taboo words in the media

This blog has looked at taboo words in the ESL classroom:
Jay Doubleyou: teaching taboo vocab in the esl classroom

Lately, there has been a lot of noise in the UK media about the country's top-selling newspaper
- a 'red-top' because it's front page has a red banner for the name of the paper:




But it's also famous for its 'top-less' ladies on the first inside page, known as 'Page Three' girls:



And it seemed that last week the Sun was 'quietly dropping' the feature:



Death of the Page 3 girl - FT.com
Is the Sun's scrapping of Page 3...

Now that the Sun has axed Page 3 girls, will Britain ever be the same?

109 comments 19 January 2015 23:31

Word is that Friday’s edition of The Sun was the last to have a topless woman on Page 3 – thereby closing a chapter of British cultural history. Immortalised, perhaps, in the following sketch from Yes, Prime Minister:-

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PM: Don’t tell me about the press, I know exactly who reads the papers: The Daily Mirror is read by people who think they run the country; The Guardian is read by people who think they ought to run the country; The Times is read by people who actually do run the country; the Daily Mail is read by the wives of the people who run the country; the Financial Times is read by people who own the country; The Morning Star is read by people who think the country ought to be run by another country; and The Daily Telegraph is read by people who think it is.

Sir Humphrey: Prime Minister, what about the people who read The Sun?

Bernard: Sun readers don’t care who runs the country, as long as she’s got big tits.

Now that the Sun has axed Page 3 girls, will Britain ever be the same? » Spectator Blogs

But it's back:
BBC News - Sun's Page Three 'returns' as paper takes swipe at rivals

And here's a debate about the whole campaign against Page Three:
Should the campaign against Page 3 be abandoned? | Comment is free | The Observer



Page 3: Why I started a campaign to block boobs in The Sun - Telegraph

One aspect of this debate is that the Sun likes to show half-naked women on the one hand...
... but on the other, it doesn't like to use certain words which would describe these ladies:

This is called 'prudery' - if not hypocrisy:



No more t*ts in the Sun – a campaign we can all get behind | Life and style | The Guardian

The whole area of 'taboo words' gets rather ridiculous - and can be made to look really ridiculous, as the stand-up comedian George Carlin pointed out back in the 1970s:
George Carlin – The Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television | Genius
George Carlin - 7 dirty words (best part) - YouTube

In fact, it became quite political in the United States:

Seven dirty words - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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