What I find really interesting is how humans give this kind of power to certain words, and not to others.
These words, which are just a series of phonetic sounds strung together in some order, connect with patterns of ideas in our heads; in the necessary recall based on those sounds, we have this (likely socially conditioned) reaction to some words as "ok for use, some as "bad", some as "foul", and some as "offensive" - and a few that may almost be termed "never to utter".
Interestingly, few of the latter categories are filled with words relating to violence...
Can you think of a word dealing with directly with violence, that would fall into the "offensive" or "never to utter" categories? The concept (and perhaps the word) "eugenics" is almost there, but not quite.
Honestly, any word or utterance can become one of "these words", and over time, sometimes members of the categories can even fall back out. It is clearly a social contract based thing, otherwise words like "fag", which are casually used in Britain, but considered verboten (unless you are a member of the group - and even then, I think, only used in certain ways - there are other words used this way, too, as a means of division "us vs them", of course, that humans are so fond of) in the US - would be commonly thought of as "verboten" in some manner.
Humans are funny creatures who at times, take themselves waaay too seriously (and at other times, when there is real harm of life, limb, and existence - not seriously enough - ahem, START treaty, anyone?)...