This is a question I’ve always wanted to know the answer to. What are the origins of swear words? Who invented them and did they mean something different at the time? The other thing I don’t know is why swear words offend people so much. How did certain words come to be so offensive? They are just words so why, for instance, do some people think that somehow kids are gonna be harmed just 'cos they hear a bunch of sounds vocalised in a particular way?
F*ck Off.
(No offense, I learned it from my uncle.)
As demonmstrated by Farmer, people who can think of no better way to express themselves than through the use of swear words have a very limited imagination at best, and a very limited vocabulary at worst. ‡
Many swear words appear in similes such as “_____ as sh*t” where you can fill in the blank with any of the following:
cold
hot
windy
mean
slow
fast
good
bad
and so on.
An attemt at describing how cold it is outside by drawing a comparison to a steaming pile of excriment is just mind boggling to me, and the only conclusion I can reach about the person who makes such a statement is that they must have a very limited vocabulary since they obviously don’t know the words ice, Alaska, Siberia, north/south pole or liquid nitrogen.
We can also draw a similar conclusion about a person who says “cold as hell”, since most people are familiar with the idea that the mythical land of hell is supposed to be extremely hot.
You may counter with the argument that you are just trying to add extreme emphasis to your expression of how cold it is by inserting an objectionable word. I would suggest that, while your choice of words may be indeed be extreme, technically they are wrong. There are more accurate & less offensive words you can use to get your point across.
As to why the words are offensive in and of themselves, for the most part the words are often used with the express purpose of causing emotional distress (cf. farmer’s post above) and slander. We are accustomed to feeling a little sour when we hear them, a la Pavlov.
My usual response: Can’t you think of anything better than that to say?
[sub]‡ Farmer does not fit into either of these categories. He was trying to be funny.[/sub]
Could I just ask one question? What’s the big fuckin’ deal bitch?
Basically, our swear words are based on social and religious taboos. The whole idea of swear words is to be as rude and naughty as possible, thus expressing both your inner feelings and your contempt for society’s rules as a whole.
It is considered immoral or sinful to “take the Lord’s name in vain” in manny religions, so imprecations such as “Christ on a crutch” and “God damn it” are considered naughty.
Similarly, sex and defecation are not considered proper subjects for polite company, so words like “fuck” and “shit” and all the variations thereof are also naughty.
Why don’t we want children to hear them if they are just words? Because words represent ideas, and we don’t want to go around giving children ideas, do we?
The words are offensive because of what they mean. Think of the worst swear words you can… fuck, shit, goddamn, cock, cunt, asshole. See the connection?
In polite conversation you can’t talk about having sex or going to the bathroom. Names of body parts involved in either of these acts are also out, as are associated verbs. It’s guilt by association. Blasphemy is of course also a no-no.
Once the meaning of the words is established, you can then call upon the taboo power of what they refer to by using them to intensify statements that have, forgive the term, fuck all to do with sex or excretion.
I think English cursing is pretty interesting, given how much mileage we get out of just a few actual cuss words. It’s a shame that socially insecure folks always try and equate the social confidence of cussing with linguistic ignorance.
-fh
jinx! aseymayo, buy me a coke! 
-fh
While most (all?) societies have words that are taboo or contexts in which certain words are taboo, the rules vary from group to group and from period to period.
Currently, the words that are considered the most taboo in North American English-speaking society are those that are those dealing with lustful sex or bodily waste. (It would be pretty hard to find someone who would be grievously insulted if they were told “Drive yourself wild with desire.” and even “Perform autocopulation” is only really insulting because it is a minced version of “Fuck yourself,” not because anyone finds the nonsense word “autocopulate” offensive.)
While fuck was probably never a really polite word, it did not always have the same emotional response that it does today. Similarly, shit and the various “vulgar” words associated with defecation or urination have not always had the same emotional power that they do, today. At different times, they were simply the words used to describe those actions or their byproducts.
