Vulgarism

"Vulgarism" derives from Latin vulgus. the "common folk", and has carried into English its original connotations linking it with the low and coarse motivations supposed to be natural to the commons, who were not moved by higher motives like fame for posterity and honor among peers that were alleged to move the literate classes.

Although most dictionaries offer "obscene word or language" as a definition for vulgarism, others have insisted that a vulgarism in English usage is different from either profanity or obscenity, which connote offenses against a deity and the community respectively. One kind of vulgarism, defined by the OED as "a colloquialism of a low or unrefined character," substitutes a coarse word where the context might lead the reader to expect a more refined expression: "the tits on Botticelli's Venus" is a vulgarism.

More broadly, as "vulgarity" generally has a social and moral component, a "vulgarism" offers a substitution for a commonplace that is not a mere euphemism; it draws attention to the speaker's high-toned moral superiority or sophistication. Some fatal flaw in the usage often reveals that the speaker's ambitions are not based in reality: vulgarisms are pretentious, in that they lay unwarranted claim to social graces and education and attempt to inflate the user's status.

Several examples will be instructive.

A case in point is objects d'art which denotes ornamental decorative objects of little practical use but considered by the user to be of some artistic merit and material value. The phrase is taken from 19th-century English auctioneers' puffery, with the assumption that if it were French it was of a higher standard of artistry. "Objects d'art" is a gaffe aiming at the French objets d'art ('artistic objects' ). It appeared in Rothschild wills published in the late 19th century, and it is an expression now in common English usage. Like most vulgarisms, it is a shibboleth, defining the status of the speaker.

The substitution of homes for brick-and-mortar houses had its origins in real estate salesman's pitch which implied that the hearth or foyer of family life could be bought in the market, ready-installed in its architectural shell. The inflation was a vulgarism for at least two generations. Today it has gained such wide acceptance that it simply distinguishes middle-class from upper-class usage; or as Nancy Mitford, an expert on the subject, would have said 'U' from 'Non U' usage.