television" "Did you fun my wife ?" "No I didn't fun your wife" "Fun you, you muddy funster" "Suck my cake, you cake-sucker" "Suck my lozenge" And if cunt is the new fuck, what will replace cunt? stever said, Does society have a need for forbidden words? otherwise why would they still exist? Isnt the way they are treated by lists like the above the reason they are perpetuated? Seems sort of self fulfilling really. i think swear words are needed, and do require popular consent, which is why it's so interesting to see their role and ranking formally operationalised in an official document like this one. what's also interesting to me is the idea of new words entering the list of what is forbidden: most of the above are either sexual, or words describing minority groups and disabilities. there are new terms of abuse that stand outside of these categories, like noob, or troll, but they're not considered rude, perhaps because they were born into less prudish times, or perhaps because they are not figurative enough, identifiying one thing with another metaphorically. what's also interesting is the transition in meanings over time. there is a well recognised semantic shift constantly ongoing in terms to refer to people of low intelligence, from the clinical and technical to the abusive ("cretin" and "differently abled" were both once neutral terms). but maybe these phrases can also move back into more neutral positions over time. for example, spastic today is rightly considered a