part of speech word dangerous

Parts of Speech

What are the parts of speech, a formal definition.

Table of Contents

The Part of Speech Is Determined by the Word's Function

Are there 8 or 9 parts of speech, the nine parts of speech, (1) adjective, (3) conjunction, (4) determiner, (5) interjection, (7) preposition, (8) pronoun, why the parts of speech are important, video lesson.

• You need to dig a well . (noun)
• You look well . (adjective)
• You dance well . (adverb)
• Well , I agree. (interjection)
• My eyes will well up. (verb)
• red, happy, enormous
• Ask the boy in the red jumper.
• I live in a happy place.
• I caught a fish this morning! I mean an enormous one.
• happily, loosely, often
• They skipped happily to the counter.
• Tie the knot loosely so they can escape.
• I often walk to work.
• It is an intriguingly magic setting.
• He plays the piano extremely well.
• and, or, but
• it is a large and important city.
• Shall we run to the hills or hide in the bushes?
• I know you are lying, but I cannot prove it.
• my, those, two, many
• My dog is fine with those cats.
• There are two dogs but many cats.
• ouch, oops, eek
• Ouch , that hurt.
• Oops , it's broken.
• Eek! A mouse just ran past my foot!
• leader, town, apple
• Take me to your leader .
• I will see you in town later.
• An apple fell on his head .
• in, near, on, with
• Sarah is hiding in the box.
• I live near the train station.
• Put your hands on your head.
• She yelled with enthusiasm.
• she, we, they, that
• Joanne is smart. She is also funny.
• Our team has studied the evidence. We know the truth.
• Jack and Jill went up the hill, but they never returned.
• That is clever!
• work, be, write, exist
• Tony works down the pit now. He was unemployed.
• I will write a song for you.
• I think aliens exist .

Are you a visual learner? Do you prefer video to text? Here is a list of all our grammar videos .

Video for Each Part of Speech

The Most Important Writing Issues

The top issue related to adjectives.

The Top Issue Related to Adverbs

• Extremely annoyed, she stared menacingly at her rival.
• Infuriated, she glared at her rival.

The Top Issue Related to Conjunctions

• Burger, Fries, and a shake
• Fish, chips and peas

The Top Issue Related to Determiners

The Top Issue Related to Interjections

The top issue related to nouns, the top issue related to prepositions, the top issue related to pronouns, the top issue related to verbs.

• Crack the parts of speech to help with learning a foreign language or to take your writing to the next level.

This page was written by Craig Shrives .

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The 9 Parts of Speech: Definitions and Examples

• Ph.D., Rhetoric and English, University of Georgia
• M.A., Modern English and American Literature, University of Leicester
• B.A., English, State University of New York

A part of speech is a term used in traditional grammar for one of the nine main categories into which words are classified according to their functions in sentences, such as nouns or verbs. Also known as word classes, these are the building blocks of grammar.

Every sentence you write or speak in English includes words that fall into some of the nine parts of speech. These include nouns, pronouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions, articles/determiners, and interjections. (Some sources include only eight parts of speech and leave interjections in their own category.)

Parts of Speech

• Word types can be divided into nine parts of speech:
• prepositions
• conjunctions
• articles/determiners
• interjections
• Some words can be considered more than one part of speech, depending on context and usage.
• Interjections can form complete sentences on their own.

Learning the names of the parts of speech probably won't make you witty, healthy, wealthy, or wise. In fact, learning just the names of the parts of speech won't even make you a better writer. However, you will gain a basic understanding of sentence structure  and the  English language by familiarizing yourself with these labels.

Open and Closed Word Classes

The parts of speech are commonly divided into  open classes  (nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs) and  closed classes  (pronouns, prepositions, conjunctions, articles/determiners, and interjections). Open classes can be altered and added to as language develops, and closed classes are pretty much set in stone. For example, new nouns are created every day, but conjunctions never change.

In contemporary linguistics , parts of speech are generally referred to as word classes or syntactic categories. The main difference is that word classes are classified according to more strict linguistic criteria. Within word classes, there is the lexical, or open class, and the function, or closed class.

The 9 Parts of Speech

Read about each part of speech below, and practice identifying each.

Nouns are a person, place, thing, or idea. They can take on a myriad of roles in a sentence, from the subject of it all to the object of an action. They are capitalized when they're the official name of something or someone, and they're called proper nouns in these cases. Examples: pirate, Caribbean, ship, freedom, Captain Jack Sparrow.

Pronouns stand in for nouns in a sentence . They are more generic versions of nouns that refer only to people. Examples:​  I, you, he, she, it, ours, them, who, which, anybody, ourselves.

Verbs are action words that tell what happens in a sentence. They can also show a sentence subject's state of being ( is , was ). Verbs change form based on tense (present, past) and count distinction (singular or plural). Examples:  sing, dance, believes, seemed, finish, eat, drink, be, became.

Adjectives describe nouns and pronouns. They specify which one, how much, what kind, and more. Adjectives allow readers and listeners to use their senses to imagine something more clearly. Examples:  hot, lazy, funny, unique, bright, beautiful, poor, smooth.

Adverbs describe verbs, adjectives, and even other adverbs. They specify when, where, how, and why something happened and to what extent or how often. Many adjectives can be turned into adjectives by adding the suffix - ly . Examples:  softly, quickly, lazily, often, only, hopefully, sometimes.

Preposition

Prepositions  show spatial, temporal, and role relations between a noun or pronoun and the other words in a sentence. They come at the start of a prepositional phrase , which contains a preposition and its object. Examples:  up, over, against, by, for, into, close to, out of, apart from.

Conjunction

Conjunctions join words, phrases, and clauses in a sentence. There are coordinating, subordinating, and correlative conjunctions. Examples:  and, but, or, so, yet.

Articles and Determiners

Articles and determiners function like adjectives by modifying nouns, but they are different than adjectives in that they are necessary for a sentence to have proper syntax. Articles and determiners specify and identify nouns, and there are indefinite and definite articles. Examples of articles:  a, an, the ; examples of determiners:  these, that, those, enough, much, few, which, what.

Some traditional grammars have treated articles  as a distinct part of speech. Modern grammars, however, more often include articles in the category of determiners , which identify or quantify a noun. Even though they modify nouns like adjectives, articles are different in that they are essential to the proper syntax of a sentence, just as determiners are necessary to convey the meaning of a sentence, while adjectives are optional.

Interjection

Interjections are expressions that can stand on their own or be contained within sentences. These words and phrases often carry strong emotions and convey reactions. Examples:  ah, whoops, ouch, yabba dabba do!

How to Determine the Part of Speech

Only interjections ( Hooray! ) have a habit of standing alone; every other part of speech must be contained within a sentence and some are even required in sentences (nouns and verbs). Other parts of speech come in many varieties and may appear just about anywhere in a sentence.

To know for sure what part of speech a word falls into, look not only at the word itself but also at its meaning, position, and use in a sentence.

For example, in the first sentence below,  work  functions as a noun; in the second sentence, a verb; and in the third sentence, an adjective:

• Bosco showed up for  work  two hours late.
• The noun  work  is the thing Bosco shows up for.
• He will have to  work  until midnight.
• The verb  work  is the action he must perform.
• His  work  permit expires next month.
• The  attributive noun  (or converted adjective) work  modifies the noun  permit .

Learning the names and uses of the basic parts of speech is just one way to understand how sentences are constructed.

Dissecting Basic Sentences

To form a basic complete sentence, you only need two elements: a noun (or pronoun standing in for a noun) and a verb. The noun acts as a subject, and the verb, by telling what action the subject is taking, acts as the predicate. 

In the short sentence above,  birds  is the noun and  fly  is the verb. The sentence makes sense and gets the point across.

You can have a sentence with just one word without breaking any sentence formation rules. The short sentence below is complete because it's a verb command with an understood "you" noun.

Here, the pronoun, standing in for a noun, is implied and acts as the subject. The sentence is really saying, "(You) go!"

Constructing More Complex Sentences

Use more parts of speech to add additional information about what's happening in a sentence to make it more complex. Take the first sentence from above, for example, and incorporate more information about how and why birds fly.

• Birds fly when migrating before winter.

Birds and fly remain the noun and the verb, but now there is more description. 

When  is an adverb that modifies the verb fly.  The word before  is a little tricky because it can be either a conjunction, preposition, or adverb depending on the context. In this case, it's a preposition because it's followed by a noun. This preposition begins an adverbial phrase of time ( before winter ) that answers the question of when the birds migrate . Before is not a conjunction because it does not connect two clauses.

• What Are Word Blends?
• Figure of Speech: Definition and Examples
• Definition and Examples of Adjectives
• Subjects, Verbs, and Objects
• What Is a Rhetorical Device? Definition, List, Examples
• What Is The Speech Act Theory: Definition and Examples
• A List of Exclamations and Interjections in English
• What Is Nonverbal Communication?
• Linguistic Variation
• Examples and Usage of Conjunctions in English Grammar
• Definition and Examples of Jargon
• Definition and Examples of Interjections in English
• Understanding the Types of Verbs in English Grammar
• Complementary vs. Complimentary: How to Choose the Right Word
• Basic Grammar: What Is a Diphthong?
• Subordinating Conjunctions

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• Knowledge Base
• Parts of speech

The 8 Parts of Speech | Chart, Definition & Examples

A part of speech (also called a word class ) is a category that describes the role a word plays in a sentence. Understanding the different parts of speech can help you analyze how words function in a sentence and improve your writing.

The parts of speech are classified differently in different grammars, but most traditional grammars list eight parts of speech in English: nouns , pronouns , verbs , adjectives , adverbs , prepositions , conjunctions , and interjections . Some modern grammars add others, such as determiners and articles .

Many words can function as different parts of speech depending on how they are used. For example, “laugh” can be a noun (e.g., “I like your laugh”) or a verb (e.g., “don’t laugh”).

Table of contents

• Prepositions
• Conjunctions
• Interjections

Other parts of speech

Interesting language articles, frequently asked questions.

A noun is a word that refers to a person, concept, place, or thing. Nouns can act as the subject of a sentence (i.e., the person or thing performing the action) or as the object of a verb (i.e., the person or thing affected by the action).

There are numerous types of nouns, including common nouns (used to refer to nonspecific people, concepts, places, or things), proper nouns (used to refer to specific people, concepts, places, or things), and collective nouns (used to refer to a group of people or things).

Ella lives in France .

Other types of nouns include countable and uncountable nouns , concrete nouns , abstract nouns , and gerunds .

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A pronoun is a word used in place of a noun. Pronouns typically refer back to an antecedent (a previously mentioned noun) and must demonstrate correct pronoun-antecedent agreement . Like nouns, pronouns can refer to people, places, concepts, and things.

There are numerous types of pronouns, including personal pronouns (used in place of the proper name of a person), demonstrative pronouns (used to refer to specific things and indicate their relative position), and interrogative pronouns (used to introduce questions about things, people, and ownership).

That is a horrible painting!

A verb is a word that describes an action (e.g., “jump”), occurrence (e.g., “become”), or state of being (e.g., “exist”). Verbs indicate what the subject of a sentence is doing. Every complete sentence must contain at least one verb.

Verbs can change form depending on subject (e.g., first person singular), tense (e.g., simple past), mood (e.g., interrogative), and voice (e.g., passive voice ).

Regular verbs are verbs whose simple past and past participle are formed by adding“-ed” to the end of the word (or “-d” if the word already ends in “e”). Irregular verbs are verbs whose simple past and past participles are formed in some other way.

“I’ve already checked twice.”

“I heard that you used to sing .”

Other types of verbs include auxiliary verbs , linking verbs , modal verbs , and phrasal verbs .

An adjective is a word that describes a noun or pronoun. Adjectives can be attributive , appearing before a noun (e.g., “a red hat”), or predicative , appearing after a noun with the use of a linking verb like “to be” (e.g., “the hat is red ”).

Adjectives can also have a comparative function. Comparative adjectives compare two or more things. Superlative adjectives describe something as having the most or least of a specific characteristic.

Other types of adjectives include coordinate adjectives , participial adjectives , and denominal adjectives .

An adverb is a word that can modify a verb, adjective, adverb, or sentence. Adverbs are often formed by adding “-ly” to the end of an adjective (e.g., “slow” becomes “slowly”), although not all adverbs have this ending, and not all words with this ending are adverbs.

There are numerous types of adverbs, including adverbs of manner (used to describe how something occurs), adverbs of degree (used to indicate extent or degree), and adverbs of place (used to describe the location of an action or event).

Talia writes quite quickly.

Other types of adverbs include adverbs of frequency , adverbs of purpose , focusing adverbs , and adverbial phrases .

A preposition is a word (e.g., “at”) or phrase (e.g., “on top of”) used to show the relationship between the different parts of a sentence. Prepositions can be used to indicate aspects such as time , place , and direction .

I left the cup on the kitchen counter.

