…

3. “You have a beautiful cock”.

Words with the same form but completely different meanings are polysemous (like a kind/nice person versus a kind/type of person). Polysemy of a taboo word can result in the death of the non-taboo variant. For example, cock is rarely used to mean “rooster”, and often for humorous purposes only. Ass is rarely used for “donkey”. Pussy for “cat” is going this same way too.

The rude sense becomes the most salient sense.

This is why “ejaculate” only appears in pre-World War II Biggles and Enid Blyton novels.  Over time, ejaculate=exclaim gave way to ejaculate=orgasm.

Taboo ‘dispreferred’ meanings are almost invariably preferred usages.

The bad or naughty or adverse connotations are often the ones to fight and survive. Think of drink – it is becoming more associated with ‘alcoholic drink’ in usage today. Think of abuse – it is more associated with ’sexual abuse’ than ‘verbal abuse’.

Words like niggardly and denigrate are dying, as a result of their structural similarity to the n-word. It’s a semantic crime.

These words aren’t cognates (i.e., related etymologically, in origin) but we blame them anyway.

If you look like John Edward you’ll be mistaken for being John Edward, and treated like him…

Consider the word skeptic.

Skeptic is riddled with negative connotations and  stereotypes. I don’t care how many of you argue that ’skeptics aren’t cynics’.  Clearly, if we look at language use (reality, folks – how people really think and how people really speak) skeptic has polysemy – multiple co-existing senses.

A skeptic is a ‘conspiracy theorist’ to many. A skeptic is a ‘cynic’ to many. A skeptic is a ‘nasty, naysaying, doubting curmudgeon’ to many. And a skeptic is ‘a person who thinks critically about paranormal and pseudoscientific claims’ to many.

Which senses are winning out? The ones with negative connotations.

Face it – skeptic is sort of like cock, ass and stool – but even more like drink or abuse. There are senses of skeptic with negative connotations that are competing for saliency.

I don’t advocate that we replace skeptic, especially with a poncy word like bright – this can only open us up to Steven Pinker’s euphemism treadmill, where a word or concept is so stigmatized that replacement words are inevitably stigmatised (think handicapped and special).

My advice is,  wear your skeptic label with pride – promote useful, practical and healthy skepticism, and be a good example of a skeptic.  We skeptics need to reclaim skepticism, and become the salient sense.

Let’s become known as being funny, smart and caring – rather than cocks, asses and stools.

UPDATE: I just did an interview on this topic for Podblack.

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