[cduzz]

Those words are "taboo" because they convey a direct "you are property or worse and I can hurt you and you can't stop me" violent threat. At the moment, at least in some parts of the world, that _violence_ is what is taboo. Maybe some people don't understand the implicit meaning, but lots of people do, especially the ones who're threatened.

That article didn't discuss class / culture, so whatever a nobel who's threatening an underling might say, "peon" or whatever, wasn't mentioned. Elsewhere someone made the distinction between 'insult' and 'slur' which I think is a good way to distinguish vulgarity/insult from threat.