A conjunction is a word used to connect different parts of a sentence (e.g., words, phrases, or clauses).

The main types of conjunctions are coordinating conjunctions (used to connect items that are grammatically equal), subordinating conjunctions (used to introduce a dependent clause), and correlative conjunctions (used in pairs to join grammatically equal parts of a sentence).

You can choose what movie we watch because I chose the last time.

An interjection is a word or phrase used to express a feeling, give a command, or greet someone. Interjections are a grammatically independent part of speech, so they can often be excluded from a sentence without affecting the meaning.

Types of interjections include volitive interjections (used to make a demand or request), emotive interjections (used to express a feeling or reaction), cognitive interjections (used to indicate thoughts), and greetings and parting words (used at the beginning and end of a conversation).

Ouch ! I hurt my arm.

I’m, um , not sure.

The traditional classification of English words into eight parts of speech is by no means the only one or the objective truth. Grammarians have often divided them into more or fewer classes. Other commonly mentioned parts of speech include determiners and articles.

• Determiners

A determiner is a word that describes a noun by indicating quantity, possession, or relative position.

Common types of determiners include demonstrative determiners (used to indicate the relative position of a noun), possessive determiners (used to describe ownership), and quantifiers (used to indicate the quantity of a noun).

My brother is selling his old car.

Other types of determiners include distributive determiners , determiners of difference , and numbers .

An article is a word that modifies a noun by indicating whether it is specific or general.

• The definite article the is used to refer to a specific version of a noun. The can be used with all countable and uncountable nouns (e.g., “the door,” “the energy,” “the mountains”).
• The indefinite articles a and an refer to general or unspecific nouns. The indefinite articles can only be used with singular countable nouns (e.g., “a poster,” “an engine”).

There’s a concert this weekend.

If you want to know more about nouns , pronouns , verbs , and other parts of speech, make sure to check out some of our language articles with explanations and examples.

Nouns & pronouns

• Common nouns
• Proper nouns
• Collective nouns
• Personal pronouns
• Uncountable and countable nouns
• Verb tenses
• Phrasal verbs
• Types of verbs
• Active vs passive voice
• Subject-verb agreement

A is an indefinite article (along with an ). While articles can be classed as their own part of speech, they’re also considered a type of determiner .

The indefinite articles are used to introduce nonspecific countable nouns (e.g., “a dog,” “an island”).

In is primarily classed as a preposition, but it can be classed as various other parts of speech, depending on how it is used:

• Preposition (e.g., “ in the field”)
• Noun (e.g., “I have an in with that company”)
• Adjective (e.g., “Tim is part of the in crowd”)
• Adverb (e.g., “Will you be in this evening?”)

As a part of speech, and is classed as a conjunction . Specifically, it’s a coordinating conjunction .

And can be used to connect grammatically equal parts of a sentence, such as two nouns (e.g., “a cup and plate”), or two adjectives (e.g., “strong and smart”). And can also be used to connect phrases and clauses.

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Understanding the Parts of Speech in English

Yes, the parts of speech in English are extensive and complex. But we’ve made it easy for you to start learning them by gathering the most basic and essential information in this easy-to-follow and comprehensive guide.

Parts of Speech: Quick Summary

Parts of speech assign words to different categories. There are eight different types in English. Keep in mind that a word can belong to more than one part of speech.

Learn About:

• Parts of Speech
• Prepositions
• Conjunctions
• Interjections

Using the Parts of Speech Correctly In Your Writing

Knowing the parts of speech is vital when learning a new language.

When it comes to learning a new language, there are several components you should understand to truly get a grasp of the language and speak it fluently.

It’s not enough to become an expert in just one area. For instance, you can learn and memorize all the intricate grammar rules, but if you don’t practice speaking or writing colloquially, you will find it challenging to use that language in real time.

Conversely, if you don’t spend time trying to learn the rules and technicalities of a language, you’ll also find yourself struggling to use it correctly.

Think of it this way: Language is a tasty, colorful, and nutritious salad. If you fill your bowl with nothing but lettuce, your fluency will be bland, boring, and tasteless. But if you spend time cultivating other ingredients for your salad—like style, word choice, and vocabulary— then it will become a wholesome meal you can share with others.

In this blog post, we’re going to cover one of the many ingredients you’ll need to build a nourishing salad of the English language—the parts of speech.

Let’s get choppin’!

What Are the Parts of Speech in English?

The parts of speech refer to categories to which a word belongs. In English, there are eight of them : verbs , nouns, pronouns, adjectives, adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions, and interjections.

Many English words fall into more than one part of speech category. Take the word light as an example. It can function as a verb, noun, or adjective.

Verb: Can you please light the candles?

Noun: The room was filled with a dim, warm light .

Adjective: She wore a light jacket in the cool weather.

The parts of speech in English are extensive. There’s a lot to cover in each category—much more than we can in this blog post. The information below is simply a brief overview of the basics of the parts of speech. Nevertheless, the concise explanations and accompanying example sentences will help you gain an understanding of how to use them correctly.

What Are Verbs?

Verbs are the most essential parts of speech because they move the meaning of sentences along.

A verb can show actions of the body and mind ( jump and think ), occurrences ( happen or occur ), and states of being ( be and exist ). Put differently, verbs breathe life into sentences by describing actions or indicating existence. These parts of speech can also change form to express time , person , number , voice , and mood .

There are several verb categories. A few of them are:

• Regular and irregular verbs
• Transitive and intransitive verbs
• Auxiliary verbs

A few examples of verbs include sing (an irregular action verb), have (which can be a main verb or auxiliary verb), be , which is a state of being verb, and would (another auxiliary verb).

My little sister loves to sing .

I have a dog and her name is Sweet Pea.

I will be there at 5 P.M.

I would like to travel the world someday.

Again, these are just the very basics of English verbs. There’s a lot more that you should learn to be well-versed in this part of speech, but the information above is a good place to start.

What Are Nouns?

Nouns refer to people ( John and child ), places ( store and Italy ), things ( firetruck and pen ), and ideas or concepts ( love and balance ). There are also many categories within nouns. For example, proper nouns name a specific person, place, thing, or idea. These types of nouns are always capitalized.

Olivia is turning five in a few days.

My dream is to visit Tokyo .

The Supreme Court is the highest court in the United States.

Some argue that Buddhism is a way of life, not a religion.

On the other hand, common nouns are not specific to any particular entity and are used to refer to any member of a general category.

My teacher is the smartest, most caring person I know!

I love roaming around a city I’ve never been to before.

This is my favorite book , which was recommended to me by my father.

There’s nothing more important to me than love .

Nouns can be either singular or plural. Singular nouns refer to a single entity, while plural nouns refer to multiple entities.

Can you move that chair out of the way, please? (Singular)

Can you move those chairs out of the way, please? (Plural)

While many plural nouns are formed by adding an “–s” or “–es,” others have irregular plural forms, meaning they don’t follow the typical pattern.

There was one woman waiting in line.

There were several women waiting in line.

Nouns can also be countable or uncountable . Those that are countable refer to nouns that can be counted as individual units. For example, there can be one book, two books, three books, or more. Uncountable nouns cannot be counted as individual units. Take the word water as an example. You could say I drank some water, but it would be incorrect to say I drank waters. Instead, you would say something like I drank several bottles of water.

What Are Pronouns?

A pronoun is a word that can take the place of other nouns or noun phrases. Pronouns serve the purpose of referring to nouns without having to repeat the word each time. A word (or group of words) that a pronoun refers to is called the antecedent .

Jessica went to the store, and she bought some blueberries.

In the sentence above, Jessica is the antecedent, and she is the referring pronoun. Here’s the same sentence without the proper use of a pronoun:

Jessica went to the store, and Jessica bought some blueberries.

Do you see how the use of a pronoun improves the sentence by avoiding repetitiveness?

Like all the other parts of speech we have covered, pronouns also have various categories.

Personal pronouns replace specific people or things: I, me, you, he, she, him, her, it, we, us, they, them.

When I saw them at the airport, I waved my hands up in the air so they could see me .

Possessive pronouns indicate ownership : mine, ours, yours, his, hers, theirs, whose.

I think that phone is hers .

Reflexive pronouns refer to the subject of a sentence or clause. They are used when the subject and the object of a sentence refer to the same person or thing: myself, yourself, himself, herself, itself, ourselves, yourselves, themselves.

The iguanas sunned themselves on the roof of my car.

Intensive pronouns have the same form as reflexive pronouns and are used to emphasize or intensify the subject of a sentence.

I will take care of this situation myself .

Indefinite pronouns do not refer to specific individuals or objects but rather to a general or unspecified person, thing, or group. Some examples include someone, everybody, anything, nobody, each, something, and all.

Everybody enjoyed the party. Someone even said it was the best party they had ever attended.

Demonstrative pronouns are used to identify or point to specific pronouns: this, that, these, those.

Can you pick up those pens off the floor?

Interrogative pronouns are used to ask questions and seek information: who, whom, whose, which, what.

Who can help move these heavy boxes?

Relative pronouns connect a clause or a phrase to a noun or pronoun: who, whom, whose, which, that, what, whoever, whichever, whatever.

Christina, who is the hiring manager, is the person whom you should get in touch with.

Reciprocal pronouns are used to refer to individual parts of a plural antecedent. They indicate a mutual or reciprocal relationship between two or more people or things: each other or one another.

The cousins always giggle and share secrets with one another .  

What Are Adjectives?

Adjectives modify nouns or pronouns, usually by describing, identifying, or quantifying them. They play a vital role in adding detail, precision, and imagery to English, allowing us to depict and differentiate the qualities of people, objects, places, and ideas.

The blue house sticks out compared to the other neutral-colored ones. (Describes)

That house is pretty, but I don’t like the color. (Identifies)

There were several houses I liked, but the blue one was unique. (Quantifies)

We should note that identifying or quantifying adjectives are also referred to as determiners. Additionally, articles ( a, an, the ) and numerals ( four or third ) are also used to quantify and identify adjectives.

Descriptive adjectives have other forms (known as comparative and superlative adjectives ) that allow for comparisons. For example, the comparative of the word small is smaller, while the superlative is smallest.

Proper adjectives (which are derived from proper nouns) describe specific nouns. They usually retain the same spelling or are slightly modified, but they’re always capitalized. For example, the proper noun France can be turned into the proper adjective French.

What Are Adverbs?

Adverbs are words that modify or describe verbs, adjectives, other adverbs, or entire clauses. Although many adverbs end in “–ly,” not all of them do. Also, some words that end in “–ly” are adjectives, not adverbs ( lovely ).

She dances beautifully .

In the sentence above, beautifully modifies the verb dances.

We visited an extremely tall building.

Here, the adverb extremely modifies the adjective tall.

He had to run very quickly to not miss the train.

The adverb very modifies the adverb quickly.

Interestingly , the experiment yielded unexpected results that left us baffled.

In this example, the word interestingly modifies the independent clause that comprises the rest of the sentence (which is why they’re called sentence adverbs ).

Like adjectives, adverbs can also have other forms when making comparisons. For example:

strongly, more strongly, most strongly, less strongly, least strongly

What Are Prepositions?

Prepositions provide context and establish relationships between nouns, pronouns, and other words in a sentence. They indicate time, location, direction, manner, and other vital information. Prepositions can fall into several subcategories. For instance, on can indicate physical location, but it can also be used to express time.

Place the bouquet of roses on the table.

We will meet on Monday.

There are many prepositions. A few examples include: about, above, across, after, before, behind, beneath, beside, during, except, for, from, in, inside, into, like, near, of, off, onto, past, regarding, since, through, toward, under, until, with, without.

Prepositions can contain more than one word, like according to and with regard to.

What Are Conjunctions?

Conjunctions are words that join words, phrases, or clauses together within a sentence and provide information about the relationship between those words. There are different types of conjunctions.

Coordinating conjunctions connect words, phrases, or clauses of equal importance: and, but, for, not, or, so, yet.

I like to sing, and she likes to dance.

Correlative conjunctions come in pairs and join balanced elements of a sentence: both…and, just as…so, not only…but also, either…or, neither…nor, whether…or.

You can either come with us and have fun, or stay at home and be bored.

Subordinating conjunctions connect dependent clauses to independent clauses. A few examples include: after, although, even though, since, unless, until, when , and while.

They had a great time on their stroll, even though it started raining and they got soaked.

Conjunctive adverbs are adverbs that function as conjunctions, connecting independent clauses or sentences. Examples of conjunctive adverbs are also, anyway, besides, however, meanwhile, nevertheless, otherwise, similarly, and therefore .

I really wanted to go to the party. However , I was feeling sick and decided to stay in.

I really wanted to go to the party; however , I was feeling sick and decided to stay in.

What Are Interjections?

Interjections are words that express strong emotions, sudden reactions, or exclamations. This part of speech is usually a standalone word or phrase, but even when it is  part of a sentence, it does not relate grammatically to the rest of .

