ABSTRACT
Consider the word shit. Simply being asked to do this may have shocked you. Even if it did not, most speakers of British English would agree that this is a word to be used with caution. Because of prevailing attitudes amongst speakers of the English language, using the word may lead any hearer to make a number of inferences about you. They may infer something about your emotional state, your social class or your religious beliefs, for example. They may even infer something about your educational achievements. All of these inferences flow from a fairly innocuous four-letter word.
