Mythbusting Vulgar: Who Appointed the Taste Police?

There are words that describe things.

And then there are words that quietly describe the people who are allowed to describe things.

Vulgar belongs in the second category.

Call someone's language vulgar.Their clothing vulgar.Their humor vulgar.Their appetite vulgar.Their house vulgar.Their sexuality vulgar.Their ambition vulgar.

You haven't merely criticized an object or behavior.

You have potentially announced:

“I possess a standard of refinement that places me above the people associated with this thing.”

And that makes vulgar a fascinating little word to investigate.

Because before it meant coarse, tasteless, obscene, or ill-bred, it meant something considerably less insulting:

common. Ordinary. Popular. Vernacular. Of the people.

The word comes from Latin vulgaris, “of or pertaining to the common people,” from vulgus, the multitude or common people. English acquired vulgar in the 14th century, initially with senses including common, ordinary, and generally understood. The meaning “coarse, low, ill-bred” emerged later, becoming established by the 17th century. (Etymology Online)

So somewhere along the road from “common” to “crude,” something culturally interesting happened.

Let's investigate.

Myth #1: Vulgar Means “Bad Taste”

Does it?

Sometimes.

A loud belch at a funeral may reasonably be called vulgar.

A joke deliberately designed to humiliate someone may be vulgar.

An ostentatious display of wealth can be vulgar.

An advertisement exploiting someone's body can be vulgar.

There are legitimate uses of the word.

Merriam-Webster's contemporary senses include lacking good manners or taste, being morally crude, tastelessly showy or pretentious, and being offensive or obscene. (Merriam-Webster)

So this investigation isn't going to make the opposite mistake and declare:

Everything called vulgar is actually wonderful.

No.

Some things really are crude.

Some things really are tasteless.

Some things really are exploitative.

Some things really are gratuitously obscene.

The interesting question is different:

When we call something vulgar, are we describing its qualities—or policing its social location?

Because those aren't the same thing.

Myth #2: “Vulgar” Has Always Meant Crude

Absolutely not.

This is where the word's history starts getting delicious.

Vulgar originally belonged to the semantic neighborhood of:

common → ordinary → popular → generally understood → vernacular.

The noun vulgar could even mean the vernacular or common language, and later the common people themselves. (Etymology Online)

And consider the linguistic irony:

Vulgar Latin

The term Vulgar Latin refers to the non-Classical Latin of everyday speech, including the speech of ordinary Romans and informal speech of educated people. It is a major ancestor of the Romance languages. (Merriam-Webster)

So the language that eventually became French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Romanian, and other Romance languages did not emerge because everyone successfully maintained the polished Latin of literary elites.

Quite the opposite.

People kept talking.

Ordinary people spoke.

Languages changed.

Grammar shifted.

Pronunciations changed.

Vocabulary migrated.

The supposedly "vulgar" speech of everyday people became the linguistic soil from which entire languages grew.

Which gives us a marvelous little historical joke:

The vulgar people were busy inventing the future while the refined people were busy deciding which version of the past sounded respectable.

Myth #3: Popular Means Inferior

This is one of the hidden assumptions inside vulgarity.

If something is:

widely enjoyed → common → ordinary → unsophisticated → vulgar

then popularity itself becomes suspicious.

But why?

There is no logical progression from:

Many people enjoy this

to:

This is aesthetically inferior.

Sometimes millions of people enjoy something because it is mediocre.

Sometimes millions enjoy something because it is excellent.

Sometimes almost nobody recognizes something until much later.

Popularity is a distribution of preference.

It is not a quality-control certificate.

Neither is unpopularity.

The obscure thing isn't automatically profound.

The popular thing isn't automatically stupid.

We have simply created a prestige game in which rarity can become evidence of refinement.

And once rarity becomes prestigious, people have an incentive to distinguish themselves from the common.

Myth #4: Vulgarity Is the Opposite of Refinement

Here's where things get socially mischievous.

Imagine two people encounter the same object.

Person A says:

“That's beautiful.”