There are several interjections. Examples include: ahh, alas, bravo, eww, hello, please, thanks, and oops.

Ahh ! I couldn’t believe what was happening.

When it comes to improving your writing skills, understanding the parts of speech is as important as adding other ingredients besides lettuce to a salad.

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Parts Of Speech: Breaking Them Down With Examples

Author: sarah perowne, more content, why understanding parts of speech is important , the 8 parts of speech: definitions, examples, and rules, 2. pronouns, 3. adjectives, 6. prepositions, 7. conjunctions, 8. articles, takeaways - tips.

Parts of speech are like Legos. Instead of being made into houses or spaceships, they’re the building blocks we use to form written and spoken language.

Every word you speak or write is a part of speech. In the English language, there are 8 parts of speech: nouns , pronouns , adjectives , verbs , adverbs , prepositions , conjunctions , and articles (determiners). These parts of speech represent categories of words according to their grammatical function.

Having a basic understanding of the parts of speech in the English language gives you a specific terminology and classification system to talk about language. It can help you correctly punctuate a sentence, capitalize the right words, and even understand how to form a complete sentence to avoid grammatical errors.

Still with us? Now, we will break down each of these English grammar categories and give some examples.

Nouns are words that name a person, place, thing, or idea. They can be further classified into different types of nouns .

Proper Nouns Vs. Common Nouns

There are some nouns we can count and others we cannot. Take a look at this table.

Concrete Nouns Vs. Abstract Nouns

Singular Nouns Vs. Plural Nouns

Exceptions To The Rule

Some nouns are irregular, and it’s a case of learning their plural form as they don’t always follow specific rules. Here are some examples:

Countable Vs. Uncountable Nouns

Other Types of Nouns

Possessive nouns.

Possessive nouns possess something and usually have ‘s or simply ‘ at the end. When the noun is singular, we add an ‘s. When the noun is plural, we add an apostrophe.

Here are examples of possessive nouns :

• David’s sister has a dog.
• His sister’s dog is named Max.

Collective Nouns

Collective nouns refer to a group or collection of things, people, or animals. Such as,

• Choir of singers
• Herd of sheep

Noun Phrases

A noun phrase is two or more words that function as a noun in a sentence. It also includes modifiers that can come before or after the noun.

Here are examples of noun phrases:

• The little brown dog is mine.
• The market down the street has the best prices.

If you want to know where to find nouns in a sentence, look for the subject or a direct object, and they will stand right out. For example:

• Mary ate chocolate cake and ice cream .

(Mary = Subject) (Chocolate cake, and ice cream = direct objects)

This is an easy way to identify nouns in a sentence.

Pronouns are words used in the place of a noun or noun phrase. They can be further classified into different types of pronouns , such as personal, reflexive, and possessive.

Personal Pronouns

Reflexive Pronouns

Some examples of reflexive pronouns are myself, yourself, herself, and itself.

Here are examples of reflexive pronouns in sentences:

• I helped myself to an extra serving of gravy.
• She didn’t do the cooking herself.
• The word itself is pretty easy to spell but hard to pronounce.

Reflexive pronouns can also be used for emphasis, as in this sentence:

• Joe himself baked the cake.

Possessive Pronouns

Some examples of possessive pronouns are my, mine, your, yours, his, hers, its, ours, and theirs. We use these words when we want to express possession. Such as,

• Is this your car?
• No, it’s his .
• It’s not mine .

Mine, yours, and his are examples of the independent form of possessive pronouns , and when showing possession, these pronouns never need an apostrophe.

Adjectives are words that describe nouns or pronouns. They make the meaning more definite. When we want to talk about what kind of a house we have, we can use adjectives to describe it, such as big, red, or lovely.

We can use adjectives to precede the word it modifies, like this;

• She wore a beautiful , blue dress.

Or we can use adjectives following the word they modify, like this;

• The athlete, tall and thin , was ready to win the race.

There are many types of adjectives, one being possessive . The seven possessive adjectives are my, your, his, her, its, our, and their. These words modify a noun or pronoun and show possession. Such as,

• Their dog is brown.
• How old is your brother?
• That was my idea.

Verbs are words that express an action or a state of being. All verbs help to make a complete statement. Action verbs express a physical action, for example:

Other verbs express a mental action, for example:

These can also be called lexical verbs .

Lexical Verbs and Auxiliary Verbs

Sometimes lexical verbs need the help of another type of verb . That’s where helping verbs , or auxiliary verbs , come into action; they help to make a statement or express action.

Examples of auxiliary verbs are am, are, is, has, can, may, will be, and might have.

When we use more than one verb when writing or speaking to express an action or state of being, it’s a verbal phrase consisting of the main verb, lexical verb, and one or more auxiliary verbs.

Some examples of verbal phrases:

• Should have done
• Must have been broken
• Will be following

Here are examples of verbal phrases used in a sentence.

• You should have gone to the concert last night. It was amazing!
• I may go to the concert next time if I have the money for a ticket.
• I might have missed out this time, but I certainly won’t next time.

Adverbs are used to describe an adjective, verb, or even another adverb . They can express how something is done, as in splendidly or poorly .

Here are some examples of adverbs in use:

• She was running extremely fast during that race .

The adverb extremely modifies the adjective fast , expressing just how rapid the runner was.

• I can hardly see it in the distance.

The adverb hardly modifies the verb see , expressing how much is visible, which in this case is not much at all.

• It’s been surprisingly poorly cleaned.

The adverb surprisingly modifies the adverb poorly, expressing the surprise at how badly the car has been cleaned.

They are used to show relationships between words, such as nouns or pronouns, with other words in the sentence. They can indicate spatial or time relationships. Some common prepositions are about, at, before, behind, but, in, off, on, to, and with.

Here are some examples of common prepositions in sentences:

• She sat behind me in class.
• Her mother was from Vietnam.
• The two of us worked together on the project.

Prepositions are followed by objects of prepositions, a noun, or a noun phrase that follows to give it meaning.

• Julie goes to school with Mark . (With whom? Mark.)

Groups of words can also act as prepositions together, such as in spite of .

• In spite of all the traffic, we arrived just on time.

Conjunctions link words or groups of words together. We often use them to create complex sentences. There are three types of conjunctions: coordinating conjunctions , correlative conjunctions , and subordinating conjunctions.  

Coordinating Conjunctions

Examples of coordinating conjunctions are and, but, or, nor, for, so, and yet. Such as:

• He wanted apple pie and ice cream.
• She offered him fruit or cookies.
• He ate the fruit but still wanted apple pie.

Correlative Conjunctions

Correlative conjunctions are used in pairs. Some examples are;

• and neither/ nor.

Here is an example of the conjunctions above in use:

• He wanted neither fruit nor cookies for dessert.

Subordinating Conjunctions

We use subordinating conjunctions to begin subordinate clauses or sentences.

Some examples of common subordinating conjunctions are after, before, then, when, provided, unless, so that, and while. Such as,

• He left the house before it turned dark.
• He realized he had forgotten a gift when he arrived at the party.
• The party was better than he had imagined.

There are three articles in the English language: a, an, and the. Articles can indicate whether a specific identity is known or not.

A and an are called indefinite articles and refer to a general group. Such as,

• A woman is at the front door.
• She stood there for a minute.
• She had a book in her hand.

The is a definite article and refers to a specific thing or person. Such as,

• The woman at the door is my friend Tracy.
• She’s returning the book she borrowed last week.

Getting these right to know if we’re talking about a specific item, person, or thing, in general, is important.

How many parts of speech are there in the English language? Are there 8, 9, or 10?

Many words can also be used as more than one part of speech..

Once you get the hang of it, identifying the various parts of speech in a sentence will be second nature, like riding a bike. And just think, it can help you craft stronger sentences!

More Parts of Speech Topics:

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What part of speech is dangerous?

The word dangerous is an adjective. The noun form is danger.

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Add your answer:

What part of speech is danger?

Danger is a noun. Other words that come from danger are dangerous, which is an adjective, and dangerously, which is an adverb.

What part of speech is hate?

A noun, verb, or adjective:Hate is a dangerous vice. (noun, subject of the sentence)I hate him. (verb)He was arrested for his hate speech. (adjective, describes the noun 'speech')

What part of speech is What part of speech is?

What part of speech is camping.

i want to know what part of speech is camping

What part of speech is without?

what part of speech is beneath

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This tool allows you to find the grammatical word type of almost any word.

• dangerous can be used as a adjective in the sense of "Full of danger."

Related Searches

What type of word is ~term~ .

Unfortunately, with the current database that runs this site, I don't have data about which senses of ~term~ are used most commonly. I've got ideas about how to fix this but will need to find a source of "sense" frequencies. Hopefully there's enough info above to help you understand the part of speech of ~term~ , and guess at its most common usage.

For those interested in a little info about this site: it's a side project that I developed while working on Describing Words and Related Words . Both of those projects are based around words, but have much grander goals. I had an idea for a website that simply explains the word types of the words that you search for - just like a dictionary, but focussed on the part of speech of the words. And since I already had a lot of the infrastructure in place from the other two sites, I figured it wouldn't be too much more work to get this up and running.

The dictionary is based on the amazing Wiktionary project by wikimedia . I initially started with WordNet , but then realised that it was missing many types of words/lemma (determiners, pronouns, abbreviations, and many more). This caused me to investigate the 1913 edition of Websters Dictionary - which is now in the public domain. However, after a day's work wrangling it into a database I realised that there were far too many errors (especially with the part-of-speech tagging) for it to be viable for Word Type.

Finally, I went back to Wiktionary - which I already knew about, but had been avoiding because it's not properly structured for parsing. That's when I stumbled across the UBY project - an amazing project which needs more recognition. The researchers have parsed the whole of Wiktionary and other sources, and compiled everything into a single unified resource. I simply extracted the Wiktionary entries and threw them into this interface! So it took a little more work than expected, but I'm happy I kept at it after the first couple of blunders.

Special thanks to the contributors of the open-source code that was used in this project: the UBY project (mentioned above), @mongodb and express.js .

Currently, this is based on a version of wiktionary which is a few years old. I plan to update it to a newer version soon and that update should bring in a bunch of new word senses for many words (or more accurately, lemma).

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Dangerous Speech: A Practical Guide

• Dangerous Speech and the 2024 U.S. Election
• Global Research Initiative
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• South Sudan
• United States

April 19,2021

by the Dangerous Speech Project

[ Click here to download the PDF version ]

Introduction

No one has ever been born hating or fearing other people. That has to be taught – and those harmful lessons seem to be similar, though they’re given in highly disparate cultures, languages, and places. Leaders have used particular kinds of rhetoric to turn groups of people violently against one another throughout human history, by demonizing and denigrating others. Vocabulary varies, but the same themes recur: members of other groups are depicted as threats so serious that violence against them comes to seem acceptable or even necessary. Such language (or images or any other form of communication) is what we have termed “dangerous speech.”

Naming and studying dangerous speech can be useful for violence prevention in several ways. First, a rise in the abundance or severity of dangerous speech can serve as an early warning indicator for violence between groups. Second, violence might be prevented or at least diminished by limiting dangerous speech or its harmful effects on people. We do not believe this can or should be achieved through censorship. Instead, it’s possible to educate people so they become less susceptible to dangerous speech. The ideas described here have been used around the world, both to monitor and to counter dangerous speech.

This guide, a revised version of an earlier text (Benesch, 2013) defines dangerous speech, explains how to determine which messages are indeed dangerous, and illustrates why the concept is useful for preventing violence. We also discuss how digital and social media allow dangerous speech to spread and threaten peace, and describe some promising methods for reducing dangerous speech – or its harmful effects on people.

Defining dangerous speech

IIn the early 2000s, Benesch (2003, p. 503) noticed striking similarities in the rhetoric that political leaders in many countries had used, during the months and years before major violence broke out. Since such messages seem to have special power to inspire violence, we have studied them, in search of ways to diminish their effect and preserve peace. We call this category dangerous speech and have defined it as:

Any form of expression (e.g. speech, text, or images) that can increase the risk that its audience will condone or commit violence against members of another group.

Importantly, the definition refers to increasing the risk of violence, not causing it. We generally cannot know that speech 1 caused violence, except when people are forced by others to commit violence under a credible threat of being killed themselves. People commit violence for many reasons, and there is no reliable way to find them all or to measure their relative importance. Often, even the person who commits violence does not fully comprehend the reasons why. To say that speech is dangerous, then, one must make an educated guess about the effect that the speech is likely to have on other people.