Previously, in English, (and still true, today, to a certain degree in French and Spanish, for example) the most powerful taboo words (actually, phrases) were curses or oaths. When society was more directly linked to religious belief, the “worst” thing that one could say was to violate the strictures found in Scripture forbidding the profanation of God’s name, the swearing of oaths, or the cursing of other people. “Damn you.” had a lot more power when people believed that uttering such a statement might, indeed, jeopardize their eternal salvation. “Sweet Jesus” was much more effective when everyone around you recognized that you had just jeopardized your soul by violating the prohibition against taking God’s name in vain. Calling on God or the saints to witness the truth of one’s statements was considered an extremely brazen and insulting thing to do.
If you read older literature, you will note that people are accused of having “uttered an oath” or of having “cursed.” Those were literally the most terrible utterances one could produce in society.
As society became more secular, such phrases had less impact. If you now declaimed “By Teresa of Lisieux, Mary who stood at the Cross, and Elizabeth of Hungary, may her name be praised, I was the last one to take out the trash.” you would be much more likely to deemed odd than offensive.
As the religious motif lost its power, the “unmentionable” aspects of life took their place. I do not know whether this was the result of the Victorian penchant for hiding “private” things or whether the Victorians were simply reflecting a movement away from the sacred toward the secular that was already in motion.
Why do some words make it onto the taboo list and others do not? I have no idea. Words don’t even keep their meanings. I can remember when saying that something was “screwed up” was grounds for a reprimand by one’s parents because it was understood that it was a minced form of “fucked up.” Now, I suspect that Billy Graham or Miss Manners could say it in a public speech and no one would even note that they had not simply said “messed up.”
There are dynamics of sounds that are associated with our current crop of taboo words. Fuck and shit each begin with fairly soft sounds that are breathed out (with no “voice”) and can be extended to provide a build-up and are then closed off appruptly with a terminal sound that allows no question that the word (and the sentiment) is complete. Conversely, damn begins with an abrupt sound that is then prolonged for as long as one wants through the short a, ending with the “voiced” m that can be held to extend the feeling. Other words can be found that share those phonemic characteristics, however, and it is the basic meaning that lends “power” to the cussing.
Just to identify the varieties of “bad” words:
_ curse - calling down God’s wrath or to condemn to suffering
_ profanity - using a sacred name in a non-sacred (profane) context (e.g., using the name Jesus simply as an emphatic)
_ swearing - literally to take an oath, to call upon a divine or holy witness to one’s word
_ obscenity - a reference to sexual (especially lustful) activities
_ vulgarity - a reference that only a “common” (vulgar) person would use (e.g., using old Anglo-Saxon based words to refer to urination or defecation rather than the refined euphemisms taken from French or Latin)
Having said all that, I don’t actually know what psychological or sociological impetus there is to say words that could offend or to take offense at words that are, after all, just sounds expressing ideas.
Did words like “shit” and “fuck” and “cunt” start out as polite, everyday words hundreds of years ago and then somehow become impolite (kind of like the word “retarded” is doing) or were they cuss words from the start?
I believe such Anglo-Saxonisms started out as simple descriptive words - it was only later they became thought of as vulgar.
One interesting point is that English has no real “neutral” term for that room in which we excrete - only terms that are thought vulgar (shithouse, crapper, etc.) or are euphemisms based on the fact that we also usually wash up there (bathroom, lavatory, water-closet, etc.) Even “toilet” which is thought of as neutral now, is simply an older euphemism, “to make one’s toilet” basically meaning to wash up or groom oneself. Since for other vulgarities we use Latin forms as “neutral” terms (penis, vagina, anus, copulate), I suppose something like “the excretory” would be the proper form.
I knew as soon as I saw the OP that some folks would be unable to resist posts with nothing but profanity.
Ha ha. It having been done a couple of times in this thread, I would hope that future posts emulate the better ones already extant here.
Thanks.
I think that the words currently considered the most taboo in North American English-speaking society are racial or otherwise bigoted epithets. Remember during the O.J. trial, when all the reporters were talking about “the ‘N’ word”?
Point taken. Now all we have to do is figure out whether those words are so taboo that they cannot be used even as epithets of pain or anger, or whether they are really not “all that” taboo, rendering them ineffective as epithets of pain and anger. (The latter seems unlikely to me.) A third possibility is that they simply fall into an entirely different category of word use.
