Guarding Language Traditions

While studying the peculiarities of home communication, one can notice that many families deliberately exclude words capable of evoking negative emotions or associations. Raised in an environment where certain terms were associated with something unacceptable, children learn not only to communicate but also to form their own attitudes toward words. This is not so much a formal prohibition as it is the deep internalization of norms, where concepts such as finance, state institutions, or social statuses are kept outside the home and do not find their place in everyday speech.

This approach is driven by the desire to preserve the purity and neatness of language, as well as to avoid conflicts and misunderstandings that can arise from ambiguous or controversial terms. Family traditions and personal experiences play a huge role in how we perceive and use words, reflecting cultural and emotional attitudes built over the years. Thus, the exclusion of certain words becomes a kind of symbol of respect for communication traditions and a pursuit of harmonious interactions between people.

What words or expressions are consciously excluded from your vocabulary and what might be behind such a choice?

Based on the presented materials, it can be said that the vocabulary consciously excludes words and expressions with a strongly marked social, economic, or even cultural tint, which are associated with certain negative attitudes or taboos. For example, one source, noting the influence of family traditions and childhood experiences, emphasizes that a whole range of terms—such as words pertaining to state hierarchy, finances, as well as various relationships and events—has never been part of the customary household vocabulary. The author notes:

"But it never reached us, never reached me. Even a number of words, around which gossip usually crystallizes, was resolutely excluded from the home vocabulary: service, management, orders, awards, governors and ministers, money, pay, grooms and brides, husbands and wives, births and deaths, funerals and weddings, priests and all sorts of theological terms, Jews and various thorny national issues, etc., etc.—literally countless—themes that, along with many others, were, at least in my childhood consciousness, taboo. No one formally forbade us from using such words and discussing the corresponding concepts—except for just two: money and pay, which were regarded as absolutely indecent." (source: 1076_5375.txt)

From this passage, it is clear that the refusal to use these words is determined less by an external prohibition and more by the reflection of internally adopted norms, where some concepts are associated with negativity or were deemed indecent. Such a choice may stem from the desire to maintain a certain notion of decent communication, wherein language—as a carrier of culture and personal experiences—should not be burdened with terms that provoke emotional or social ambiguity.

Such exclusion of words can also be motivated by the wish to avoid misunderstandings and conflicts—after all, not every word is perceived in the same way by different people, and the same terms may evoke various associations that one might prefer to avoid within the context of communication.