In the definition of dangerous speech, violence means direct physical (or bodily) harm inflicted on people, not other damaging behavior such as doxing, 2 , incitement to self-harm, or discrimination. 3 These are also important to prevent, of course, and dangerous speech may inspire people to hurt other people in many ways, including these. We focus on physical violence between groups of people for clarity (it is usually difficult to contest evidence of physical violence) and consensus (people of very different backgrounds have endorsed the notion of dangerous speech, agreeing that intergroup violence should be prevented). Our definition also includes speech that increases the risk that an audience will condone violence, not only commit it. This is vital since, in situations of large-scale violence between people, typically only a very small proportion of the population (usually young men) actually carry out violence (Straus 2004, p. 95; Kuhl 2016, ch. 1). People close to them, however – siblings, friends, teachers for example– often condone or even encourage it.

Dangerous speech is aimed at groups

Dangerous speech increases the risk that its audience (the “in-group” as it is often called by scholars) will commit or condone violence against another group (the “out-group”). The out-group must have a defining characteristic that is both different from and meaningful to an audience (whether or not this accurately describes or is meaningful to members of the out-group). Common dividing lines include race, ethnicity, religion, class, or sexual orientation, but in some cases dangerous speech is aimed at groups defined by other characteristics, such as occupation, like journalists. However, merely being in the same location or attending the same school would not define a group for the purposes of dangerous speech analysis.

Speech targeting individuals is usually outside the scope of dangerous speech; however, in some cases an individual can symbolize a group so that targeting that person becomes a form of dangerous speech against the group they represent. For example, some Pakistanis called for harming the Pakistani Nobel laureate Malala Yousafzai, attacking her as an individual and also as a leader of women they saw as subversive or traitorous (Kugelman, 2017). Similarly, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and his government denigrate the Hungarian-American philanthropist George Soros as an individual and also as a wealthy, powerful Jew, using familiar antisemitic tropes such as referring to Soros as a puppet master (Walker, 2017).

Dangerous speech promotes fear

A defining feature of dangerous speech is that it often promotes fear, as much as it expresses or promotes hatred. For example, one can assert that another group is planning to attack one’s own group without expressing hatred, yet that message might easily convince people to condone or commit violence, ostensibly to fend off the attack. Violence would seem defensive, and therefore justified. For example contemporary rhetoric in many countries portrays immigrants as a catastrophic threat. Prime Minister Orbán and U.S. President Donald Trump have referred to migration as a “trojan horse” which will necessarily increase criminal activity and terrorism (Brunsden, 2017; Kopan, 2015).

Frightening messages may also spread even more widely and quickly than purely hateful ones, since many people share them without malevolent intentions, or even the desire to incite violence. They feel genuine fear.

Dangerous speech is often false

Dangerous speech is commonly false – not surprising, since it describes whole groups of human beings in appalling terms. Unfortunately, people can be quite easily persuaded of misinformation (false assertions) or disinformation (false assertions that are spread knowingly or intentionally). And when falsehoods are frightening, people are more likely to spread them, even when they are not sure whether they are true. In such circumstances, people can easily accept exaggerated or false messages (Leader Maynard and Benesch, 2016, p. 78).

Dangerous speech harms indirectly

Though dangerous speech can lead to terrible harm, it does so indirectly, by motivating others to think and act against members of the group in question. Speech can also harm directly of course, by offending, denigrating, humiliating or frightening the people it purports to describe – as when a racist shouts slurs at a person of color. One message may, of course, harm both directly and indirectly.

Dangerous speech and hate speech

Dangerous speech is also quite different from the term “hate speech” which, though widely used, is hard to define clearly and consistently. The simple words “hate speech” present a variety of questions. For instance, what exactly is hatred? How strong or enduring must an emotion be to count? And does the “hate” in hate speech mean that the speaker hates, or seeks to persuade others to hate, or wants to make people feel hated?

There is one common thread among definitions of hate speech, which is that it vilifies a person or group of people because they belong to a group or share an identity of some kind. Therefore it’s not hate speech to say “I hate you” without referring to a group.

Most definitions specify types of groups. To be considered hate speech, messages must be directed at people who share a religion, race, or ethnicity, for example. Other types of identity that appear in some definitions (but not others) are disability, sexual orientation, gender, sex, age, culture, belief, refugee status, caste, or “life stance”. For example section 135a of Norway’s penal code defines hate speech as “threatening or insulting anyone, or inciting hatred or persecution of or contempt for anyone because of his or her a) skin color or national or ethnic origin, b) religion or life stance, or c) homosexuality, lifestyle or orientation” (The General Civil Penal Code). The hate speech provisions of South Africa’s equality law specify groups and attributes that are absent from other countries’ laws such as pregnancy, marital status, conscience, language, color, and “any other group where discrimination based on that other ground (i) causes or perpetuates systemic disadvantage; (ii) undermines human dignity; or (iii) adversely affects the equal enjoyment of a person’s rights and freedoms in a serious manner that is comparable to discrimination […]” ( Promotion of Equality , 2000, pp. 3-5). Most countries’ laws don’t prohibit hate speech at all, instead criminalizing other related forms of speech such as incitement to hatred.

Broad or vague definitions of hate speech and related crimes can jeopardize freedom of speech, since governments often use vague laws to punish their political opponents, or the very minorities against whom hate speech abounds, like the Roma in Hungary (Hungarian Civil Liberties Union, 2013). Indeed, governments in countries as varied as India, Rwanda, and Kazakhstan have used laws against hate speech or hateful speech to punish and silence journalists, dissenters, and minorities (DNA India 2015; Amnesty International, 2010, p. 28; Mchangama, 2019). This may even increase the risk of violence, by preventing people from expressing and resolving their grievances peacefully.

We focus instead on dangerous speech, since it is a narrower, more specific category, defined not by a subjective emotion such as hatred, but by its capacity to inspire a harm that is all too easy to identify – intergroup violence – and that many people can agree on wanting to prevent.

The Dangerous Speech Framework

One cannot make a list of words that are dangerous, since the way in which any message will be understood – like its effect on an audience 4 – depends not only on its content but on how it is communicated: by whom, to whom, and under what circumstances. The very same words can be highly inflammatory, or benign.

To understand whether a message is dangerous when spread in a particular context, one must examine both content and context. It’s important, also, to be able to compare the dangerousness of different messages. To this end we have developed a straightforward and systematic way to analyze speech in context – listing and describing all of the elements that can make a particular example of speech more dangerous. The result is a five-part framework (see Figure 1) which includes the message itself, the audience, the historical and social context of the message, the speaker, and the medium with which a speaker delivers a message. Analyzing each of these five elements is not only essential for identifying how dangerous speech operates, it is also useful for designing interventions to diminish the dangerousness of that speech.

To use the framework for a particular example of speech, one asks whether each of the five elements makes it dangerous, and if so, how dangerous. For example, one might ask whether a message came from a compelling or influential source. Because the social, historical, and cultural context in which speech was made or disseminated is essential for understanding its possible impact, this analysis must be carried out with extensive knowledge of the relevant language, culture, and social conditions – or at least with assistance from advisors who have such knowledge.

After considering all five elements in turn, one asks on the basis of that analysis: did/would this message make people more ready to commit or condone violence? This is not a calculation or a formula; it is a qualitative assessment meant to help predict the behavior of other people.

Figure 1. The Dangerous Speech Five Part Framework

Indeed, all five elements need not be important, or even relevant in every case. For example, sometimes the speaker is irrelevant, when unknown (many messages are distributed anonymously, as in an online message or a printed flyer) or not influential with the relevant audience. Such speech may still be dangerous, if its message is inflammatory and an audience is primed to accept it. Only those two elements are always required for speech to be dangerous: inflammatory content and a susceptible audience.

Moreover, it isn’t the case that speech is either dangerous or not dangerous at all. Rather, more or less dangerous speech can be imagined along a spectrum, or like dominoes in which each piece affects its neighbor. As people come to accept a moderately dangerous message, they also become a bit more likely to accept an even more dangerous one. In this way, normal social barriers to violence erode as increasingly dangerous speech begins to saturate the social environment. 5

In general, the dangerous speech that comes just before violence breaks out is easiest to identify since its meaning tends to be clear and it often calls for, or at least endorses, violence. Months or years earlier, speech is often expressed in ambiguous, coded language, so that both its meaning and its impact are less apparent. This doesn’t mean that it can be safely disregarded.

Witnesses and scholars generally agree that speech helped to catalyze the 1994 Rwanda genocide in which thousands of Hutu men massacred between 500,000 and 800,000 people, mainly of the Tutsi ethnic group, and mainly by hand, using machetes: such a laborious way to kill that it seems they were highly motivated (Des Forges, 1999, p 5, 15). Indeed, inflammatory speech against Tutsi had circulated in Rwanda for years before the genocide, and it was believed to have played such an important role that the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) made speech crimes a major focus of its cases. One of the best-known was the Prosecutor v. Ferdinand Nahimana, Jean-Bosco Barayagwiza, Hassan Ngeze, the so-called Media Trial, at which a newspaper editor and two executives of  Radio Télévision Libre des Milles Collines (RTLM) – bitterly nicknamed Radio Machete – were all convicted of incitement to genocide, among other crimes (ICTR, 2007, p. 2). The case was complicated, however, by the fact that the evidence presented was mostly ambiguous language, not explicit encouragement to kill.

During the trial, a witness recounted the gradual, poisonous spread of what we call dangerous speech, 6 over RTLM’s existence from July 1993 to July 1994. “I monitored the RTLM virtually from the day of its creation to the end of the genocide, and, as a witness of facts, I observed that the operation of the genocide was not the work done within a day.” The witness went on to describe RTLM’s effect on its audience:

“[W]hat RTLM did was almost to pour petrol – to spread petrol throughout the country little by little, so that one day it would be able to set fire to the whole country.” 7

This testimony teaches that dangerous speech of all types should be analyzed carefully, to gauge its harmful effects and also to avoid defining it too broadly: some offensive or hateful speech, while odious, will not inspire violence if an audience isn’t susceptible. The framework below is meant for identifying “drops of petrol,” and making a systematic, educated guess as to where speech fits along a spectrum of dangerousness.

People express themselves in a seemingly infinite variety of ways, and dangerous speech is no exception. Dangerous speakers frequently use coded language, including terms familiar to their in-group but not to the out-group. This can be even more effective than explicit speech: shared jargon serves to bind the in-group together, and also gives the person who uses dangerous speech a basis for denying it.

Regardless of the language or images with which it is expressed, we have found that dangerous speech often contains similar ideas – rhetorical patterns that we call “hallmarks” of dangerous speech. Note that a hallmark does not, by itself, make a message dangerous.

All groups of humans use these techniques, regardless of language, country, race, color, or class – just as virtually all groups also commit violence against other people. Similarly, this kind of rhetoric is found throughout human history.

Dangerous speech hallmarks

We have identified five hallmarks of dangerous speech, which we call: dehumanization, accusation in a mirror, threats to group integrity or purity, assertions of attacks against women and girls, or children, and questioning in-group loyalty. All the examples of dangerous speech that we have found contain at least one of the hallmarks below.

Our list is not exhaustive however. We expect it to grow and change as researchers gather more dangerous speech and observe patterns in it. Already, others have shed vital light, especially the political scientist Jonathan Leader Maynard, in his studies of ideology that justifies mass violence. Leader Maynard  has identified six “justificatory mechanisms” that enable and encourage mass killing, by characterizing either the victims-to-be (e.g. accusing a group of being guilty of crimes) or the perpetrators (e.g. valorizing those who commit violence) (2015, p. 170).  Leader Maynard (2022) also describes four “prohibitory mechanisms” that can discourage.

Dehumanization:

By describing other groups of people as something other than human, or less than human, speakers can persuade their audiences to deny other people some of the moral consideration they give to those who are “fully” human (Leader Maynard and Benesch, 2016, pp. 80-81). Dehumanizing targets prepares audiences to condone or commit violence, by making their targets’ death and suffering seem less significant, or even by making it seem useful or necessary.

The philosopher David Livingstone Smith, who has written two monographs on dehumanization, argues that when people refer to others as subhumans, they’re not speaking metaphorically or strategically, but literally see certain people as another species trying to pass as human. Dehumanization is a “psychological response to political forces,” rooted in our propensity for hierarchical thinking, that allows us “to disable our inhibitions, often with catastrophic consequences.” Therefore its effects can’t be countered solely through persuasion.  (Smith, 2020, pp. 107, 100-101).

There are several types of dehumanizing messages, each of which elicits certain emotional or practical responses. 8

Speakers often describe an out-group as biologically subhuman: as animals, insects, or even microorganisms such as bacteria or viruses. Persistently, in cases of genocide and mass atrocity, supporters and perpetrators have referred to their victims as vermin (rats, cockroaches, foxes, or snakes), beasts (apes or baboons), or biological hazards (a virus, tumors, or an infection). Not all language comparing people to animals or other non-human creatures is dehumanizing or dangerous, of course – it’s possible to compare a person to an animal in a way that doesn’t lower social barriers to violence.

