Throughout history most languages, I suspect, have contained words regarded as holy, magic, dangerous, or shocking, whose use has been restricted to one degree or another to specific situations or speakers. Michael Swan, for example, records that in some African tribes the names of dead chiefs must not be spoken (1980: 589). In other societies names of deities or words associated with religious beliefs are often confined to ceremonial occasions or to ritual uses by priests. Think of the Tetragrammaton, "YHWH".¹ Forbidden to say or write the proper name in full, when reading the Torah Jews use the term Adonai (lord). The use of such words, and often even their mere mention, is considered taboo. Violators proceed at their own risk: they invite the (possibly dire) consequences of breaching these rules.