The world is full of things that people don’t like. That could be other people, ideas, art, food, and even facts. If something exists, you better believe somebody hates it. If enough people get together to dislike something, an entire society can shun that thing and it becomes taboo. Throughout history, there have been a lot of taboos — cannibalism comes to mind — and mostly we can get behind these things. But every once in a while something pops up that’s a little harder to justify for its taboo status.
10. Bananas Were Once Considered Immoral
There is a far greater than 0% chance that you or someone you know has picked up a banana in your presence and made a joke about the shape of it. It may be juvenile, it may be uncreative, but it’s also what are the oldest and most reliable jokes in the fruit world.
While everybody understands the idea behind making a phallic banana joke, less well-known is that people took this stuff seriously once upon a time and bananas were actually considered pretty immoral.
You can thank colonialism for this one, as when Europeans first discovered bananas in the 1800s they devoted time to explaining how to disguise the shape of a banana to not offend anyone. As delicious as a banana is, no self-respecting British citizen wanted to be caught nibbling the tip of one, lest their reputation be sullied.
This was all very intentional, of course. It’s not like the modern world invented the idea of a penis joke by any means. Silent films of the ’20s used bananas as a very explicit metaphor, and polite society clearly knew the implications of the nefarious fruit for years.
9. Green Hats are Taboo in China
Some taboos are very much a cultural thing, and the meaning behind them really doesn’t extend well beyond borders. For instance, look at a green hat. On St Patrick’s Day, you’ll be hard-pressed to find a bar anywhere in the Western Hemisphere that isn’t full of people in green hats drunkenly embracing Irish heritage whether or not they have it. Head East and things will change significantly.
In China, you never want to wear a green hat. Wearing a green hat means you are being cheated on according to Chinese superstition. You’d think that if no one ever wore a green hat, then fidelity would be the standard for all of society, but that’s not exactly how this superstition works.
In Chinese, a man whose wife cheats on him is called “dai lu mao.” If you translate the traditional Chinese you get the word “cuckold” which makes sense but then there’s the literal translation of the Chinese characters which is “wearing a green hat.” The idea is so taboo that if you’re caught committing a traffic violation, police may make you wear a green hat in public to shame you so that you don’t do it again.
There’s apparently a link between this and the Yuan dynasty when it was said that the relatives of prostitutes were forced to wear green hats. Whatever the potential validity or history of the idea, that’s why green hats are not in fashion today.
8. Men’s Shorts Were Once Considered Offensive in America
Have you ever seen a man wearing shorts in the summer and they were just too short for your liking and you thought “No, this doesn’t seem right?” You are not alone. Once upon a time, men wearing shorts in America was an altogether taboo act.
Even in the modern era, shorts are not welcome everywhere. There are stories about boys at school and even adult men in workplaces being sent home to change because they wore shorts.
Shorts on men were considered improper and immodest. The town of Honesdale Pennsylvania banned wearing shorts in 1938 by pointing out that the town is not a bathing beach. Even as late as 1959, a town in New York banned shorts for anyone over the age of 16. Shorts were strictly meant for children who apparently didn’t know any better, and could look foolish in the eyes of adults. If you were caught wearing shorts, you could get up to 25 days in jail.
7. The Scottish are Said to Have a Historical Aversion to Pork
If you’re not from the UK, you may not have a very clear idea of Scottish cuisine. Everyone knows haggis, but what else? While you can Google the topic and learn about what the good folks of the Highlands might enjoy eating, you may notice a lack of pork on the menu. That’s not to say there’s no pork in Scotland, but you’ll find it’s not nearly as widespread as other meats. This is thanks to a historical aversion to pork with some hard to pin down roots in Scottish culture.
Scots not eating pork has a pretty long history. In 1920 it was proposed that this anti-pork stance goes all the way back to pre-Roman times. While the rest of Europe was happy to enjoy pork chops, Scots tried to stay away from it. Books from the 1800s referenced it and James VI of Scotland was known to hate pork as far back as his reign in the 1500s.
Some of this taboo seems to be rooted in superstition. With pigs not being native to Scotland, and the animal being so rare, there are accounts of people seeing them for the first time and thinking that they were demons. Others believed pigs caused diseases like cancer and leprosy.
While many other theories have been presented as to why pigs and the Scottish don’t seem to get along, the easiest conclusion to draw is that no one knows why pork is not traditionally something eaten in Scotland.
6. The First Man to Use an Umbrella in England was Shamed
New technology often comes with resistance. Sometimes you’re mocked for using something new and everyone gets on board and agrees. Things like the Segway scooter, for instance. Those never became cool, and we’re all the better for it. But what about something a little simpler like the umbrella?