Generally, speakers choose to compare out-group members with creatures that their audiences regard as repulsive, threatening, or deserving of violence (Leader Maynard, 2015, p. 197). It is almost instinctual knowledge, for example, how to deal with an infestation of vermin: try to eliminate the creatures completely. When Rwandan Hutu extremist media referred to the Tutsi ethnic group as cockroaches in the months preceding the 1994 genocide which left hundreds of thousands of Tutsis dead, they suggested the same action – extermination; one military training operation was even called “Operation Insecticide” (Des Forges, 1999, p. 666).

In the same way, government rhetoric during the Cambodian genocide warned that enemies of the Khmer Rouge regime were “microbes” and a “sickness” to be completely eliminated lest they “rot us from within” (Hinton, 2005, p. 147). One regime slogan declared, “What is infected must be cut; what is rotten must be removed” (Weitz, 2015, p. 156). Like depictions of humans as an infestation of insects, these messages were meant to disgust – but they also suggest that, like cancerous growth or bacterial infections, the Khmer Rouge’s opponents had to be removed completely. Indeed, government soldiers killed more than one million Cambodians between 1975 and 1979, by forced labor, torture, and mass execution.

Speakers also refer to out-groups using supernatural terms. Unlike forms of dehumanization which make targets seem lesser or weak, supernatural dehumanization makes them seem stronger than humans and threatening to them. For example, during World War II, Japanese propaganda portrayed American and British leaders as “demons,” “evil spirits,” and “monsters” (Smith, 2011, p. 22). U.S. war propaganda posters similarly demonized Japanese and German people (Brcak and Pavia, 1994, p. 682; Lane, 2014, pp. 49-53). And in the decades following the United States’ Civil War and the emancipation of slaves in the country, newspapers covering lynchings of black people by white supremacists described the victims as “inhuman” or “unnatural” monsters who terrorized white communities (Smith, 2018).

The language of environmental threats such as floods and pollution can also be used to dehumanize people. Amid anxiety about climate change, this is now common around the world. Speakers in many countries have compared present-day mass migration to environmental catastrophe, from Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who said that if Israel took down its border fence with Egypt, it would face “attacks by terrorist groups in the Sinai and the worst thing: a flood of illegal infiltrators from Africa” (Zikri, 2018), to the United Kingdom’s Daily Mail newspaper, which ran a headline comparing the supposed threat of a “tidal wave of migrants” to that of the Second World War (Burleigh, 2015). Comparisons like these are not new: in 1920, American eugenicist Lothrop Stoddard referred to arriving immigrants as “a rising tide of color,” which would destroy the privileged status of white people in the United States (Smith, 2011, p. 97). In 1914, when 376 people from India (unsuccessfully) attempted to immigrate to Canada on the S.S. Komagata Maru, the Vancouver Sun newspaper ran a cartoon with the title “Will the Dyke Hold?” which depicted a tidal wave shaped like a man in a turban, racing toward the Canadian coastline (Mackie, 2014). While these examples of “flooding” human beings were meant to justify government policy to exclude people, similar rhetoric is also used for forcing them out violently. In 1915, clandestine plans to ethnically cleanse Armenians from the Ottoman Empire referred to uprooting “malignant weeds” (Kuper, 1981, p. 91), just as radio broadcasts during Kenya’s 2008 election encouraged the Kalenjin ethnic group to “clear the weeds” in reference to a rival Kenyan group, the Kikuyu (McCrummen, 2008). In both cases, these messages preceded widespread violence, killings, and mass displacement.

Comparisons like those above are a type of demonizing dehumanization – under which people are seen as metaphysically and physically threatening, often with greater-than-human powers (Smith, 2020, p. 177). The combination of these two perceived threats amplifies the target’s perceived dangerousness. In contrast, there is also enfeebling dehumanization, where the targets are seen as a metaphysic threat, but physically innocuous – for instance, in military combat, where soldiers or civilians are seen as prey (Smith, 2020, p. 177). Such enfeebling dehumanizing rhetoric is still dangerous, but the speaker needn’t refer explicitly to people as something other than human; a speaker may instead use terms that imply dehumanization. For example, when Brazilian politician – now President – Jair Bolsonaro visited a quilombo (a community inhabited primarily by the descendants of enslaved Africans) in 2017, he mockingly described a black man as weighing 7 arrobas – a weight unit used in the country’s agriculture industry, especially for cattle (Simões, 2018). During U.S. President Barack Obama’s term in office, officials made the case for his drone policy by referring to Al-Qaeda combatants as a “cancerous tumor” that required “surgery” to remove – describing them as a biological hazard (Bachman and Holland, 2019, p. 6).

Lastly, like all other hallmarks, dehumanization is neither necessary nor sufficient for dangerous speech. People can inflict violence on others while perceiving them as human. Paul Bloom (2017) writes that people need not dehumanize others in order to mistreat or even torture them. On the contrary, he argues, one can only take full satisfaction from inflicting cruelty when one’s victims can feel humiliated and debased – which are human capacities. “The sadism of treating human beings like vermin lies precisely in the recognition that they are not.”

Accusation in a Mirror

The most powerful way to foment intergroup conflict is to frame violence as the only way to protect an in-group against greater harm, even annihilation. To that end, dangerous speech often includes a special kind of justification of violence that has become known as “accusation in a mirror.”

The term comes from an anonymous manual for propaganda and recruitment found in Butare, Rwanda after the 1994 genocide. The document advises attributing to one’s enemies the very acts of violence the speaker hopes to commit against them. “In this way,” the author writes, “the party which is using terror will accuse the enemy of using terror” (Des Forges 1999, p. 66).

To predict violence by another group is especially powerful (whether the threat is real, false, or exaggerated) since it makes violence against that group seem defensive and necessary . In this sense, accusation in a mirror is a collective analogue of the defense to homicide that is available in virtually all legal systems: self-defense. To believe that you, your family, your group, or even your culture faces an existential threat from another group makes violence to fend off that threat seem not only acceptable (as dehumanization does), but necessary.

One of the Rwandan propagandists who famously used this technique is Léon Mugesera, who Canada deported after the Canadian Supreme Court found sufficient “reasonable grounds to believe” that he had committed incitement to genocide, based on a speech he gave in Rwanda in November 1992 (17 months before the genocide began) in which he told his Hutu audience that they were in mortal danger. For instance, he said a Hutu man had been summarily shot by armed men – Tutsi, his audience was meant to understand. Then he predicted much worse: “they only want to exterminate us: they have no other aim.” ( Mugesera v. Canada , 2005; Straus, n.d.). Mugesera was later convicted of genocide crimes in Rwanda based on his public speech before the genocide and sentenced to life in prison.

The technique of accusation in a mirror was hardly invented by Hutu extremists: it is one of the most common hallmarks of dangerous speech. In Nazi Germany, for example, anti-Semitic propaganda repeatedly and relentlessly accused Jewish people of hatching a Mordplot (murderous plan) to eliminate all non-Jews (Streicher, 1934, p. 1). This assertion was especially preposterous since the Jews had no military or guerrilla force at all, yet it was apparently convincing.

Some of the most powerful accusations in a mirror come from speakers who suggest that their own group is in danger of being totally annihilated: that it faces genocide.

For example, Nazi SS Reichsführer Heinrich Himmler told senior officers in 1943 that “we had the moral right … to wipe out [the Jewish people] bent on wiping us out” (Leader Maynard, 2015, p. 203). And General Ratko Mladić, who became known as the “Butcher of Bosnia” for directing killings including the massacre of more than 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys at Srebrenica in 1995 (Osborne, 2017), earlier claimed that Muslims, Germans, and Croatians were planning for “the complete annihilation of the Serbian people” (Kiernan, 2009, p. 591).

Threat to Group Integrity or Purity

Another rhetorical technique, or hallmark, of dangerous speech, is to assert that members of another group can cause irreparable damage to the integrity or purity of one’s own group. A 1931 German cartoon from Julius Streicher’s Nazi newspaper Der Stürmer shows an apple sliced open with a knife marked with a swastika. Inside the apple is a worm that has a stereotypically Jewish face. The caption reads “ Wo etwas faul ist, ist der Jude die Ursache ” (“Where something is rotten, the Jew is the cause”) (Bytwerk, n.d.).

Similarly, in the ethnic attacks following the December 2007 presidential election in Kenya, members of the Kalenjin ethnic group referred to Kikuyu people as “madoadoa” (spots) that should be removed (Truth, Justice, and Reconciliation Commission, 2008, pp. 39, 41, 63, 71, 82, 84, 92; Jenkins, 2012, p. 591)

By portraying members of the target group as a threat to an audience group, this type of message reinforces fear. Moreover, these messages indirectly (and sometimes directly) instruct people to rid their group of the supposed contaminant, to preserve the health of their own group. Notably, this hallmark need not include any prediction of physical violence. Dangerous speech may instead assert a threat to a culture, group identity, or political project (Chirot and McCauley, 2010, p. 62).

While such messages may not threaten bodily harm, they appeal to powerful emotional connections between people and their identity groups and belief systems. Norwegian mass murderer Anders Breivik, who killed 77 people in July 2011, claimed to be trying to prevent what he called a European “cultural suicide” brought upon by the influences of multiculturalism, Islam, and “cultural Marxism”(Berwick, 2011, p. 12). In his manifesto (written under the pseudonym Anders Berwick), Breivik wrote that “the fate of European civilization” depends on men like him resisting such influences (Berwick, 2011, p. 38).

Similarly, Communists in the Soviet Union encouraged and justified violence against  kulaks  (landowning peasants), by suggesting that the kulaks posed an existential threat to other Russians. One Bolshevik leader instructed Communist Party organizers: “beat down the kulak agent wherever he raises his head. It’s war – it’s them or us” (Figes, 2008, p. 85).

Assertion of Attack Against Women and Girls, or Children

Related to the previous hallmark is the suggestion that women or girls of the in-group have been or will be threatened, harassed, or defiled by members of an out-group. In many cases, the purity of women symbolizes the purity, identity, or way of life of the group itself.

This hallmark is very common in dangerous speech around the world and throughout history, likely because it is difficult to ignore a warning of violence against members of a group who are traditionally viewed as vulnerable and needing protection. For most societies, this includes children (especially girls) and women; almost universally, men are instructed to protect women and children at all costs, up to and including killing an attacker.

In the United States, false claims of attacks against white women often led to lynchings and other violence against black people, especially in parts of the country where Africans had been enslaved. In Tulsa, Oklahoma, for example, after a report that black men had assaulted white women in 1921, mobs of whites destroyed the homes of black residents (Johnson, 1998, pp. 258-259). Narratives and images of black men attacking white women also appeared in popular media such as the 1915 film Birth of a Nation. Like the book The Clansman on which it is based, the film depicts a black man attempting to rape a white woman, who escapes only by jumping to her death.

In one of many present-day examples, rumors that Rohingya Muslim men had raped a Buddhist woman in 2012 in Myanmar 9 sparked riots (Gowen, 2017). In February of 2016, the conservative mass-market Polish weekly wSieci published a striking cover  image of a beautiful young blonde, blue-eyed woman wearing a dress made from the flag of the European Union. Six dark-skinned male hands grab and tear at her body (and the dress) as she screams in terror.

Questioning In-Group Loyalty

Though dangerous speech usually describes members of the out-group or target group, some of it never mentions them, instead characterizing members of the in-group as insufficiently loyal, or even traitorous, for being sympathetic to the out-group. During atrocities, in-group members seen as disloyal are often punished as severely, if not more severely, than members of the out-group. In the Rwandan genocide, for example, for the most part Hutus killed Tutsis, but so-called “moderate” Hutus were also often killed by their fellow Hutus, for helping Tutsis or apparently wanting to do so. In the months before the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, the Hutu-led radio station RTLM spread the message “kill or be killed,” which both supported the idea that killing Tutsis was an act of self-defense and also the notion that Hutus who did not take part in the killing would themselves be killed (Yanagizawa-Drott, 2014, p. 1946). As Mary Kimani (2007, p. 113) notes, “RTLM, as well as political leaders, made it clear that killing ‘the enemy’ was the duty of every Rwandan.”

Such messages were also common earlier, in the years leading up to the genocide. In December of 1990, Kangura, a pro-Hutu newspaper whose editor was later convicted for incitement to genocide in the Media Trial described above, published the “Hutu Ten Commandments,” which called Tutsi a “common enemy” and asserted that Hutus who formed romantic or business relationships with Tutsis were traitors. 10 Hutus sympathetic to Tutsis, in other words, were depicted as a threat to the unity and survival of the Hutu people.

Even the most inflammatory message cannot inspire violence if its audience isn’t susceptible to such notions. A group may be fearful about past or present threats of violence, or already saturated with frightening messages. Economic hardship, alienation, unresolved collective trauma, or social norms in favor of obedience to authority may also make people more susceptible to dangerous speech.

