Editing Vulgarism

{{Short description|Expression considered non-standard characteristic of uneducated speech or writing}}
In the study of language and [[literary style]], a '''vulgarism''' is an expression or usage considered [[standard language|non-standard]] or characteristic of uneducated speech or writing. In [[colloquial]] or [[Lexical definition|lexical]] English, "vulgarism" or "[[vulgarity]]" may be [[synonym]]ous with [[profanity]] or [[obscenity]], but a linguistic or literary vulgarism encompasses a broader category of perceived fault not confined to [[scatology|scatological]] or sexual offensiveness. These faults may include [[Received Pronunciation|errors of pronunciation]], [[orthography|misspellings]], word malformations,<ref name="Tromp">Johannes Tromp, ''The Assumption of Moses: A Critical Edition with Commentary'', ''Studia in Veteris Testamenti Pseudepigrapha'' (Brill, 1993), pp. 27, 39–40, 243.</ref> and [[malapropism]]s. "[[wikt:vulgarity|Vulgarity]]" is generally used in the more restricted sense. In regular and mostly informal conversations, the presence of vulgarity, if any, are mostly for intensifying, exclaiming or scolding. In modern times, vulgarism continues to be frequently used by people. A [[research]] paper produced by [[Oxford University]] in 2005 shows that the age group of 10–20 years old speak more vulgarity than the rest of the world's [[population]] combined. The frequent and prevalent usage of vulgarity as a whole has led to a [[paradox]], in which people use vulgarity so often that it becomes less and less offensive to people, according to ''[[The New York Times]]''.

==Classicism==
The English word "vulgarism" derives ultimately from [[Latin]] ''vulgus,'' "the common people", often as a [[pejorative]] meaning "the [unwashed] masses, undifferentiated herd, a mob". In [[classical studies]], [[Vulgar Latin]] as the Latin of everyday life is conventionally contrasted to [[Classical Latin]], the [[literary language]] exemplified by the [[Latin literature|"Golden Age"]] [[literary canon|canon]] ([[Cicero]], [[Caesar]], [[Vergil]], [[Ovid]], among others).<ref name="Adams">J. N. Adams, ''Bilingualism and the Latin Language'', pp. 300–301, 765, ''et passim''</ref><ref>''Social Variation and the Latin Language'' (Cambridge University Press, 2013), pp. 3–5.</ref> This distinction was always an untenable mode of [[literary criticism]], unduly problematizing, for instance, the so-called "Silver Age" novelist [[Petronius]], whose complex and sophisticated prose style in the ''[[Satyricon]]'' is full of conversational vulgarisms.<ref name="Laird">Andrew Laird, ''Powers of Expression, Expressions of Power: Speech Presentation and Latin Literature'' (Oxford University Press, 1999), p. 250.</ref>

==Social class==
Vulgarism has been a particular concern of [[British English]] traditionalists.<ref name="Crowley">Tony Crowley, ''Language in History: Theories and Texts'' (Routledge, 1996), pp. 168&ndash;169.</ref> In the 1920s, the English [[lexicographer]] [[Henry Wyld]] defined "vulgarism" as:<blockquote>a peculiarity which intrudes itself into [[Standard English]], and is of such a nature as to be associated with the speech of vulgar or uneducated speakers. The origin of pure ''vulgarisms'' is usually that they are importations, not from a regional but from a class [[dialect]]—in this case from a dialect which is not that of a province, but of a low or uneducated social class. ... [A vulgarism] is usually a variety of Standard English, but a bad variety.<ref name="Wyld">Henry Wyld, as quoted by Crowley (1996) p. 169.</ref></blockquote> The moral and aesthetic values explicit in such a definition depends on [[social class|class hierarchy]] viewed as authoritative.<ref name="Crowley" /> For instance, the "misuse" of [[Aspirated consonant|aspiration]] ([[H-dropping]], such as pronouncing "have" as {{"'}}ave") has been considered a mark of the lower classes in England at least since the late 18th century,<ref name="Crowley" /><ref name="Görlach">Manfred Görlach, ''English in Nineteenth-Century England: An Introduction'' (Cambridge University Press, 1999), p. 57</ref><ref name="Ihalainen">Ossi Ihalainen, "The Dialects of English since 1776", in ''The Cambridge History of the English Language'' (Cambridge University Press, 1994), vol. 5, pp. 216–217.</ref> as dramatized in ''[[My Fair Lady]]''. Because linguistic vulgarism betrayed social class, its avoidance became an aspect of [[etiquette]]. In 19th-century England, books such as ''The Vulgarisms and Improprieties of the English Language'' (1833) by W.&nbsp;H. Savage, reflected upper-middle-class anxieties about "correctness and good breeding".<ref name="Görlach" />

Vulgarisms in a literary work may be used deliberately to further [[characterization]],<ref name="Tromp" />{{rp|39}}<ref name="Adams" /><ref name="Görlach" /> by use of "[[eye dialect]]" or simply by [[vocabulary]] choice.

==See also==
* [[Barbarism (linguistics)]]
* [[Disputes in English grammar]]
* [[Euphemism]]
* [[Grotesque body]]
* [[Heteroglossia]]
* [[Linguistic purism]]
* [[Solecism]]
* [[Vernacular]]

==References==
{{Reflist|30em}}

{{Authority control}}

[[Category:Language varieties and styles]]
[[Category:Etiquette]]