Person B says:

“That's vulgar.”

We might imagine Person B possesses superior taste.

But perhaps Person B possesses something else:

knowledge of the codes of a particular social class.

That distinction matters.

Knowing that one restaurant, fabric, accent, architectural style, wine, artist, designer, or phrase is considered tasteful while another is considered vulgar can demonstrate considerable cultural knowledge.

But cultural knowledge and aesthetic truth aren't identical.

Sociologist Pierre Bourdieu's work on taste famously examined how aesthetic preferences become tied to social distinction: tastes can function as markers of position, education, class, and belonging. In Distinction, he argued that judgments of taste are deeply embedded in social structures rather than existing as purely individual, disinterested preferences.

That gives us a powerful hypothesis:

Sometimes “good taste” is partly the ability to recognize what one's social world has agreed to call good taste.

Which is not nothing.

But it isn't divine revelation either.

Enter the Taste Police

The Taste Police don't usually say:

“I am enforcing class boundaries.”

That would be rather gauche.

They say:

“It's just tacky.”

Or:

“It's not sophisticated.”

Or:

“That's so low-class.”

Or:

“People with taste don't do that.”

Observe what has happened.

An aesthetic judgment has become a social judgment.

And then a social judgment becomes a judgment of the person.

The chain can look like this:

I dislike this object

↓

People like this object are different from me

↓

Their taste reveals their inferiority

↓

Therefore my rejection of their taste demonstrates my refinement

And suddenly the dinner party has become a miniature caste system.

Myth #5: Vulgarity Belongs to the Poor

This one gets especially interesting because the word's history doesn't cooperate.

If vulgar means common, then vulgarity is theoretically democratic.

And yet vulgarian developed as a term for a person of vulgar tastes—interestingly, including a rich person with supposedly low ideas and vulgar manners. (Etymology Online)

That's important.

Because money doesn't automatically confer refinement.

A person can possess tremendous wealth and still be called vulgar.

Which reveals something profound:

Vulgarity isn't simply poverty.

It is a judgment about how someone uses resources, symbols, bodies, language, space, attention, and social power.

And that means the rich can be vulgar too.

Indeed, sometimes spectacularly so.

The mansion can be vulgar.

The diamond can be vulgar.

The private jet can be vulgar.

The designer logo can be vulgar.

The luxury brand can be vulgar.

The attempt to prove that one is not vulgar can itself become vulgar.

And now we have reached a beautiful paradox:

The desperate performance of refinement can become its own form of vulgarity.

The Vulgarity Paradox

Suppose someone spends enormous effort making sure nobody mistakes them for ordinary.

They acquire:

the right accent,

the right clothes,

the right references,

the right restaurants,

the right art,

the right friends,

the right vocabulary,

the right vacations,

the right opinions.

At what point does refinement become performative anxiety about not being common?

And at what point does that anxiety become—

vulgar?

😂

This is where the word becomes almost self-devouring.

Because if vulgarity means tastelessly showing off, then showing off one's refinement can itself become vulgar.

The person who loudly demonstrates how un-vulgar they are may be advertising their vulgarity with extraordinary efficiency.

Myth #6: Vulgar Means Uneducated

Not necessarily.

A person can have little formal education and extraordinary taste.

A person can possess several graduate degrees and be aesthetically unbearable.

A person can know nothing about art history and nevertheless make beautiful things.

A person can know everything about art history and produce ugly things.

Knowledge of aesthetic conventions is not the same thing as aesthetic genius.

And formal education is certainly not identical to wisdom.

This matters because “vulgar” can become a shortcut for intellectual contempt.

Instead of explaining:

“This design relies heavily on cliché.”

we say:

“It's vulgar.”

Instead of:

“The humor is predictable and relies on humiliation.”

we say:

“Vulgar.”

Instead of:

“The presentation is ostentatious relative to its actual substance.”

we say:

“Vulgar.”

Sometimes the word is doing legitimate descriptive work.

But sometimes it is simply a socially elegant way of saying “I don't like people like you.”

