This is

This is Philosophy Bites with me Nigel Warburton and me David Edmonds

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We haven't had to do this before on Philosophy Bites, but this is a warning.

If you're offended by swear words, stop this podcast right now. For it contains the F word, the P word,

the A word, the T word, the W word and several more besides.

You know what I mean when I use the phrase the F word.

Is that phrase any less offensive than using the full word, you know the f-u-c-k word. Normally clean-mou to

Rebecca Roach has been thinking about the philosophy of swearing.

Rebecca Roach, working to philosophy Bites. Thank you very much. The topic we're going to talk about is swearing.

So I think we need to get clear at the beginning what we mean by swearing.

So swearing is the use of taboo language. It's generally taken to perform a function where it expresses emotion rather than that it's used specifically to denote something, although it can be used like that.

I think you better give some examples.

So words like,

fuck, cunt, wank, shit, ass, tits, prick.

You've given sexual and scatological ones, but they're also words which are considered blasphemous,

which also fit the category of swearing.

Yeah, that's right.

So these may be counted as swearing

several decades ago in English, so words like,

...