Words by themselves are totally neutral things, neither good nor
bad. It is a superstition to believe that words have any power
or efficacy, for good or for ill. According to this
superstition, good words are "blessings," the magic words said
by the priest during Mass to effect transubstantiation, etc.;
and bad words (the flip side) are curses (i.e., "May you have
bad luck for the rest of your life," "May you have terrible
pain. . .") or "dirty words."  The above is a very brief
synopsis of my thoughts on this subject. For anyone who wants to
read more I am attaching as a file (Word for Windows) my full
article on this subject.  Tags: blessings, curses, lingustics,
magic, semantics, superstition  Views: 165   Reply to This
Replies to This Discussion  Why should Pinker get all the
credit? I originally wrote that article nearly 40 years ago,
when Pinker was like 3 years old.  Also, the talk of Pinker
which you send us a link to is about euphemism, and again his
ideas are not original. I've got a book by Keith