From a historical and linguistic standpoint why do 4-letter words wield so much power in the English language?

Question

Rather than, say, 3-letter or 5-letter words? Is this just an accident of evolutionary development of the language or is there some underlying logic to it?

Answer 1

I suspect that it's just a coincidence that many of our taboo words happen to be spelled with four letters. In many ways the spelling of a word is something external to the word itself, because our mental knowledge of language doesn't need to contain spelling information. I mean, think about it, 6-year-old kids can speak quite well, but they don't know how to spell yet.

And in the case of the f-word and the s-word, just to name a couple, they actually both contain three sounds. It's just that the "k" sound and the "sh" sound are written with digraphs.

And, it is also possible to name taboo words that are spelled with other numbers of letters, right? So there's nothing special about 4.

Answer 2

I assume you mean 4-letter vulgar words, like f**k or s**t? I would say these kinds of words became more commonly used in the English language over the last 40 or 50 years. During my parent's generation (1930's-1950's), these words were seldom spoken, even by the roughest of characters. Words like "damn" were used but frowned on by society. I would say it all stems from a generally relaxation of social morals.

Answer 3

The taboo words are anciently English, going back into Germanic.

An example is *Orse, proto-Indo-European for 'buttocks' and descends into English as a*r*s*e, a*s*s.

The point is that the words were not initially vulgar, but bluenoses preferred a frenchified euphemism over the honest English word.

Answer 4

because they are usually explanations! Also they are one syllable and easy to remember. Also, they usually are meant to draw attention, they do, or hurt. And .......its cool.