Word banning

If you could permanently ban a word from general usage, which one would it be? Why?

Some people would love certain words and in certain countries they even managed to censor lots of words or terms, having people to use other words than were used for centuries. Sometimes it becomes so ridiculous, that in place of one word now we need to use a whole sentence. This makes the notes by a shown object in a museum so long, most visitors after a while do not read the explanation for the shown object anymore.

There are those who think we should exclude certain words from use. On the contrary, I think we should allow as many words in our language as possible, as these variants enrich the language.

Looking at what words people like to ban, I can imagine the F word would be a very popular one. Today it is used so many times, with or without reason. It often is just a stop word. People using that F word, according to me, have no idea what it really means, or what rape means to a person, when it happens to him or her. Would a person saying that F word really would like the other being penetrated? Would they really understand when they say “Fuck you” or  “Mother fucker” (also a saying on the ban list)? How one can say such an expression, without wanting it to happen?

The Christian Melissa writes:

Please stop using the “F” word. It is an incredibly overused and inappropriate word that is both aggressive and unprofessional. In my opinion its use reflects poorly on a person’s character. Its overuse has caused it to lose much of its shock value anyway. Surely a classier word could easily be substituted that would equally convey the intended meaning. 

We should all be mindful of the language we use and choose to avoid words that can be offensive or harmful to others. The “F” word is disgusting and makes the people who use it sound uneducated. I would imagine that no one wants to come across that way. Just my thoughts… {I’m Am Sick Of Hearing The “F” Word}

What the author forgets is that others might have another idea about the F word. I noticed I also thought about the word ‘fuck’ but some writers who also wrote about the F word to be banned, were thinking of ‘Feminism‘. A word I never would have expected to be shortened because it would be a ‘bad’ word or a word not to be spoken out fully. According to the dictionary, the most common F word next to fuck is faggot. Presently one hears also a lot of people saying F@ck (fack?), facking or Sh$t.

The writer Hedwig of foodforthoughts came across the word feminism for the first time when she was 18. She also had different waves of feminism in her life as well. She writes

I was ridiculed for standing up for myself, they would say “oh she started her feminism!” That was when I realized, people grow up with different ideologies and truth be told, if I had not studied a course on feminism, I would never have come across this new perspective on life as well, just like those friends. But as this new sense of my being emerged, I began to notice several things and started calling out on them. But I would be shut up by the F-word : Feminism. {The F-word}

Some would love to see “Patriarchy” banned. About that the above writer writes:

in its definition is something favors men, where men hold all the power. But it is present everywhere, in people of all genders. Personally I like to think of patriarchy as an ideology, an ideology that is deeply rooted in people’s minds which evokes male dominance over everyone-men included. In case you are wondering how-
Patriarchy dictates that men need to be ‘masculine’, macho, the knight in shining armor, be emotionally strong, never cry and never express emotions in a healthy way- to cite a few examples {The F-word}

For 34-year old Kassy the F word to be banned is Fat. And that is also the F word now not accepted anymore in English literature, and therefore taken out of the books of Roald Dahl. (Read my article: Absurdity of present “woke” rage: The rewriting of Dahl)

On The Good, The Bad, & All The Chaos In Between Kassy wants to clarify-

I’m not talking about the F word that is colorful and can be used as an adjective, noun, or a verb. That F word is still part of my filthy vocabulary and that won’t be changing… probably, ever. {The F Word}

We can observe that for certain overweight people, words like ‘fat’ and ‘fatty’ can feel like swear words. As a matter of fact, with many words used as swear words, that is the reason why essay writers indicate to ban such word. Fat, like several other words can be used as an abusive, vulgar, or irreverent word and it is understandable that certain people feel a bad co-notation by such word that could be used as profanity.

Certainly the last few years some people make it a sport to come out with abusive or profane language. This created the dangerous thought to come to censor certain words. The choices mad do not give a consistent feeling. For the N word ‘Niger’ for example people now have to say ‘Coloured” or “Afro-” because “Black” is also nota allowed any more. But for the Caucasian or European inhabitants, one now has to say “Whites”. Though not white opposite black?  Strangely enough, there is not taken into account, not every brown-coloured person is an “African” or “Afro-” person, some of those coloured people living already for centuries in America or Europe.

