Language, Limits, and the Mood of a Culture

Back in college, I had a linguistics professor who was sharp, a little eccentric, and always engaging. Every Friday, she hosted what she called her “Taboo Words Lecture.” It was part lesson, part cultural study. She’d break taboo language down into categories, tracing history and usage like a tour guide through the darker corners of the dictionary.

That’s when I first heard this breakdown:

• Profanity – Words that offend religious sensibilities (e.g., using God’s name in vain).

• Obscenity – Terms related to sexual or bodily functions.

• Vulgarity – Crude, coarse slang often rooted in class or common speech.

• Slurs – Hateful speech aimed at identity or race—words meant to wound.

One Friday, she told us the f-word came from “For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge,” supposedly inscribed on stocks in Puritan times. It was a dramatic tale—but it turns out, completely untrue. Linguists agree the word actually stems from early Germanic roots like fokken, meaning to strike or copulate. It’s always been a crude word, but it gained staying power because of its visceral sound and broad utility.

And today? It’s everywhere.

Just last night I was watching a series—TV-14—and after just 30 minutes, I was stunned at the flood of f-words. Easily 200+. It was like background music. Not sharp. Not funny. Not shocking. Just… there.

It made me think of how different things used to feel. When Gone With the Wind premiered in 1939, the word “damn” (spoken by Clark Gable at the end) nearly derailed the entire production. When Scarface dropped in the '80s, its profanity count was legendary. Now, that level of language shows up in shows for teens :(.

Here is a brief re-cap of a google search into this:

Over the centuries, it retained its punch because of its connection to what’s base, private, and powerful. Even today, it hits hard because of its sound (that plosive F and K combo) and its versatility—noun, verb, adjective, exclamation.

Its early appearances, like in 15th-century texts (e.g., "Flen flyys" from 1475), were often veiled or coded due to social taboos around explicit language. It existed in slang and crude contexts, but public use was heavily stigmatized, especially in formal or polite settings, through the medieval and early modern periods.

By the 19th and early 20th centuries, the word was still considered highly vulgar and was largely confined to private, informal, or subcultural speech, such as among soldiers, sailors, or in certain literary works (e.g., D.H. Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover, 1928, which faced censorship). Its use was far less prevalent in public discourse compared to today, as societal norms and censorship laws (like the Obscene Publications Act in the UK) restricted its spread in media and literature.

The word’s modern ubiquity began to grow in the mid-20th century, particularly post-1960s, with loosening cultural norms, the sexual revolution, and countercultural movements. By the late 20th and early 21st centuries, its use exploded in popular media—films, music (especially hip-hop and punk), comedy, and online platforms like X. Studies, like those from the British National Corpus (1990s), show a marked increase in its frequency in spoken and written English compared to earlier decades. A 2018 analysis of American English (via Google Books Ngram) noted a 28-fold rise in the word’s appearance from 1960 to 2010.

It’s worth noting that nearly every culture has its own version of the f-word—raw, abrupt, often sexual or scatological—and used for emphasis, anger, or comic effect. In German, it’s ficken; in Spanish, joder; in Italian, fottere; and in French, while baiser has softened over time, slang like niquer now carries the same punch. Scandinavian languages like Swedish use knulla, while in Eastern European languages the equivalents are often more graphic and colorful. Even in languages where a direct equivalent doesn’t exist, like Japanese or Korean, intensity and disrespect are conveyed through honor-based insults, formal speech violations, or invocations of shame. In every case, these words tend to cluster around what is culturally sacred or sensitive—sex, religion, family, or bodily functions. What’s taboo might differ, but the emotional and social function of these words—to shock, to vent, to rebel—is nearly universal.

I’m not writing this out of moral panic. I’m writing it because I’m tired. And to be honest.. it is annoying.

It’s not that I never used those words or have them burst out even now (but I don't think I have ever taken the time to TEXT them). Before I became a Christian, my language was loaded with them—mostly flippant, thoughtless. I used to joke, “I had really bad language before I became a Christian… now I cuss on purpose.” And there’s some truth in that: In my mind there is a difference between careless speech and calculated, intentional words that carry weight. We should not be unfiltered, we learn to harness and attempt to control our speech as a way of respecting others and adding to the good of our society—we mimic what we hear. We’re shaped by the voices around us. Culture is often caught, not taught. The more we fill our ears with flippant, degrading, or empty speech, the more we find it leaking into our own. It’s not just about sin management or legalism—it’s about the atmosphere we breathe.

Have you listened to the conversations among NFL coaches and players on a show like "Hard Knocks"? So should we be shocked if a high school team mirrors that? Are we good with that?

The Bible has something to say about that. Paul writes in Ephesians 4:29:

“Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up… that it may give grace to those who hear.”

That’s not about throwing people under the law or silencing everyone into bland speech. It’s about using words as tools of grace—constructive, careful, thoughtful. Jesus reminds us in Matthew 12 that our words reflect the overflow of the heart. Not in a guilt-trip way, but in a way that invites us to listen more deeply to what’s coming out—and why.

So here’s the question I’ve been chewing on:

If we found better ways of speaking—measured, thoughtful, uplifting—would the mood of our culture feel different?

Would our homes, our friendships, even our entertainment shift—just a little—if we rediscovered the power of well-chosen words?

I think they would.

Maybe restraint is more powerful than we think.