Passage Two: Dictionaries mark taboo language in a variety of ways. Most common are labels at the beginning of the definition to warn you: “offensive,” “vulgar,” “obscene,” “disparaging,” and the like. ___26___ What’s the difference, for instance, between “vulgar” and “obscene,” or “offensive” and “disparaging”? Don’t offensive words disparage? If something’s obscene, isn’t it also vulgar, and vice versa? The documentation in-house is shockingly thin on how to determine whether a word should be labeled “vulgar” or “obscene.” Nothing in the Black Books, nothing in our more recent style guides, no e-mails from Gil or Steve about litmus tests we can put a word through to determine what to call it. ___27___ We must turn to the dictionary for answers to these questions. What does “vulgar” mean when used of words? The appropriate definition teased out from the Unabridged is “lewd, obscene, or profane in expression or behavior: INDECENT, INDELICATE” with the orienting quotation ＜names too vulgar to put into print＞ by the serendipitously named H.A. Chippendale. ___28___ “Obscene” in turn is defined in the Unabridged as “marked by violation of accepted language inhibitions and by the use of words regarded as taboo in polite usage.” Alas, “taboo” provides no more direction: “banned on grounds of morality or taste or as constituting a risk: outlawed by common consent: DISAPPORVED, PROSCRIBED.” There are very few words that are, as the Unabridged puts it, “outlawed by common consent.” And what constitutes “common consent”? What my granny thinks is taboo language is different from what I think is taboo language; what is indecent to one person is perfectly fine to another. Even more frustrating: what is indecent to one person in one context is perfectly fine to that same person in another context. If I am walking down the street and a strange man calls me a “man-hating bitch,” I will react differently than I would if one of my friends commented on my gumption by calling me a “tough old bitch.” ___29___ Of course, I can’t label this “vulgar to some, obscene to others, sometimes vulgar to still others, sometimes offensive, mostly disparaging,” because our style rules don’t allow for it. Our style rules don’t allow for this because that’s a ridiculous statement. ___30___ But when the force of a profane word or slur is felt and perceived differently person to person, how can lexicographers possibly concisely communicate, with one label, its full range of use? (AB)These three definitions are ouroboros of subjective vagueness, gagging on its own tail. (AC) Unfortunately, these labels can be opaque at best. (AD) I find I’m bothered by the lack of a label in the Collegiate. (AE)Not promising: after all, “obscene” is right there in the definition. (BC) Such a conversation is completely normal when we’re trying to figure out what words should go into which dictionary. (BD) Words that are crude, vulgar, embarrassing, obscene, or otherwise distasteful get treated just as clinically as science terms and other general vocabulary. (BE)If there’s nothing in the style files, then we have to assume that the giants who went before us thought this was so commonsensical that it didn’t merit mentioning.