Dangerous speech is often false, so audiences are more vulnerable to it when they can be duped into believing what’s false – or are not skilled at distinguishing lies from truth. As false content propagates more and more widely online, it can lead to violence, and it seems to diminish participation in civic life. Researchers are trying to understand why people are more or less easily convinced by lies, to learn how to change this for the better. A 2018 study indicated that Internet skills, photo-editing experience, and social media use were significant predictors of image credibility evaluation (Shen et al., p. 20). In sum, people with less experience on digital media are more likely to be duped by false content.

Sometimes, speakers use language that isn’t dangerous in itself, but can render other messages more dangerous, by binding the members of a group more tightly to each other, to the group itself, and/or to its leader, or by strengthening distinctions between the in-group and the out-group. A common form of this binding speech is language that gives a sense of familial belonging to members of a group. In some cases, for instance, this talk tells them that they are bound by blood, not just politics. Such messages can amplify the effects of hallmarks of dangerous speech.

Most messages reach many types of people, and each receives them somewhat differently. Some people are much more willing and able to commit violence, for instance, though almost anyone can do so under certain circumstances, especially when they perceive an imminent threat to themselves or their fellow human beings (Leader Maynard and Benesch, 2016, p. 78). When analyzing speech for dangerousness, we try to predict its effect on the groups or individuals who are most susceptible, or most likely to commit violence.

Even where a group does not seem susceptible to dangerous speech, a few of its members usually are. So-called “lone wolf” attackers can be understood either as the most susceptible members of a group, or as individual “audiences,” moved to commit violence on their own. One lone wolf inspired by dangerous speech is Timothy McVeigh, who killed 168 people by bombing a U.S. government building in the state of Oklahoma in 1995, motivated and guided (in part) by The Turner Diaries , a racist, anti-Semitic novel in which characters commit a similar attack (Thomas, 2001).

The social and historical context in which speech spreads also affects the extent to which it is dangerous, since any message may be understood in dramatically different ways in one place or time versus another. Any number of aspects of context may be relevant. When conducting a dangerous speech analysis, one should consider as many of those as possible.

For example, is there a history of violence between the groups? Messages encouraging violence, or describing another group as planning violence, are more inflammatory where groups have exchanged violence in the past, or where there are longstanding, unresolved grievances between them. Former attacks tend to weaken or remove psychological barriers to violence. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a striking example of this, as is recurring intercommunal violence in many parts of India. Unfortunately, there are dozens of other such cases around the world, in which old fighting and violence always form a kind of collective psychological backdrop, and it is all too easy to catalyze new violence with words.

Another question to consider is whether there are social norms, laws, and/or policies that put one group at special and persistent risk. Systemic discrimination can create a context in which it seems entirely normal – because it is officially and widely sanctioned – to regard a group of people as inferior, deficient, or wicked. For example in Pakistan the Ahmadi, a religious minority, are denounced in the law and by clerics, political leaders, and even journalists as traitors to the national religion of Islam. Since the Ahmadis’ beliefs are legally considered blasphemous, they face ostracism and even murder on account of their religion (Khan, 2003). They have been persecuted even for their efforts to defend themselves against dangerous speech.

The Pakistani Supreme Court condemned three Ahmadi men to death in October 2017 for taking down an anti-Ahmadi sign (Hashim, 2017), and a fourth man would have faced death at the hands of the state also, but a teenager had walked into the police station where he was being held in 2014 and shot him to death (Houreld, 2014).

Within this context, anti-Ahmadi speech is even more dangerous as the state has already proven its unwillingness to protect the Ahmadi or treat them as equal citizens. Discriminatory legal systems normalize persecution and create a context in which members of the in-group (usually the majority) feel protected for their personal acts of discrimination and even violence against members of the out-group.

Other aspects of social or historical context, such as competition between groups for resources like land or water, are also important to consider.

When an inflammatory message comes from a person with influence, it tends to be more dangerous. Influence or authority can come from a variety of sources, including personal charisma, high social status, or official status such as political office. A public post, in turn, often comes with control of resources needed by an audience, and the power to deploy force against uncooperative audience members. In other cases, a speaker’s influence may derive from status as an unelected community leader, popular entertainer, or star athlete; indeed, religious and cultural leaders have more influence over some audiences than politicians. A close family member or trusted friend might also be highly influential, in person or on a social media platform like Facebook or a digital messaging system like WhatsApp, where users connect to people who have influence over them.

Especially online, the source of a message may also be unknown, or there may be multiple sources of the same message. In that case the speaker doesn’t, of course, make the message more dangerous. The source of dangerous speech may also be an organization, company, group, or government, or a bot controlled by a person or organization. Governments often have disproportionate influence, and are powerful disseminators of dangerous speech. Moreover, governments speak not only in official statements, but also through law. For example, Russia’s 2018 law banning the distribution of “homosexual propaganda” to minors endangers LGBTQ people by vilifying their existence. The law seems designed to reinforce existing discriminatory attitudes and fears among the Russian population (Human Rights Watch, 2018). This is an all-too-common phenomenon seen in the case of the Ahmadi described in the previous section: law emerges from and also reinforces discriminatory and even dangerous social norms.

The Second Speaker

In many cases, a speaker makes a message dangerous not by creating it, but by distributing, and often distorting, someone else’s content. In mid-2017, a video clip began circulating virally in India on WhatsApp, a platform which was then used by 200 million people in that country (Elliott, 2018). The clip seemed to show security camera footage of a child being kidnapped. What most of the furious, frightened people who shared it didn’t know is that the clip was part of a longer video showing a mock kidnapping in which the child is safely returned – made by a Pakistani charity to raise awareness about child abductions (Rebelo, 2017). The distorted version omitted the name of the charity, the campaign, and the safe return of the child. Instead, it falsely accused people in India of kidnapping, and inspired gruesome vigilante lynchings. As many such rumors circulated online and offline, mobs killed 33 people in India between January 2017 and July 2018 (Sanghvi, 2018).

“Second” speakers may also play an important role by carrying messages to a new audience, or to a much larger one than the original speaker could reach. 11 In November 2017, U.S. President Donald Trump retweeted a series of shockingly violent videos. One of them was falsely titled, “Muslim migrant beats up Dutch boy on crutches!” – the Embassy of the Netherlands in the United States indicated via its own Twitter account that the boy who did the beating was not a Muslim migrant (Netherlands Embassy, 2017).

The videos were originally shared by Jayda Fransen, deputy leader of the far-right extremist group Britain First. Fransen then had 52,776 followers; Trump had over 42 million (Data Team, 2017). By retweeting the messages, the president not only disseminated dangerous speech to a much larger audience, but increased the legitimacy of the extremist message by endorsing it. Instead of creating the content, Trump gave it his highly influential voice.

Speech may take any number of forms, and can be disseminated by myriad means. It may be shouted during a rally, played on the radio as a song, captured in a photograph, written in a newspaper or on a poster, or shared through social media. The form of the speech and the manner in which it is disseminated affect how the message is received and therefore, how dangerous it is.

There are several factors to consider when analyzing a medium. The first is whether the speech was transmitted in a way that would allow it to reach a large audience. Private conversation around a dinner table, for example, will not reach as many people as a post on a public Facebook page with many followers.

A second question is whether the speech was transmitted in a way that would reinforce its capacity to persuade. For example, was it repeated frequently? Repetition tends to increase the acceptance of an idea. Or was the speech published in or broadcast on a media source that is particularly influential or respected among the intended audience? In the same way that an influential speaker lends legitimacy to a message, a media source that is trusted by a particular audience gives credibility to the messages it spreads.

The particular language used by the speaker may also play a role. In fieldwork on violence prevention efforts in Kenya following the 2007-2008 post-election violence there, more than one Kenyan told one of us (Benesch, 2014) that if they heard a message in English or Kiswahili (Kenyan national languages), they heard it with their heads. If the same message came in the listener’s vernacular language (or “mother tongue”), they said they heard it with their hearts⁠—suggesting the message was more liable to rouse their emotions  (Benesch, 2014, p. 25).

Messages also tend to have a greater capacity to persuade if there are no alternative sources of news available, or if other sources don’t seem credible. In Myanmar, most people relied on government-controlled radio, television, and newspapers for decades until the country emerged from military rule in 2012. Only 1.1 percent then had access to the internet. Within only four years, half the population had a mobile phone – and most of those had access to Facebook (Stecklow, 2018) which for many became synonymous with the internet itself (Beech and Nang, 2018). As a result, Facebook became a highly influential medium, used to spread frightening, false messages intended to turn the majority population against minority Rohingya Muslims, even as the country’s military has carried out a vicious campaign to drive the Rohingya out, including rape, killing, and burning villages (Specia and Mozur, 2017). A Burmese administrator of a village that banned Muslims from even spending the night there told The New York Times, “I have to thank Facebook because it is giving me the true information in Myanmar” (Beech, 2017).

For generations, the Rohingya have faced discrimination and exclusion, and have been denied legal citizenship. Violence against them increased as government officials, influential Buddhist monks, and anonymous online sources described them as dangerous. Many also spread false rumors of upcoming attacks by Rohingya and dehumanized them, calling them “dogs,” “maggots,” “rapists,” or “pigs,” and calling for violence against them. Some posts even called for genocide – one Facebook page was called “We will genocide all of the Muslims and feed them to the dogs” (Stecklow, 2018). This rhetoric, much of which Facebook’s content moderators failed to detect, intensified as Myanmar escalated its campaign of forced relocation, driving almost one million Rohingya into Bangladesh. A Facebook post from September 2017 reads “These non-human kalar dogs, the Bengalis, are killing and destroying our land, our water, and our ethnic people…We need to destroy their race” (Stecklow, 2018). 12

Dangerous Speech Online – the role of social media

Digital media and the internet have immeasurably changed the way people spread all kinds of messages, from the innocuous to the incendiary. Those who seek to turn groups of people violently against each other can spread dangerous speech quickly – especially in places where there is already a risk of mass violence. Ideas and narratives once confined to the fringes of popular discourse – including extremist ideas – are now widely available. Speakers who could hardly find an audience offline, even those who espouse the most widely-derided ideologies, can find at least a few fellow-thinkers across the world, and can form so-called “echo chambers” in which they bolster and further radicalize each other. By forging such bonds, people can collectively disseminate harmful content further than they could have alone and with the fervor of solidarity. Others are motivated neither by hatred nor conviction, but by simply wanting more followers and/or more money (from subscribers or advertisers) (Byrne, 2016).

Online, people can also communicate anonymously. On social media platforms like Twitter or Reddit, or messaging platforms like WhatsApp or Discord, they can spread ideas that they might not dare to express offline, where their identities would be known.

As it has become increasingly obvious that online content leads to serious offline harm, governments, researchers, activists, and internet companies have sought ways to diminish the problem. The first, most obvious response is simply to remove bad content or censor it. Each country has laws prohibiting certain forms of speech (they vary) and social media companies like Facebook and Twitter also have their own rules forbidding certain kinds of content, such as hate speech, nudity, or incitement to violence (Facebook, Inc., 2020; Twitter, Inc., 2020).

Censorship, whether by governments or private companies, poses significant risks to democracy and freedom of expression since it’s almost impossible to do it without making serious mistakes. First, although some content is obviously harmful or even illegal, most is quite context-dependent or ambiguous, and it’s often difficult to agree on where to draw the lines.

Second, policing the internet for harmful content is a job so huge that its scale is hard even to imagine: every day, over 1 billion people log on to Facebook alone and post billions of pieces of information (Zephoria Digital Marketing, 2018). Although internet companies train tens of thousands of people – who are often ill-paid to look at violent and deeply disturbing content all day – to decide which posts to take down, at such a scale, mistakes are inevitable and numerous (Roberts, 2014, pp. 15-16; Ohlheiser, 2017; Shahani, 2016).

Social media companies are increasingly turning to automated methods (software) to detect a variety of types of content they want to take down, such as terrorist recruiting and hate speech. This might seem like an efficient solution but it doesn’t work well, and it threatens freedom of expression. Software makes lots of mistakes. People express hatred, denigrate others, and promote fear in a wide and creative variety of ways. Moreover, computers can’t make some distinctions that humans can, such as to distinguish hate speech from a post denouncing it (Saleem et al., 2016), and social media companies have repeatedly taken down content posted by human rights defenders to capture evidence of abuse and war crimes (Kayyali, 2020).

Another reason not to rely entirely on deleting harmful content is that it can foreclose other kinds of constructive responses. The simplest response – to express disagreement – can usefully demonstrate that the majority disagrees with hateful views. In fact, the presumed power of “counterspeech,” which we define as “direct responses to hateful or harmful speech” (Wright et al., 2017, p. 57) is one of the main reasons why United States law protects freedom of speech so vigorously, refusing even to prohibit hate speech. If the “marketplace of ideas” is left as open as possible, the theory suggests, the best and safest ideas will eventually prevail (Brandenburg v. Ohio, 1969).