Myth #7: Vulgarity Is the Opposite of Authenticity

This may be one of the most interesting reversals.

The common people are where language lives.

Everyday speech evolves.

Slang emerges.

Music develops.

Fashion spreads.

Jokes mutate.

Food travels.

People combine influences.

The "vulgar" world is often extraordinarily creative because it isn't obligated to preserve the aesthetic boundaries of an elite tradition.

Consider what happens when the supposedly refined world encounters something popular and initially disapproved of:

That's vulgar.

Then:

That's trendy.

Then:

That's influential.

Then:

That's classic.

Then:

That's expensive.

Then:

That's heritage.

And eventually:

That's timeless.

😂

The thing has not necessarily changed.

Its social position has.

Vulgarity Is Sometimes Just Innovation Before the Gatekeepers Catch Up

This doesn't mean every unconventional thing deserves celebration.

It means social judgment is temporally unstable.

Yesterday's vulgarity can become tomorrow's tradition.

Yesterday's refinement can become tomorrow's kitsch.

Yesterday's underground style can become tomorrow's luxury brand.

Yesterday's forbidden language can become tomorrow's ordinary speech.

And the word vulgarize itself provides an extraordinary clue: it originally meant “make common or popular”; later it acquired the sense “debase, degrade.” (Etymology Online)

Think about that semantic transformation.

Make accessible to everybody

eventually becomes

lower the quality by making it accessible to everybody.

That is an ideological assumption hiding inside a vocabulary.

The Great Vulgarity Question

So when somebody says:

“That's vulgar.”

We should occasionally ask:

“Vulgar in what sense?”

Do you mean:

Crude?

Obscene?

Cruel?

Tasteless?

Pretentious?

Ostentatious?

Commercial?

Popular?

Ordinary?

Working-class?

Sexually explicit?

Emotionally excessive?

Unfamiliar to your social circle?

Not governed by your aesthetic conventions?

Those are radically different accusations.

And yet one little word can blur them together.

Vulgar.

Stamp.

Dismissed.

The Vulgarity-to-Clout Axis

This is where our previous investigation into clout comes back.

Clout asks:

Who has enough social recognition to matter?

Vulgarity can ask:

Who is insufficiently refined to belong?

One confers status.

The other can withhold it.

They are therefore complementary pieces of a social sorting mechanism.

Clout says:

“These are the people worth listening to.”

Vulgarity says:

“These are the people whose tastes we don't have to take seriously.”

And both can become circular.

The prestigious person has good taste because prestigious people say they have good taste.

The common person's taste is vulgar because prestigious people don't recognize it.

Then the distinction itself becomes evidence.

The social circle validates its own preferences.

But Let's Not Romanticize the Common

There is a trap waiting on the other side.

If elites can use "vulgar" to demean ordinary people, we might be tempted to reverse the hierarchy:

Common = authentic.Elite = corrupt.

That's equally lazy.

Ordinary people can be cruel.

Popular culture can be brilliant or awful.

Elites can be pretentious.

Elites can also preserve extraordinary knowledge, art, craftsmanship, scholarship, and institutions.

The point isn't to replace one status hierarchy with its inverse.

It's to stop confusing social position with aesthetic or moral truth.

A Better Vulgarity Taxonomy

Instead of one giant insult, let's distinguish.

Crude

Insufficiently considerate or socially restrained.

Obscene

Explicitly violating norms around sexual or bodily representation.

Tasteless

Poorly judged relative to a particular aesthetic or social context.

Ostentatious

Excessively displaying wealth, status, or achievement.

Pretentious

Claiming sophistication, importance, or knowledge beyond what one's conduct supports.

Kitsch

Sentimentality or aesthetic excess that can become formulaic or self-consciously artificial.

Popular

Widely circulated or enjoyed.

Vernacular

Emerging from ordinary everyday usage.

Unconventional

Outside established norms.

Vulgar

Now we have to explain what we mean.

That alone would be an improvement.