It could well be that taking out certain words out of everyday conversations and thoughts could literally change so much for a person. Those who struggle with their weight may not like that F word having often to hear that they were ‘fat’. But to change the word ‘fat’ by the now proposed ‘enormous’ is in my eyes even giving a worse or wrong idea. Suddenly the dog in the Dahl story has become ‘enormous’ so I see a huge dog coming up to me now (Is it more than two meters tall?).

I understand it can become actually pretty deep for a person who does not feel happy with her or his body.  (We all remember the stories of Billy and Bessy Turf.)

Kassya Shlin writes

The F word became a part of my vocabulary on the regular and I quickly turned humor into my defense mechanism- with most of my jokes revolving around weight shaming myself. {The F Word}

In a certain way I do think this is the best way to handle it.

All those who misuse a word to hurt others are those we should ignore, ignore or let their words bounce back. It is precisely by admitting and starting to exclude the words they misuse from our language that we let their say control and regulate our language use. But once words are banned, newer ones or others will always take their place to start hurting again. In this way, the language will eventually be impoverished altogether.

Another popular word to be banned is the word I honestly months ago did not knew what they meant when there was so much commotion about it: the N word.

Suddenly it became so much spoken of, as if the devil had made a threepointer or goal. The kick-off may be given already some years ago, but it came in a rollercoaster the last twelve months. At first there was the foul, but the arbiter not giving a red cart yet.

It is not about the N word ‘No‘ which also many want to ban, whilst others would love to hear more #sayno. It is about a word with brings up an other word, many also would like to be banned. Bring your own brain considers

The problem with that word is that it is usually used as a conversation stopper, and mostly incorrectly. {Let’s ban the word Racist}

Today when you would use the N word, for ‘negro’ or ‘niger’

People scream “racist” when they are trying to shut down a conversation that they don’t agree with or trying to force their narrow-minded opinions on others. {Let’s ban the word Racist}

These days it’s also most often used by people of colour against people who are white. There are Black people who hate Eminem because he is white and raps. They think rapping is only for blacks.

In Africa there are blacks who are happy to tell their children that they can marry a white person, but “do not marry a Zulu”. Racism exists across all cultures and against all races. It is not limited to whites. {Let’s ban the word Racist}

Notice how that writer now still uses a word which is in our country ‘forbidden’ because it is considered ‘insulting’ and racist. Probably in his country it is not on the ban-list. He continues to write

Let’s dump that horrible word Racist, and all the subwords from that. Get more creative and hate people for who they really are rather than misuse a word because you think it excuses you. {Let’s ban the word Racist}

And uses also the word “hate”, which others want to see banned from the list of words we are supposed to be allowed to use.

A random boy from India, Arin Damn, writes

In our current society, we are bombarded with negativity and hate speech, particularly on social media. People use the word “hate” to express their opinions, and it often becomes a way to justify harmful behavior. This word has become a weapon that people use to attack others and spread negativity.

By banning the word “hate,” we can begin to shift our focus away from negativity and toward positivity. Instead of using words that create division and harm, we can choose to use words that bring us together and promote understanding. We can choose to use words that encourage love, empathy, and kindness. {Banishing Words: The Case for Eliminating Harmful Language}

But the positivity and negativity often lies not so much in the words, but in the background, people want to give to those words.

The word “hate” in the meaning of detest, loathe or despise, can well be the expression to say they can’t stand someone rather than say they hate someone. If you hate someone or something, you have an extremely strong feeling of dislike for them. But the last few years the word ‘hate’ is so often used in another context, more of ‘not liking’, which could even be said to have weakened the word ‘hate’ in bearing. For many if they say that they hate something such as a particular activity, they most often mean that they find it very unpleasant, or that they do not like it so much. It even came to mean that it is ‘not their cup of tea’.

I do not see why so many want the word “hate” to be banned when we can use ‘hate‘ in expressions such as ‘I hate to trouble you‘ or ‘I hate to bother you‘ when you are apologising to someone for interrupting them, whilst you do not like to interrupt them, or asking them to do something, when not wanting to be a burden for them. 

