The Bad Words

Is it possible to eradicate all the bad words?

Berlin 2017

Here’s a question from the back: nothing extreme, nothing dramatic, but a mere hypothetical for all the censors, vigilantes, and nighttime watchers, for all the moralists, judges, and scolds, for all those who relish nothing more than a good sneer. Please do take this hypothetical quite literally: is it possible to eradicate all the bad words?

While the crowd murmurs at this peculiar question, the back row will offer a bit of clarity. Define bad words however you desire. Whether explicit or illicit, raunchy or vulgar, racist or sexist, insensitive or intolerant—choose whatever mixture you find most poisonous. Consider the entire list of words you despise, start with A and end with Z, based on your own criteria.

For those already holding bullhorns, there’s one additional detail to this hypothetical: imagine that your despicable words are truly and irrevocably gone. You wake tomorrow and discover that all the dictionaries have removed the entries for every wretched word; all the novels and plays and films with offending lines have gaps; neither the comedian nor the office twit can recall how to complete vile punchlines; and, in fact, nobody even considers contorting the muscles of their face to produce those sounds you loathe.

What happens next? Take the question as sincere. Now that every utterance is pristine, and every vowel comes out pure, what happens? And where, it’s worth asking, have all those distasteful sensations gone? These are the impulses which prompted the speaking of your forbidden words. Have they, too, vanished, just like our now forgotten words? Or have they burrowed somewhere deep and shadowy and far outside of view? Might those lingering sensations, in fact, spoil a few of our remaining words?

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