the.com/vulgarity
Taste's rebellious cousin, loud at every party, invited less than you'd think.
means Coarse, tasteless behavior or language that flouts polite convention — crude rather than cultivated.
from From Latin 'vulgaris,' meaning common or of the ordinary people, rooted in 'vulgus,' the crowd or general public. Originally neutral — it just meant 'common' or 'widespread,' as in the vulgar tongue, the everyday language people actually spoke versus Latin's learned register. Over centuries the word curdled, taking on the sneer of class prejudice: what the common masses did, enjoyed, or said came to be seen by the refined as lesser — loud, crude, lacking taste. The shift says more about snobbery than about the word itself.
- etymology
- from latin vulgus, meaning the common people
- shakespeare
- used plenty of it between the sonnets
- perception
- often just honesty without its manners on
- paradox
- calling something vulgar can itself be snobbish