Evidence to prove or disprove this theory is scarce, but there are many intriguing uses of counterspeech, offline and online. For example, when a hate group sought to post anti-Muslim signs on public buses and trains in several U.S. cities in 2010, some cities tried to refuse. The group sued, and some courts allowed cities to reject the signs while others ruled that they must be displayed. In Detroit, where the ads were suppressed, public attention focused on the signs’ author, as a victim whose free speech rights were violated. In New York and other cities where the ads appeared, members of the public spoke against them and produced Muslim-defending ads in response to the inflammatory ones (Abdelkader, 2014, pp. 81-82).

An ad produced by the Council for American-Islamic Relations during its #MyJihad campaign. (Kuruvilla, 2013)

A striking example of successful online counterspeech is the case of Megan Phelps-Roper. Although she grew up as a fervently loyal member of the extremist homophobic Westboro Baptist Church (founded by her grandfather), Phelps-Roper changed her beliefs, mainly thanks to a few long-running individual conversations with counterspeakers on Twitter (Chen, 2015; Phelps-Roper, 2019, ch. 9).

At this writing, some internet companies are also experimenting with other alternatives to deletion, intended to limit the circulation of dangerous speech and other forms of harmful content. For example, after inflammatory rumors spread in India as described above, WhatsApp took steps to slow down the spread of dangerous messages. The company limited the number of groups or individual accounts to which one can forward a particular message to five; there was previously no limit. To help users to identify possible suspect content, WhatsApp also began labeling messages that had been forwarded (WhatsApp, 2019).

Responding to Hateful and Dangerous Speech Online

There are also many other ways to diminish harmful content or its damaging effects. One might try to persuade people to stop posting such content in the first place (a preventive approach, rather than a reactive one like deletion), or support those who are attacked by it.

Internet users themselves (not governments or companies) are conducting many ingenious experiments in responding to harmful content online (Benesch, 2017). Some organizations also offer ideas and resources for response. One is the nonprofit Over Zero which teaches groups how to apply the dangerous speech framework and other tools for designing interventions to decrease polarization (Brown, 2016). Another example is “Seriously,” an online program created by the French organization Renaissance Numérique, which educates people on which tone and content make the best counterspeech. In 2017 our Dangerous Speech Project, along with #ICANHELP, iCanHelpline.org, HeartMob, and Project HEAR, created a comic for youth, illustrating several “dos” and “don’ts” for effective counterspeech .

The dangerous speech ideas offered in this chapter have been used in countries as varied as Nigeria, Sri Lanka, Denmark, Hungary, Kenya, Pakistan, and the United States, in two basic ways that seem promising. First, it’s useful to collect and study dangerous speech systematically, looking for changes in its nature and volume over time, since this can serve as an early warning for violence. Second, it’s valuable to find the most effective ways to diminish dangerous speech or its harmful effects – without impinging on freedom of speech. We have made efforts of both kinds and look forward to continuing, with colleagues in many countries where, unfortunately, the topic is all too relevant.

This Guide was originally published December 31, 2018; minor revisions and additions were made on January 9, 2020, August 4, 2020, and April 19, 2021.

Contributors to this Guide

Susan Benesch, Founder and Executive Director Cathy Buerger, Director of Research Tonei Glavinic, Director of Operations Sean Manion, Communications Fellow Dan Bateyko, Research Associate

Acknowledgments

We are very grateful to many people who have made invaluable contributions to our thinking, and therefore to this Guide. They are too many to list and some must not be named for their security. We are especially grateful to those who are working in interesting and innovative ways to undermine dangerous speech around the world. Any errors are our own. Please send us critiques and feedback: dangerousspeech.org/contact

We also wish to thank the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, whose support made this Guide possible.

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• We use the term ‘speech’ to refer to any form of human communication – in keeping with the definition of Dangerous Speech.
• To dox is to harass or endanger someone by searching for, and then posting online, private or identifying information about that person.
• Other definitions of violence do include non-physical harm. Peace and conflict studies scholar Johan Galtung, for example, includes discrimination, exclusion, and exploitation in what he calls “structural violence” (1969, p.171). The United Nations Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women (1993) defines violence against women as “gender-based violence that results in, or is likely to result in, physical, sexual or psychological harm or suffering to women.”
• In linguistics a “speech act” is communication that brings about some sort of response or change in the world. The 20th-century British philosopher of language J.L. Austin (1962) pioneered speech act theory, in which he tried to capture and distinguish all the types of effects that language can have. “Perlocutionary force,” Austin proposed, is the capacity of a speech act to bring about a response in its audience. We draw on this body of thought since dangerous speech is defined by its perlocutionary force.
• This process can also be described with reference to the Overton Window, a theory of the way the acceptable range of political discourse, or policies, changes over time. The theory’s originator Joseph Overton imagined a window containing views or policies that are acceptable to the opinion leaders or the majority, in a group of people at a particular time. As once-radical positions or ideas become more acceptable, the imaginary window gradually moves so that even ideas that were once unthinkable can eventually be found inside it (Lehman, 2010).
• The three defendants were convicted of incitement to genocide, among other grave crimes. Dangerous speech is not a crime in any country’s penal code, nor do we suggest that it should be criminalized. There are already related speech crimes in most bodies of law, and we believe that criminal law is generally not a very effective way of limiting speech or its harmful effects.
• Prosecutor v. Nahimana et al. (Trial Judgment) , para. 436. It’s important to recognize that the witness was a firsthand observer who made a subjective attempt to gauge the effect of RTLM’s broadcasts on a large number of people. Scholars who have since studied the impact of RTLM include David Yanagizawa-Drott (2014) and Scott Straus (2007).
• Scholars have described dehumanization in some detail, observing distinct forms of it and seeking to explain it. For example, psychologist Nick Haslam proposed two categories: animalistic dehumanization (viewing other people as animals) and mechanistic dehumanization (asserting that other people lack typical human qualities) (2006, p.258). In a monograph on dehumanization, philosopher David Livingstone Smith suggests that humans are prone to dehumanizing others because of what he describes as our “cognitive architecture” (2011).
• Myanmar and Burma are the same country. The British who colonized the country called it “Burma,” and the ruling military junta changed that name to “Myanmar” in 1989. Both names are still used.
• The Hutu 10 Commandments (or “Ten Commandments of the Bahutu”) were originally published in Kinyarwanda. This translation was taken from Berry, J.A. and Berry, C.P. eds. (1999, p.113–115).
• Those who carry information across social or cultural boundaries between groups are sometimes called “bridge figures,” and they can be helpful or malevolent. For further description of this, see Benesch, 2015.
• The term “ kalar ” is a slur commonly used in Myanmar to denigrate Rohingya. It implies dark skin, and foreignness (OHCHR, 2018, p. 168). Rohingya are also often called “Bengalis” to refer to their Bangladeshi ancestry and imply that they do not belong – and have no right to stay – in Myanmar.

Part of Speech

What part of speech is “what”.

In English texts and verbal communication, the word what also have various functions. It can be used as a adjective , an adverb , a pronoun, or an interjection .

This word is commonly classified as an adjective if it is used to introduce a noun or a noun phrase. In the sample sentence below:

What time is it?

The word “ what ” introduces the noun “time,” and is therefore considere d as a adjective.

Definition:

a.  asking for information specifying something

• What books did you buy?

In some cases, the word “ what ” is considered as an adverb if it modifies a verb. For instance, in the sample sentence below:

What does he care?

The word “ what ” functions as an adverb because it modifies the verb “care.”

a.  in what way

• What does it matter ?

The word “ what ” is also normally categorized as a pronoun if it is used for asking questions about something or if it is used to substitute a noun. For example, in the sentence below:

What we need is commitment.

This “ wha t” word is classified under pronouns because it replaces a thing or a noun.

• What is beauty ?

b.  used to describe a question

• What is this?

c.  the thing or things that (used in specifying something)

• I want to do what I can to make a difference.
• Interjection

Other times, this word is classified under interjections because it can be used to express sudden emotions. Take for example, the sentence:

What a suggestion!

In this sample sentence, the word “ what ” is used to exclaim and express a burst of emotion regarding the noun “suggestion.”

a.  emphasizing something surprising or remarkable

• What a charming lady !

Attacks on Walz’s Military Record

By Robert Farley , D'Angelo Gore and Eugene Kiely

Posted on August 8, 2024 | Updated on August 12, 2024 | Corrected on August 9, 2024

In introducing her pick for vice presidential running mate, Kamala Harris has prominently touted Tim Walz’s 24 years of service in the Army National Guard. Now, however, GOP vice presidential nominee JD Vance and the Trump campaign are attacking Walz on his military record, accusing the Minnesota governor of “stolen valor.”

We’ll sort through the facts surrounding the three main attacks on Walz’s military record and let readers decide their merit. The claims include:

• Vance claimed that Walz “dropped out” of the National Guard when he learned his battalion was slated to be deployed to Iraq. Walz retired to focus on a run for Congress two months before his unit got official word of impending deployment, though the possibility had been rumored for months.
• Vance also accused Walz of having once claimed to have served in combat, when he did not. While advocating a ban on assault-style weapons, Walz said, “We can make sure that those weapons of war that I carried in war, is the only place where those weapons are at.” Update, Aug. 12: The Harris campaign says that Walz “misspoke.”
• The Republican National Committee has criticized Walz for misrepresenting his military rank in campaign materials. The Harris campaign website salutes Walz for “rising to the rank of Command Sergeant Major.” Walz did rise to that rank, but he retired as a master sergeant because he had not completed the requirements of a command sergeant major.

A native of West Point, Nebraska, Walz joined the Nebraska Army National Guard in April 1981, two days after his 17th birthday. When Walz and his wife moved to Minnesota in 1996, he transferred to the Minnesota National Guard, where he served in 1st Battalion, 125th Field Artillery.

“While serving in Minnesota, his military occupational specialties were 13B – a cannon crewmember who operates and maintains cannons and 13Z -field artillery senior sergeant,” according to a statement released by Army Lt. Col. Kristen Augé, the Minnesota National Guard’s state public affairs officer.

According to MPR News , Walz suffered some hearing impairment related to exposure to cannon booms during training over the years, and he underwent some corrective surgery to address it.

On Aug. 3, 2003, “Walz mobilized with the Minnesota National Guard’s 1st Battalion, 125th Field Artillery … to support Operation Enduring Freedom. The battalion supported security missions at various locations in Europe and Turkey. Governor Walz was stationed at Vicenza, Italy, during his deployment,” Augé stated. The deployment lasted about eight months.

“For 24 years I proudly wore the uniform of this nation,” Walz said at a rally in Philadelphia where he was announced as Harris’ running mate on Aug. 6. “The National Guard gave me purpose. It gave me the strength of a shared commitment to something greater than ourselves.”

Walz’s Retirement from the National Guard

In recent years, however, several of his fellow guard members have taken issue with the timing of Walz’s retirement from the National Guard in May 2005, claiming he left to avoid a deployment to Iraq.

Vance, who served a four-year active duty enlistment in the Marine Corps as a combat correspondent, serving in Iraq for six months in 2005, advanced that argument at a campaign event on Aug. 7.

“When the United States of America asked me to go to Iraq to serve my country, I did it,” Vance said. “When Tim Walz was asked by his country to go to Iraq, you know what he did? He dropped out of the Army and allowed his unit to go without him, a fact that he’s been criticized for aggressively by a lot of the people that he served with. I think it’s shameful to prepare your unit to go to Iraq, to make a promise that you’re going to follow through and then to drop out right before you actually have to go.”

In early 2005, Walz, then a high school geography teacher and football coach at Mankato West High School, decided to run for public office. In a 2009 interview Walz provided as part of the Library of Congress’ veterans oral history project, Walz said he made the decision to retire from the National Guard to “focus full time” on a run for the U.S. House of Representatives for Minnesota’s 1st Congressional District (which he ultimately won in 2006). Walz said he was “really concerned” about trying to seek public office and serve in the National Guard at the same time without running afoul of the Hatch Act , which limits political speech by federal employees, including members of the National Guard.

Federal Election Commission records show that Walz filed to run for Congress on Feb. 10, 2005.

On March 20, 2005, Walz’s campaign put out a press release titled “Walz Still Planning to Run for Congress Despite Possible Call to Duty in Iraq.”

Three days prior, the release said, “the National Guard Public Affairs Office announced a possible partial mobilization of roughly 2,000 troops from the Minnesota National Guard. … The announcement from the National Guard PAO specified that all or a portion of Walz’s battalion could be mobilized to serve in Iraq within the next two years.”

According to the release, “When asked about his possible deployment to Iraq Walz said, ‘I do not yet know if my artillery unit will be part of this mobilization and I am unable to comment further on specifics of the deployment.’ Although his tour of duty in Iraq might coincide with his campaign for Minnesota’s 1st Congressional seat, Walz is determined to stay in the race. ‘As Command Sergeant Major I have a responsibility not only to ready my battalion for Iraq, but also to serve if called on. I am dedicated to serving my country to the best of my ability, whether that is in Washington DC or in Iraq.'”