What about the use of ‘hate’ in expressions such as ‘I hate to say it‘ or ‘I hate to tell you‘ when you want to express regret about what you are about to say, because you think it is unpleasant or should not be the case.

It is true we can not escape the negativism when we would say

‘I hate to see‘ or ‘I hate to think‘

but what would happen to the word love after some time we said

‘I would not love to see’ or ‘I would not love to think’

It is not by banning this word ‘hate’ that we can begin to shift our focus toward positivity and promote a more empathetic and inclusive society. It would be lovely in case we all would choose words that uplift and unite, rather than those that tear us apart, but our world just exists of black and whites, pro- and contra’s, positives and negatives.

Though

I’m willing to bet that the majority of us reading this right now, regret having used the word hate at one point or another in their lifetime. I know I have and without going into specifics let’s just agree that I’ve used the word hate when I was angry and I regret it now. {An Argument that I Hate}

Like many other words we might not like so much, the word hate must exist in order to realise that we need it to go hand in hand with other necessary, concrete laws that there might be different opinions and that opposition is not always a bad thing but could also be a good thing.

We must have virtue and vice, good and evil, pleasure and pain and of course we must have hate so we can have love. Man would not be able to exist without these basic principles and simplicities in his or her life. {An Argument that I Hate}

It seems that all the above words are not yet the worst words. The worst Word in the English language is ‘Moist”.

do a search on Google and you will see that it’s one of the most hated words ever. I’m not sure why it’s so universally loathed but here’s a link from Discover Magazine with a quick explanation. {The Forbidden… #Writersprompt 2-27-23}

People magazine voted “moist” as the “most cringeworthy word” in English and actually made a video of their “sexiest men alive” saying the word. But why is “moist” so objectionable to 10-20% of the population? Is it the sound of the word, or is it the meaning? This author set out to answer that question, and he found that the meaning is the key. People associate “moist” with sexual connotations,

Discover magazine Flashback-friday – Why do so many people hate the word ‘moist’

So you see, the exclusion or deletion of words can happen for all sorts of strange reasons, with the cause of viewing it as objectionable grounded in the understanding certain people have of such a word.

Today certain people who like to censor us or wants to active as moral officers or language guards, make it more difficult to be mindful of the language we use and choose to avoid words that can be offensive or harmful to others, because what at one point is the right word to use the next day may be the wrong word to use.

The idea to embrace words that promote unity and understanding is great, but we must be aware we also need words that bring forward differences and contrasts.

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By the reactions to this daily prompt

1. Word Ban… I used to really dislike the word paradigm, as it was such a buzz, trendy word that everyone used to make themselves seem way more intelligent when needing to say problem, issue, situation, etc..
2. Why ??
3. Why should I ban a word?
4. Word Which will cause Ban
5. Words… – Fat – Fat cow.
6. Banning A Word – Retardation,
7. One Word to ban
8. Banning a word – to ban repeat
9. permanently ban N****
10. Daily prompt Easyyyy, guys the answer to this would be the word NO!
11. The Word is “No”.
12. An Argument that I Hate
13. Just My Thoughts Prompt # 12 I would ban all the filler words for silence.
14. I think everyone in South Africa would like to Ban the following 3 words : Eskom, Electricity, ANC
15. To ban Shit
16. I’m Am Sick Of Hearing The “F” Word
17. Fuck- I would like to ban it because it is over used , annoying, and I find it uncomfortable.
18. One Word to ban
19. WordPress asked me this! – The “N” word to ban = It’s a vulgar term that degrades anyone classified by it.
20. Shush – ‘shut up’ is one phrase I believe should be kept under lock and key because we really do not know when to use it.
21. Starting Your Words Again
22. Question: If I could permanently ban a word from general usage, that would be an aggressive one. Like F@ck, or Sh$t.
23. Words I’d permanently ban from General Usage.
24. Anything
25. The word i would like to ban! Mother fucker, bitch, etc…why only women!!!
26. Let’s ban the word Racist.
27. Prompt # 12
28. Good Riddance: The One Word I’d Ban Forever and Why It Needs to Go
29. Do we really need the Word Monarchy?
30. I would ban the word ‘Ban’ itself
31. “Marxism” because it’s a failure everywhere!
32. Bastard
33. Probably