Writes Suzannah Lipscomb in "Explicit Content/Rude words are a constant, but their ability to cause offence is in flux. Historians should know their flim-flam from their fiddle-faddle" (History Today).
August 12, 2022
"Many words we consider, at best, crude were medieval common-or-garden words of description..."
"... arse, shit, fart, bollocks, prick, piss, turd – and were not considered obscene. To say ‘I’m going to piss’ was the equivalent of saying ‘I’m going to wee’ today and was politer than the new 16th-century vulgarity, ‘I’m going to take a leak’... Sard, swive and fuck were all slightly rude words for sexual intercourse.... Frig and jape were also on the cusp of offensiveness.... For a phrase to express unfortunate circumstances that seem impossible to overcome (‘we’re fucked’), the Historical Thesaurus of English tells us that they would have proclaimed themselves to be ‘in hot water’ (first use 1537), ‘in a pickle’ (1562), ‘in straits’ (1565) or, in the most extreme predicament, at one’s ‘utter shift’ (c.1604). To ‘fuck up’ or spoil something, they’d have used ‘to bodge’ or ‘to botch’. To say something was codswallop, baloney, bollocks, they’d have gone with trumpery, baggage, rubbish or the wonderful reduplicating terms that appear in the 1570s and 80s: flim-flam, fiddle-faddle, or fible-fable."
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Why do bad words become bad words?
I'm convinced bad words become bad because they remind people of atrocities.
Nigger is a bad word because it reminds people of the horrors of slavery.
Fuck is a bad word because it reminds people of sex outside of marriage and love. It reminds people of rape and also infanticide.
Shit is a bad word because shits are nasty and disgusting and it reminds people that if you eat one you will die. Or at least get sick.
Individual humans are irrational, but humanity as a whole has reasons for stuff. There's a reason bad words are bad words.
I want my Screaming Yellow Zonkers, even if I can't eat them. Waaaah!
Bollocks. What a bunch of turds, to discontinue this fine product.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Screaming_Yellow_Zonkers
Ummm...Fiddle Faddle.
Is there someone out there who says 'I'm going to wee'? I mean someone over the age of 3?
seems like a lot of bollocks! i mean horse-hockey!
Tell us how they felt back then about saying things like
GOD-Damned Bloody Jesus Christ!!
Susie Dent’s guide will set you straight, wankers
Trumpery.
Motherpickler
To say ‘I’m going to piss’ was the equivalent of saying ‘I’m going to wee’ today and was politer than the new 16th-century vulgarity, ‘I’m going to take a leak’...
Didn't read the article, what's their verdict on 'Taking a whiz'?!
"Is there someone out there who says 'I'm going to wee'? I mean someone over the age of 3?"
I don't know, but if not, let's start now. It will be funny.
"I'm going to wee" sounds British. The American way is, I think, "I've got to go wee wee."
Obama gets all wee- wee'd up!! Does that mean he gets pissy??
"'There’s something about August going into September where everybody in Washington gets all wee-weed up. I don’t know what it is. But that’s what happens,' he said. "
Surely a lot of those words apply to the raid on Mars a Lago. We're reminded that Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were executed for sharing nuclear secrets with the Soviet Union. Hypothetically, if Trump did anything like that, he should be relieved that there was only a raid on his house. Of course Ethel was executed with no evidence against her at the time, so Melania might think about that, rather than believe upstanding FBI agents might have been conducting a panty raid, or something just about as ridiculous as a panty raid.
There may be, or have been at one time, subtle connotations to the various word choices that absent that understanding now, to us, seem to coalesce into identical meanings.
This post & comments immediately reminded me of a line that I've never forgotten tho' read many decades ago, from Wallace Stegner's "Angle of Repose."
