Taboo Words

In my previous blog, I discussed the pronunciation of Thailand, specifically how it might be influenced by the meaning of [tai] in Malay.

In fact, language usage can often be influenced by taboo words. For example, the traditional English word for 'rabbit' was coney (which rhymed with money), but it dropped out of use because [kʌni] sounded a bit rude; and in America, people generally refer to a male hen as a rooster instead of cock because of the alternative meaning of the latter. (I'm not quite sure why people in Britain seem to be less squeamish about the use of cock for the farm animal, but never mind.)

In Singapore, people generally say cannot rather than can't, and I suspect this is because many speakers make no distinction between long and short vowels, and it is a bit unfortunate if the vowel in can't is heard as [ʌ]. Also in Singapore, people seem to talk about a bedsheet rather than a sheet, and it is possible that this is because, once again as a result of no distinction between long and short vowels, the vowel in sheet might be heard as [ɪ].

The difference with Thailand is that it is cross-linguistic, with a word in Malay potentially influencing the use of English. I suspect that this is quite common, but my knowledge of taboo words in Malay is rather limited. (Well, my access to Malay is mainly through newspapers and TV news-reports, and the occurrence of taboo words in genres such as those is a bit limited!) Perhaps the best way to investigate this would be for speakers of Malay to think of taboo words in Malay and then consider if there are any similar-sounding words in English that they might avoid or alter in some way.