Page 212 - down-and-out-in-paris-and-london

something to do with the sexual functions. But the strange
thing is that when a word is well established as a swear
word, it seems to lose its original meaning; that is, it loses
the thing that made it into a swear word. A word becomes
an oath because it means a certain thing, and, because it has
become an oath, it ceases to mean that thing. For example—
. The Londoners do not now use, or very seldom use, this
word in its original meaning; it is on their lips from morn-
ing till night, but it is a mere expletive and means nothing.
Similarly with—, which is rapidly losing its original sense.
One can think of similar instances in French—for exam-
ple—, which is now a quite meaningless expletive.
The word—, also, is still used occasionally in Paris, but
the people who use it, or most of them, have no idea of what
it once meant. The rule seems to be that words accepted as
swear words have some magical character, which sets them
apart and makes them useless for ordinary conversation.
Words used as insults seem to be governed by the same
paradox as swear words. A word becomes an insult, one
would suppose, because it means something bad; but m
practice its insult-value has little to do with its actual mean-
ing. For example, the most bitter insult one can offer to a
Londoner is ‘bastard’—which, taken for what it means, is
hardly an insult at all. And the worst insult to a woman, ei-
ther in London or Paris, is ‘cow’; a name which might even
be a compliment, for cows are among the most likeable of
animals. Evidently a word is an insult simply because it
is meant as an insult, without reference to its dictionary
meaning; words, especially swear words, being what pub-

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