The New Taste Test

Before calling something vulgar, ask:

1. What precisely bothers me?

2. Is the problem aesthetic, ethical, social, or merely personal?

3. Would I make the same judgment if the same object came from someone of higher status?

4. Am I criticizing the thing—or the people associated with it?

5. Do I dislike it because it is genuinely poor, or because it is common?

6. Am I mistaking unfamiliarity for inferiority?

7. Am I using refinement as a proxy for social superiority?

8. Could my own performance of sophistication be the more ridiculous spectacle?

That last one should probably be mandatory.

In Defense of the Vulgar

Here is the delicious historical irony:

The vulgar is where the language is spoken.

The vulgar is where people live.

The vulgar is where slang mutates.

The vulgar is where fashions spread.

The vulgar is where food gets invented, modified, hybridized, and sold.

The vulgar is where jokes become jokes.

The vulgar is where ordinary people make meaning without waiting for permission.

Even the Latin root gives us the multitude, the crowd, the common people. (Etymology Online)

So perhaps we should rescue one part of the word.

Not:

Vulgar = bad.

But:

Vulgar = of the people.

And then we can reserve our actual criticism for the thing that deserves it:

cruelty, pretension, exploitation, bad judgment, gratuitous obscenity, ostentation, contempt, dishonesty.

Those are qualities.

“Common” is not.

Who Appointed the Taste Police?

That is ultimately the question.

Who decided that this accent sounds educated?

Who decided this fabric is elegant?

Who decided this body is respectable?

Who decided this joke is beneath us?

Who decided this food is sophisticated?

Who decided this neighborhood is tasteful?

Who decided that ordinary people are the wrong audience?

And who benefits when everyone agrees?

Sometimes the answer will be:

nobody in particular.

Taste genuinely evolves.

Cultures develop conventions.

People acquire preferences.

Standards can emerge for good reasons.

But sometimes the answer will be:

a social hierarchy protecting its boundaries.

And sometimes—

a person simply doesn't like something and has dressed the dislike in a fancy suit.

The Final Myth to Bust

Perhaps the greatest myth is that refinement is the opposite of vulgarity.

Maybe genuine refinement is something else entirely.

Perhaps it is the ability to distinguish without despising.

To appreciate sophistication without requiring everyone else to possess it.

To recognize beauty without needing to weaponize beauty.

To enjoy luxury without confusing luxury with virtue.

To understand etiquette without confusing etiquette with character.

To criticize bad taste without turning the people who possess it into bad people.

And perhaps the truly refined person can enter the vernacular without condescension.

Can eat ordinary food.

Can hear ordinary speech.

Can appreciate popular art.

Can laugh at an undignified joke.

Can encounter something unfamiliar without immediately reaching for the social eject button.

Because if your refinement requires the degradation of other people, perhaps it isn't refinement.

Perhaps it's merely status anxiety with good table manners.

VULGARITY IS NOT A MORAL CATEGORY BY DEFAULT.

“Common” is not the same as “inferior.”

“Popular” is not the same as “bad.”

“Refined” is not the same as “good.”

“Elite” is not the same as “wise.”

And perhaps most importantly:

If you need other people to be vulgar in order to feel refined, your refinement may already have a problem.

So let us retire the automatic social eject button.

Before calling something vulgar:

Define the offense.

Before calling someone vulgar:

Examine the hierarchy.

And before declaring yourself refined:

Check the mirror.

It may be wearing a very expensive hat.

And underneath it—

there may be a vulgarian.

Further reading

• Merriam-Webster, “vulgar” — useful for the historical meanings and contemporary semantic range. (Merriam-Webster)

• Etymonline, “vulgar” and “vulgarity” — useful for tracing the movement from “common/ordinary” toward “coarse/lacking refinement.” (Etymology Online)

• Merriam-Webster, “Vulgar Latin” — useful for understanding why “vulgar” originally had a straightforward connection to everyday speech rather than obscenity. (Merriam-Webster)

• Etymonline, “vulgarize” — particularly revealing for the semantic shift from “make common/popular” toward “debase/degrade.” (Etymology Online)