On March 23, 2005, the Pipestone County Star reported, “Detachments of the Minnesota National Guard have been ‘alerted’ of possible deployment to Iraq in mid-to-late 2006.”

“Major Kevin Olson of the Minnesota National Guard said a brigade-sized contingent of soldiers could be expected to be called to Iraq, but he was not, at this time, aware of which batteries would be called,” the story said. “All soldiers in the First Brigade combat team of the 34th Division, Minnesota National Guard, could be eligible for call-up. ‘We don’t know yet what the force is like’ he said. ‘It’s too early to speculate, if the (soldiers) do go.’

“He added: ‘We will have a major announcement if and when the alert order moves ahead.’”

ABC News spoke to Joseph Eustice, a retired command sergeant major who served with Walz, and he told the news organization this week that “he remembers Walz struggling with the timing of wanting to serve as a lawmaker but also avoiding asking for a deferment so he could do so.”

“He had a window of time,” Eustice told ABC News. “He had to decide. And in his deciding, we were not on notice to be deployed. There were rumors. There were lots of rumors, and we didn’t know where we were going until it was later that, early summer, I believe.”

Al Bonnifield, who served under Walz, also recalled Walz agonizing over the decision.

“It was a very long conversation behind closed doors,” Bonnifield told the Washington Post this week. “He was trying to decide where he could do better for soldiers, for veterans, for the country. He weighed that for a long time.”

In 2018, Bonnifield told MPR News that Walz worried in early 2005, “Would the soldier look down on him because he didn’t go with us? Would the common soldier say, ‘Hey, he didn’t go with us, he’s trying to skip out on a deployment?’ And he wasn’t. He talked with us for quite a while on that subject. He weighed that decision to run for Congress very heavy. He loved the military, he loved the guard, he loved the soldiers he worked with.”

But not all of Walz’s fellow Guard members felt that way.

In a paid letter to the West Central Tribune in Minnesota in November 2018, Thomas Behrends and Paul Herr — both retired command sergeants major in the Minnesota National Guard — wrote, “On May 16th, 2005 he [Walz] quit, leaving the 1-125th Field Artillery Battalion and its Soldiers hanging; without its senior Non-Commissioned Officer, as the battalion prepared for war. His excuse to other leaders was that he needed to retire in order to run for congress. Which is false, according to a Department of Defense Directive, he could have run and requested permission from the Secretary of Defense before entering active duty; as many reservists have.”

“For Tim Walz to abandon his fellow soldiers and quit when they needed experienced leadership most is disheartening,” they wrote. “When the nation called, he quit.”

Walz retired on May 16, 2005. Walz’s brigade received alert orders for mobilization on July 14, 2005, according to the National Guard and MPR News . The official mobilization report came the following month, and the unit mobilized and trained through the fall. It was finally deployed to Iraq in the spring of 2006.

The unit was originally scheduled to return in February 2007, but its tour was extended four months as part of President George W. Bush’s “surge” strategy , the National Guard reported. In all, the soldiers were mobilized for 22 months.

Responding to Vance’s claim that Walz retired to avoid deploying to Iraq, the Harris-Walz campaign released a statement saying, “After 24 years of military service, Governor Walz retired in 2005 and ran for Congress, where he was a tireless advocate for our men and women in uniform – and as Vice President of the United States he will continue to be a relentless champion for our veterans and military families.”

Walz on Carrying a Weapon ‘in War’

Vance also called Walz “dishonest” for a claim that Walz made in 2018 while speaking to a group about gun control.

“He made this interesting comment that the Kamala Harris campaign put out there,” Vance said, referring to a video of Walz that the Harris campaign posted to X on Aug. 6. “He said, ‘We shouldn’t allow weapons that I used in war to be on America’s streets.’ Well, I wonder, Tim Walz, when were you ever in war? What was this weapon that you carried into war given that you abandoned your unit right before they went to Iraq and he has not spent a day in a combat zone.”

In the video , Walz, who was campaigning for governor at the time, talked about pushing back on the National Rifle Association and said: “I spent 25 years in the Army and I hunt. … I’ve been voting for common sense legislation that protects the Second Amendment, but we can do background checks. We can do [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] research. We can make sure we don’t have reciprocal carry among states. And we can make sure that those weapons of war that I carried in war, is the only place where those weapons are at.”

But, as Vance indicated, there is no evidence that Walz carried a weapon “in war.”

Update, Aug. 12: In an Aug. 10 statement to CNN, the Harris campaign told CNN that Walz “misspoke.”

“In making the case for why weapons of war should never be on our streets or in our classrooms, the Governor misspoke,” campaign spokesperson Lauren Hitt said in the statement. “He did handle weapons of war and believes strongly that only military members trained to carry those deadly weapons should have access to them.”

As we said, Augé, in her statement, said Walz’s battalion deployed “to support Operation Enduring Freedom” on Aug. 3, 2003, and “supported security missions at various locations in Europe and Turkey.” During his deployment, Walz was stationed in Vicenza, Italy, and he returned to Minnesota in April 2004, Augé said. There was no mention of Walz serving in Afghanistan, Iraq or another combat zone.

In the 2009 interview for the veterans history project, Walz said he and members of his battalion initially thought they would “shoot artillery in Afghanistan,” as they had trained to do. That didn’t happen, he said, explaining that his group ended up helping with security and training while stationed at an Army base in Vicenza.

“I think in the beginning, many of my troops were disappointed,” Walz said in the interview. “I think they felt a little guilty, many of them, that they weren’t in the fight up front as this was happening.”

In an Aug. 8 statement addressing his claim about carrying weapons “in war,” the Harris campaign noted that Walz, whose military occupational specialties included field artillery senior sergeant, “fired and trained others to use weapons of war innumerable times” in his 24 years of service.

Walz’s National Guard Rank

The Republican National Committee has criticized Walz for saying “in campaign materials that he is a former ‘Command Sergeant Major’ in the Army National Guard despite not completing the requirements to hold the rank into retirement.”

Walz’s biography on the Harris campaign website correctly says that the governor “served for 24 years” in the National Guard, “rising to the rank of Command Sergeant Major.” 

Walz’s official biography on the Minnesota state website goes further, referring to the governor as “Command Sergeant Major Walz.”

“After 24 years in the Army National Guard, Command Sergeant Major Walz retired from the 1-125th Field Artillery Battalion in 2005,” the state website says. 

Walz did serve as command sergeant major , but Walz did not complete the requirements to retire with the rank of command sergeant, Augé told us in an email. 

“He held multiple positions within field artillery such as firing battery chief, operations sergeant, first sergeant, and culminated his career serving as the command sergeant major for the battalion,” Augé said. “He retired as a master sergeant in 2005 for benefit purposes because he did not complete additional coursework at the U.S. Army Sergeants Major Academy.”

This isn’t the first time that Walz’s National Guard rank has come up in a campaign. 

In their 2018 paid letter to the West Central Tribune, when Walz was running for governor, the two Minnesota National Guard retired command sergeants major who criticized Walz for retiring before the Iraq deployment also wrote: “Yes, he served at that rank, but was never qualified at that rank, and will receive retirement benefits at one rank below. You be the judge.”

Correction, Aug. 9: We mistakenly said a 2007 “surge” strategy in Iraq occurred under President Barack Obama. It was President George W. Bush.

Editor’s note: In the interest of full disclosure, Harris campaign spokesperson Lauren Hitt was an undergraduate intern at FactCheck.org from 2010 to 2011.

Editor’s note: FactCheck.org does not accept advertising. We rely on grants and individual donations from people like you. Please consider a donation. Credit card donations may be made through  our “Donate” page . If you prefer to give by check, send to: FactCheck.org, Annenberg Public Policy Center, 202 S. 36th St., Philadelphia, PA 19104. 

The origins and different functions of swear words, from 'gadzooks' to the f-word

When Kate was growing up, saying "bum" was completely taboo. 

Lee says her 87-year-old mum is horrified by the f-word, but will use "bloody" in almost every sentence.

And Anna, a grandma, drops the c-bomb in conversation with her young neighbour, in order to connect.

These RN Life Matters listeners are just a few of the many Australians with a strong connection — positive or negative — to swearing, a practice which has changed wildly over the centuries and has much to teach us about ourselves.

From the once offensive "gadzooks" to slurs about body parts that have really stood the test of time, where did our swear words come from and why do we so love to use them?

The many ways to swear

There are four main reasons we swear, explains Howard Manns, senior lecturer in linguistics at Monash University.

There's the expletive function — handy, say, when you stub your toe.

We swear to abuse and insult. But we also swear to express solidarity; for example, we might call someone a "funny bastard".

That function is one repeated across the world.

"Calling your friend a bastard, or whatever you might call them, to index closeness is something we see in a lot of languages and a lot of cultures," Dr Manns says.

"It's been likened, actually, to the way that dogs and other animals playfully bite each other. It's our way as humans of playfully biting people that we like or want to like us."

Swearing can also be used to mark strength or attitude, by putting a distinctive twist on language.

"Sure, I can say 'absolutely'," Dr Manns says.

"But isn't it a little bit spicier if I say 'abso-bloody-lutely?'"

Origins of swear words

Swear words are derived from taboos — that's why "gadzooks" was once considered a swear word.

Taken from "God's hooks", it refers to the nails used to put Jesus on the crucifix.

"If you go back into Old English times, religious taboos were absolutely the harshest taboos you could use for your swear words," Dr Manns says.

"Damn" is another example.

"If you go back to the 14th century, it was essentially like using the f-word," he says.

"You find Englishmen using it so much that the French actually called the Englishmen 'damn' when they referred to them because they just heard them saying this word all the time."

The Victorian era is ripe for fascinating examples of swear words.

"A word like 'breast' or a word like 'leg' was really, really spicy for a long time. And we see evidence for this in that, for instance, we used to — and perhaps some people still do — refer to chicken breasts as 'white meat' and chicken legs as 'dark meat'.

"This is a carryover of the Victorian era."

For centuries, there have been words deemed inappropriate for women but acceptable for men, particularly within the realm of swearing.

"Verbal hygiene" and "watching the way you speak" were concepts commonly applied to women.

But from the 1960s to 1980s there was a movement of "verbal activism" that sought to change that, Dr Manns says.

"You had people like Germaine Greer who were going out of their way, first of all to use these words in public to try to tear down some of the taboo that was around women using words.

"But also you had them just making sure that men heard them and understood that women said these words too."

Some women paid a cost for their verbal activism. Germaine Greer, for example, was convicted and risked jail time for saying "bullshit" and "fuck" at a town hall meeting in New Zealand in 1972.

Bodily fluids hanging in there

Not all swear words have changed over time. Those to do with body parts or bodily fluids, for example, "are sticking on a little bit longer", Dr Manns says.

"Because these [continue to be] taboo words for people … in everyday society."

But that doesn't mean the way we use those words hasn't evolved.

Dr Manns points to work by Monash University PhD researcher Dylan Hughes, who observed Victorian secondary school students and noted that they used the c-word as an insult related to another person.

"But they won't use it if there's even the slightest touch of sexism associated with it, so there's definitely a lot of care taken," he says.

And as for who in the English-speaking world swears the best — or at least, the most — the jury is out.

Dr Manns says there is some evidence to suggest that Australians swear more than people in other countries.

But other research suggests, for better or worse, that we're trailing behind the US.

Point of pride? Or room for improvement?

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Britain’s Violent Riots: What We Know

Officials had braced for more unrest on Wednesday, but the night’s anti-immigration protests were smaller, with counterprotesters dominating the streets instead.

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By Lynsey Chutel

After days of violent rioting set off by disinformation around a deadly stabbing rampage, the authorities in Britain had been bracing for more unrest on Wednesday. But by nightfall, large-scale anti-immigration demonstrations had not materialized, and only a few arrests had been made nationwide.

Instead, streets in cities across the country were filled with thousands of antiracism protesters, including in Liverpool, where by late evening, the counterdemonstration had taken on an almost celebratory tone.

Over the weekend, the anti-immigration protests, organized by far-right groups, had devolved into violence in more than a dozen towns and cities. And with messages on social media calling for wider protests and counterprotests on Wednesday, the British authorities were on high alert.

With tensions running high, Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s cabinet held emergency meetings to discuss what has become the first crisis of his recently elected government. Some 6,000 specialist public-order police officers were mobilized nationwide to respond to any disorder, and the authorities in several cities and towns stepped up patrols.

Wednesday was not trouble-free, however.

In Bristol, the police said there was one arrest after a brick was thrown at a police vehicle and a bottle was thrown. In the southern city of Portsmouth, police officers dispersed a small group of anti-immigration protesters who had blocked a roadway. And in Belfast, Northern Ireland, where there have been at least four nights of unrest, disorder continued, and the police service said it would bring in additional officers.

But overall, many expressed relief that the fears of wide-scale violence had not been realized.

Here’s what we know about the turmoil in Britain.

Where arrests have been reported

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