Swearing

[helpme!]

Where do swear words originate from and why are they offensive?

[kempie]

A trite answer would be that they originated from Anglo-Saxon and that they hurt delicate Norman French ears!

[acw]

Is that an essay title or question?

[Grunty]

It's a little difficult to answer when we would be edited for quoting them.  The one that begins with b and has double g in the middle is said to refer to the Romans' opinion of the Bulgarian people's preferences for relationships.  One that begins s and ends t was a perfectly respectable medieval word, and many towns still have a s-brook as a testament to their old sanitary arrangements.

[acw]

I've just realised that Grunty is thinking how I was, but the question may be a little more general than that.  The Roman reference to the Bulgarians and the three letter one often following "you little" and rhyming with 'pod' are all supposedly sexual insults.  ******* (this should NOT be edited out - it's in the dictionary and I'm using it to define it Ed, so please don't be all Fascist on me!) of course refers to illegitimate children. 

 

Maybe the question is more general though.  As in - where did the concept of swearing start, and why is it offensive.  Does this have something to do with blaspheming I wonder?

[acw]

Quelle surprise - it edited out a perfectly legitimate word.  It sounds like "bar-steward". 

 

Helpme - I think you'll have to ask on a less controlling site to get some answers hun!!! Good luck!

[rooftrouser]

This is a very interesting question and it is frustrating albeit understandable to be so censored. Thinking of all the swear words I can, they seem to fall into 3 categories: religious e.g. D***n or B****y (from By Our Lady, I think), scatological e.g., s***t and sexual e.g. the f and c words. The degree of offense seems to have varied with time as Grunty mentions (in the same vein, London's Grape Street was once called Gropec**t Lane) and culture. The French equivalents of s***t and c***t for example have a much broader useage and acceptability than their English counterparts.

[rooftrouser]

Oops. I'm not an American - Offense was just a typo. I think it might be relatively easy to Google up some information on the origin of individual swearwords but the origin of the concept itself is much more intriguing and I imagine very ancient. I presume that the chap who accidentally chopped his thumb off while shaping his stone axe would have said something other than "Oh bother, that is going to be a trifle inconvenient"

[jno]

rooftrouser is right, I believe. The three categories he/she lists are the three things that English speakers get most steamed up about - sex, religion and toilets. Words go in and out of acceptability - it was once okay to say ***, now it isn't - but this reflects the unacceptability of the thought behind it as much as of the word itself. Though c**t [I'm putting in my own asterisks to save the robot the trouble] has become improper in everyday speech, for instance, it's notable that nothing has replaced it.

But it's quite likely that other cultures with different hangups have different swearwords: eskimos, as well as having thousands of words for snow, may have a series of expletives all based on comparing someone to a walrus.

[jno]

oh blimey. the asterisked word in my last post began with w and rhymed with hog - and yes, I agree it's offensive, that's why I needed it as an example. My apologies if anyone was genuinely offended, though.

In case the robots strike again, the second word in this post began with b and rhymes with limey.

[THECORBYLOON]

Why are swear words offensive? What sort of ****** daft question is that? ****!

[Philtaz]

I have read that the word F*** was brought about as a result of the charges that were often pressed regarding offenders i.e For Unlawful Carnal Knowldge.

Don't know how true it is though.

[acw]

Corbyloon - like i said... i smell an essay question!  AB should be renamed HWK! Teehee!

[rooftrouser]

Philtaz, I like that idea but the origin would seem to predate the English of that phrase since it appears in Middle English, as fuken (how's your Middle English Mr Censor Robot?). Maybe some wag deliberately formulated the charge to fit the word rather than the other way round.
Speaking of liking an idea: I am still chuckling over those Eskimoes and their walrus-comparison expletives, jno - Thanks

[jno]

Note that well-spoken people who nonetheless want to murmur something when they chop off their thumbs have a lot of bowdlerised forms usually differing from the real thing by one vowel or consonant. Gosh! Shoot! Darn! Beggar it! Gee whiz!

[Octavius]

Philatz - That was an album by Van Halen!

The F word is a very old word, recorded in English since the 15th century (few acronyms predate the 20th century), with cognates in other Germanic languages. The Random House Historical Dictionary of American Slang (Random House, 1994, ISBN 0-394-54427-7) cites Middle Dutch fokken = "to thrust, copulate with"; Norwegian dialect fukka = "to copulate"; and Swedish dialect focka = "to strike, push, copulate" and fock = "penis". Although German ficken may enter the picture somehow, it is problematic in having e-grade, or umlaut, where all the others have o-grade or zero-grade of the vowel.

[Octavius]

On the other part of the question, they were generally considered offensive because originally they were meant as a curse to a particular person.  For example (taken from the delightful Monty Python film Holy Grail):

"Go and boil your bottoms, you sons of silly persons!"

and French Soldier to Sir Gallahad:

"Ah don' wanna talk to you no more, you empty-headed animal food-trough wiper! I fart in your general direction! Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries!"

[landie]

I don't believe that words, in themselves, can be truly offensive. It is perhaps the circumstances or the demeanour of the speaker that creates offence,

[flaming]

I imagine that there were other 'PC' times in our history and at different times it would be deemed improper to refer disparagingly to the parentage of a person.  At another time, references to any private parts or sexual acts would have been considered unfit for genteel ears.   We take on these social censorships following legislation these days but at one time the church authorities would have dictated 'sensitive' words.  I suppose one would say 'RC' i.e. religiously correct.  We now socially censor some words referrng to homosexuals, females, people of different races, because of society's general agreement with the fact that it is shocking to say words which, no more than a half-century ago, would have been quite acceptable.  I imagine that a stock of future swear words from the 20th century is building up nicely!    

[jenstar]

Having your words censored by a bunch of grupping flaughts is way more offensive than any of the words themselves.