TBT: The origins of expletives

Good day, Prosers.

In this week’s Throwback Thursday, we look at the origins of swearing. The full version with beautiful imagery can be found later on the blog site. 

Let’s face it, most of us turn the air blue at some time or another. We often bleed blue ink when writing, too. Those that are offended by swearing, please look away.

Swearing, cursing, profanity and expletives all perform certain psychological functions, and use particular linguistic and neurological mechanisms; similar in behavior to chimpanzees when angry. Yes, it’s actually a form of anger management! But where did the use of expletives originate?

Unsurprisingly, many swear words have been around for thousands of years, and, of course, we have a lot to thank the ancient Romans for when it comes to swearing as a form of naughty language.

Swear words tend to fall into two categories, oaths and profanities—like taking the Lord’s name in vain—and then there's obscene words, including biological terms as well as sexual and racial slurs.

The Romans gave us a model for the obscene words type of swearing, Melissa Mohr explains in her book ‘Holy Shit: A Brief History of Swearing’. Like us, their swearing was similarly based on sexual taboos, but with a different spin. “The Romans didn’t divide people up [by being heterosexual and homosexual],” she says. “They divided people into active and passive. So what was important was to be the active partner.”

Hence, the sexual slurs used were more along the lines of words the likes of pathicus, a rather graphic term which basically means receiver. Ooer!

Swearing and cussing as we know it evolved much later on, with certain theories of their origins being acronyms savagely disregarded due to how late their examples as acronyms appeared.

"For unlawful carnal knowledge" or "fornication under consent of the king" are both false explanations for the word fuck and have a catalogued etymology. As for placing the letters S.H.I.T. as a precaution against potential explosions on containers at sea, apparently standing for "ship high in transit" — well, just no. The word shit has a much older and documented history.

Fuck can be traced back over 500 years to Norwegian fukka and Swedish focka, both meaning "to copulate." The OED's second edition, cites its use in English as fukkit in 1503, but the earliest current spelling appears as "Bischops ... may fuck thair fill and be vnmaryit" from poet Sir David Lyndesay in 1535.

“Shit is an extremely old word that’s found in Anglo-Saxon texts,” Mohr says in her book. What English-speakers now call arses and farts can also be traced back to the Anglo-Saxons, she adds, though in those times the terms wouldn’t have been considered as impolite as they are today, simply biological.

Shit as a noun nods to Old English scitte, meaning "purging, diarrhea." And just the basic form of excrement stems from Old English scytel. The action, however, has a much more widespread history — Dutch schijten and German scheissen. The Proto-Indo-European base skie conveys the idea of separation, in this case, from the body.

As for Piss, English includes this as both a noun and verb. The verb appeared in the 1300s from French pissier, "to urinate," and vulgar Latin, pissiare. The noun came later, in the 1400s, and eventually morphed into an intensifying adjective — piss-poor, piss-ugly, etc. — around World War II

Still cussing, yet to many a lesser version, is the word Bitch. As a female dog, its use dates as early as the Old Norse bikkjuna. Its use as a term of contempt to women, though, began in the 1400s.

The word is first seen used this way in the Chester Plays of the 1400s. "Who callest thou queine, skabde bitch?" Basically, "Who are you calling a whore, you miserable bitch?”

"The Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue," published in 1811, calls bitch "the most offensive appellation that can be given to an English woman, even more provoking than that of whore."

We have looked in depth at the etymology of several swear words on this blog before, all of which can be found listed in the comments section below...

But what of that which offends the religious? The term profane is from classical Latin profanus, literally "before (outside) the temple". It carried the meaning of either "desecrating what is holy" or "with a secular purpose" as early as the 1450s CE.

Profanity represented secular indifference to religion or religious figures, while blasphemy was a more offensive attack on religion and religious figures, considered sinful, and a direct violation of The Ten Commandments. Moreover, many Bible verses speak against swearing.

In Medieval times oaths were believed to physically injure Jesus Christ as he sat next to his Father in heaven. Phrases such as “by God’s bones” or “by God’s nails,” were looked upon as the opposite to ceremonies conjuring Christ’s physical body in a wafer and his blood in wine.

Goddamn followed and clearly compound word of "God" and "damn." "Damn" originates from the Latin damnare which means "to condemn." And God originated with Norse goth.

The French brought the two together by referring to the English as les goddems during the Hundred Years War because of their frequent profanity, according to Geoffrey Hughes' book, "A Social History of Foul Language, Oaths, and Profanity in English."

So which is your favourite to use and does it make you feel better to do so? Do you not swear or cuss at all? Whether you do, or not; you will never be censored when writing on Prose. So come all over our pages if you want, or fucking don’t if you don’t.

Until next time,

Prose