The first man to use an umbrella in England was Jonas Hanway and people made fun of him mercilessly. It wasn’t that no one knew what an umbrella was it was just that they all thought umbrellas were garbage. Only a truly effeminate man would ever walk around with an umbrella, a symbol of everything wrong and weak in the world. They really hated umbrellas back then.
Umbrellas were considered tools of Frenchmen, and no one wanted to be mistaken for a Frenchman in England. Basically, it was something womanly and pathetic according to the standards of the day. History proved the desire not to get soaking wet as something more important.
5. Many Early Cultures Had a Taboo Against Naming Bears Directly
Are you afraid of bears? Maybe in a general sense, you’re not because you don’t ever run across bears in your day-to-day life, but if you did run into a bear it’s entirely reasonable that you would be afraid of it, right? They’re typically apex predators where they live, and toe to toe against a human, a bear is going to win every time. They’re so frightening, in fact, that the name of a bear is taboo.
Now you may be thinking that the name of a bear isn’t taboo because it’s right there, bear. It looks like the word bear was actually devised to come up with a way to refer to the animal without using its real name like it was a big furry Voldemort.
The English “bear,” the Dutch “beer,” the German “baer,” the Swedish “bjorn” and a lot of other words for bear can all be traced to the same proto-Indo-European origin – “*bher” or brown. The name means “brown one” and it was what people called bears rather than calling them by their true name, another proto-Indo-European word *rkto. These words are spelled with an asterisk in front of them to indicate linguists are sort of just guessing.
It’s been hypothesized that in many of the early cultures where bears were common, the taboo against calling them by name came about because they were so terrifying, it was best to only talk about them in a roundabout way, like calling them the brown one, instead of naming them directly.
4. Many Marines Consider Apricots Taboo
The Marines are known for being some of the toughest soldiers in the armed forces. But that doesn’t mean they’re above falling prey to superstition. For instance, Marines and apricots don’t get along. The taboo against them dates back to World War II.
Like all soldiers, Marines are issued rations when in the field. Included in those rations were apricots. They’re lightweight, don’t take up a lot of room, and offer some quick nutrients. Now here’s where things get a little sketchy. If a tank ever broke down, there would be apricots on board. That’s kind of obvious if they’re part of your rations, but soldiers are a superstitious bunch at the best of times. The more tanks broke down over time, for whatever reason, the more people noticed there were apricots on board. Eventually, they started blaming apricots for the tanks breaking down.
Later, in Vietnam, this morphed into something even worse. If someone ate apricots, it was believed it was going to attract enemy artillery fire. Many retired Marines swore off apricots for the rest of their lives.
3. Kissing In Public Was and Sometimes Still Is Taboo
If you’re not a fan of PDA then take heart, a lot of history agrees with you. Kissing in public has been a taboo at many times and in many places and, in fact, still is in some places.
Historically, public kissing was often done only between men, as in a subject kissing the hand of his Lord or even a platonic kiss in greeting like you might still see in parts of Europe. Unmarried women were usually not invited to the kissing parties and even if you were married your only public kiss might be the one on your wedding day.
In countries like China and Japan, public kissing was long considered a taboo practice and is only becoming accepted more recently. Countries like India and Thailand still typically shy away from any public affection.
2. Christmas Was Once Taboo in New England
For at least a decade now, every year at Christmas, the media will focus on the so-called War on Christmas. This is all very ironic since, once upon a time, Christmas was unwelcome in certain parts of America. Especially in New England.
In the 1600s, Puritan settlers in New England enacted laws banning Christmas and punishing those who might celebrate it. In the Massachusetts Bay Colony, anyone who celebrated between 1659 and 1681 was fined. Their beef? It focused too heavily on pagan traditions.
The taboo on Christmas remained in various places throughout New England all the way until 1870 when it was declared a federal holiday, thus making it hard to get away from or be punished for on the local level.
1. The “Euphemism Treadmill” Refers to the Habit of Coming Up with New Polite Terms for “Taboo” Words
Language taboos are some of the most common taboos we have in the modern world. Some words are so taboo we won’t even say them when discussing them, and if you don’t know what we mean by that, well, use your imagination.
Other words are cycled out of the common vernacular as people decide they are no longer suitable for use. For instance, the word elderly is considered offensive now when 10 years ago no one would bat an eye over it. A term like “older adult” is considered less offensive.
The term “euphemism treadmill” was devised to explain this habit we have of declaring a word taboo, replacing it until that new word is taboo, and then coming up with yet another term. “Cripple” becomes “handicapped” becomes “disabled” becomes “person with a disability.” All words start as the polite new term until the emotional charge behind it or the way people use it becomes intolerable and a new term is needed.