Is that what profane means?

[dreamshark]

 I always thought that the word "profane" meant something like "blasphemous" - religious based swears like "God's eyes!!"  I'm finding it jarring that Trump's latest execrable outburst is being routinely described as "profanity."  Should I file this away with my objection to people using "fraught" as a standalone adjective - a distinction that nobody but me even remembers? 

I'm afraid I can't do anything about the ridiculous fact that I find this question much more compelling than whether or not it's okay for the New York Times to print the word "shithole."

Comments

[pameladean]

I once read an essay that divided forbidden language into three types: profanity, scatology, and blasphemy. Trump's dopey remark is obviously scatology. But I think "profanity" is at least in casual speech a kind of catch-all term for "language we don't think should be used by certain people or in certain situations."

P.

[quadong]

I had no idea there was any ambiguity here. For me "profanity" means "swear words".

I don't know what's fraught about "fraught", either.

[dreamshark]

"fraught" means something like "laden." It's used like this: fraught with meaning, fraught with terror, fraught with emotion, fraught with peril.

Presumably you could also say "fraught with joy," but I've only ever seen it used with darker connotations. So I guess that's why the general public decided that it just means "emotionally intense" or something. Honestly, I'm not sure what people think it means. I think it doesn't mean anything at all without the prepositional clause letting us know what the subject is fraught with.