There are many reasons why nigger, kike, Polack, and similar words might not be used (they are not verbs, they are not insulting to persons one would normally honor, etc.). On the other hand, we have already used them in earlier times and they may have just become passé. Some of the earlier uses linger on in “Indian summer,” “Indian giver,” “niggerhead” (a name used commonly as late as the 1960s for a timberhead on a ship) and some others. Currently, gay is being used as an all-purpose negative adjective (primarily among those who are still in school). Gay is not being used (that I know of) as a cuss word. Unfortunately, I don’t have enough background in language to know whether these words are too powerful to be used for cussing or whether there is another dynamic at work. Given the power of profanity 500 years ago, I would suspect that it is a different dynamic that keeps slurs from becoming cuss words. I do not, however, know what that is.
I’m afraid I have to disagree with your opinion here, Attrayant (although I can see the logic of your case). Many people, such as yourself, argue that “if a person resorts to the use of a swear word, he or she has lost the debate”. Whilst I can see the point of this, I have to say that I subscribe to the following idea: “some opponents in a debate are too contemptible for me to bother thinking up a dry, witty response to their pathetic little ideas. Why not then simply instruct them to “f**k off”?”
Another interesting angle on this comes from Vietnamese people I know. Take for example the Vietnamese colloquial word for “penis” (in other words, the translation of “dick”) - it is “con cac”. Now, the Vietnamese people I know living here in Australia have obviously learned the Western secondary usage of words such as this: insults (actually calling a person a “con cac”). But when I travelled to Vietnam itself, I found that the people there had no experience of using these words in such a manner. They’d be thinking, “Why are you calling me a penis?” It’d be like calling somebody an “elbow”.
Simple answer, but worth considering:
Because words or statements like; You’re the most decent person I’ve ever met! or Thank you, for what you did. or simply, I love you, need to have an opposite in order to give them more weight, or value.
In the same way that seeing someone in worse shape than you’re in, either financialy, emotionally or whatever produces a greater appreciation of your own position when viewed in that particular context.
Too mushy for 2001? Sorry.
tom, I would have thought that the decline of religious terms as powerful swear words in English-speaking society would have started with the Reformation. The Protestants tended to downplay the entire concept of saints and the significance of the BVM, so you would lose a lot of oaths right there: “By our Lady’s Mantle…” “I call on St. James the Greater to witness…” and so on.
Of course, that wouldn’t eliminate all the religous-based oaths - damnation, the devil, and so on would still be powerful words, not to be uttered in polite company. (My favourite oath from the 18th century: “Damn your eyes!” - a nice, rollicking ring to it.) Plus, the Victorians were a pretty religious group, by and large, so I wouldn’t have thought that the Victorian period would be a time when the remaining “Protestant” religious oaths would be losing their significance.
Just random thoughts.
Profanity is the crutch of inarticulate motherfuckers…
ducking and running
-Dani
I can’t really imagine someone hitting their thumb with a hammer and yelling “Nigger”…
Actually, I think we need stronger words than “fuck”. “fuck” is used too often (like now) for no real reason, There needs to be a word that is ONLY used in very limited circumstances, and if someone says it, a big deal is made about it, really. I hear the word “fuck” at least 20 times on my bus ride home from school, I’m not lying.
It’s been hinted around, but to be, err, explicit:
A lot of English swear words were normal Anglo-Saxon terms for various bodily functions that were replaced by Latinate words brought over, IIRC, by the Norman conquering.
In other words shit was replaced by defecate, and shit became vulgar. Fuck was replaced by copulate and became vulgar. This didn’t effect all words; for instance sweat and perspire are both nonvulgar, and bleed is actually less taboo than menstruate in our culture.
All this comes from my Linguistics text, which I sadly no longer have because that was last semester.
–John
I am posting for the following reasons:
[list=1]
[li]No one has yet answered the part of the OP that says, “What are the origins of swear words? Who invented them and did they mean something different at the time?”[/li][li]I love providing links to thoughtful things I posted in the past[/li][li]You know…[/li][/list=1]
Anyhoo, Satan started a GD thread a while back about making the Board censor posts automatically, and I mentioned an answer to the OP there. If you want, head over and search for my username.