MyWiki:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2017 October 19

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October 19

Not profanity

What would be the antonym of Profanity? RedPanda25 18:46, 19 October 2017 (UTC)

Not every word has an antonym. The world is not neatly divided into perfect oppositional pairs. There is no such antonym. --Jayron32 18:50, 19 October 2017 (UTC)

Profanity ... pleasantry ... a "close enough" antonym ... no? 32.209.55.38 (talk) 19:31, 19 October 2017 (UTC)

"Holy" is the opposite of "Profane".[1] Another good one would be "Pure".[2] ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:37, 19 October 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for the responses. "Pleasantry" would make the most sense, as a word that is used to please as opposed to offend. RedPanda25 19:46, 19 October 2017 (UTC)

"Profanity" covers a lot of ground. "Profane language" seems to be what you're generally talking about, and it's by no means always intended to offend. As with this little classic:[3] ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:17, 19 October 2017 (UTC)

There's the Sacred–profane dichotomy. But not everything that is non-sacred is a profanity, and not everything that is not a profanity is sacred. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 21:11, 19 October 2017 (UTC)

Here's a commentary on the Bayeux Tapestry,[4] which originally hung in the local cathedral. The author says, "To the objection that a sacred building would not have been a suitable place for profane subject matter, one can answer that the subject of the hanging was not exactly a profane one: it is a type of tract about an oath." Specifically, the loyalty oath that Harold swore and then reneged on (as told in the tapestry). ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:37, 19 October 2017 (UTC)

Anodyne might be a useful word to indicate the opposite of profanity, as in "noncontentious, blandly agreeable, unlikely to cause offence or debate; bland, inoffensive". Bus stop (talk) 19:24, 22 October 2017 (UTC)