The narrator character, Lyman Ward, writes, "It happens that I despise that locution "having sex," which describes something a good deal more mechanical than making love and a good deal less fun than fucking." (Penguin edition. 1992. Page 267)
I tend to curse when I am pissed at something or someone. When I was working in cubeland in an office with really good acoustics, the workplace rules really frowned upon swearing and people were reprimanded by supervisors, or if it was really bad, HR. My work around was to use innocuous words that meant the opposite (George Orwell would be proud). I got my favorite from the movie “Airplane”. When the two black businessmen were talking jive, one said “Sh!t !” with the English subtitle “Golly!”. Sometimes I would say “Golly!” when I meant the s-word and if I was really pissed, the Gomer Pyle version of “Gah-ah-ah-leeeeee!”. My cube neighbors must have wondered what was up.
On long hikes, the ladies say I'm going to find a tree.
"Individual humans are irrational, but humanity as a whole has reasons for stuff. There's a reason bad words are bad words."
I think most of our bad words are of Anglo Saxon stock, while the nice words are from Latin roots. I think there's probably a class divide there - deplorable words are the ones used by the deplorables.
Mrs. God: Why did the lobster blush?
Alice: Why?
Mrs. God: Because the sea weed.
This brings to mind National Lampoon That’s Not Funny That’s Sick, Confession
I gotta wee wee wike a wace horse.
I like to say I have to "make some yellow."
"'I'm going to wee'?"
In current parlance, it means someone is switching their pronouns.
I believe the correct expression is: "i have to see a man, about a horse"
I'm a big fan of "don't get your panties in a wad" for some damn reason.
Is that a problem? Do women ever get their panties in a wad? I can't imagine a scenario where that happens.
I feel like "don't get your panties in a wad" is an insult by men for men. You're accusing the man of wearing panties. And not wearing them correctly. Your dick's all caught up in your panties and you're going to damage yourself.
It's possible this thread might devolve into gutter talk.
You forgot tit.
I use that word on a daily basis- I pull them for a living.
I said something to my 90yr old Mom &she replied thusly:
“That’s about as much fun as getting you tit caught in a wringer.”
She goes on to say, after a laugh: “I’ve always wanted to say that!”
Cursing is a habit- ¬ very classy. I wasn’t raised to curse, didn’t raise my children to curse- but, It’s so prevalent in our culture that class is defined by other things, now. Or, if class is offensive- then politeness or respectfulness…
All this to say:
We’re f/led.
I suspect that there is some class attitudes at work here. Fuck and shit are earthy Germanic words that would have been used by the lower, uneducated classes in England. No problem saying the same thing with words of Latin origin, like fornication and feces, that educated people would use.
Sort of the same thing of how the Germanic word for an animal was too vulgar to be used when served at a proper meal. Better to use the French word (Cow-Beef, Sheep-Mutton, Pig, Swine-Pork).
This is why my British friends act so weird when I suggest we play on the Wii together.
N-word alert! Thought that violated policy.
Not to be pissy about it.
"Bugger" is a fine old Britishism that didn't jump the pond very well. At least judging by how often I have to explain the concept and spelling to people. It's more poetic than "buttfuck" IMO.
Nerd! I mean, N-word! Also G-Word. And the F-word per chance B-word. #HateLovesA-word
@Amexpat: also deer-venison
The traditional understanding of English words was that Anglo Saxons used the word for the animal, like "Cow." The Normans used words for eating the animal, like "beef." The Saxons did not get as much to eat, hence the difference.
A-S "Pig," Norman "Pork."
A-S "Deer," Norman "Venison."
And so forth.
I read that one of the oldest words in English is "fart" which is from the Etruscan via Latin. Cannot prove this.
Many British medieval manuscripts, often written by monks, contain lots of earthy words and phrases that surprise modern readers. Modern; taboo words were common colloquial terms in both written and spoken English. Foul language was often referred to as fole wordes or the much stronger shitwordes. Chaucer uses “shitworde” several times in “The Canterbury Tales” in a rather matter of fact, tone neutral way. When I taught Chaucer in Middle English, my students delighted in discovering these “foul” words being used by the best educated writers of the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries.
I also highly recommend the Anglo Saxon kenning “word hoard” used fo mean vocabulary in “Beowulf.” The Beowulf poet says that
“Beowulf opened his word hoard” when he began to speak formally. Pass it on as a synonym for vocabulary.
Many British medieval manuscripts, often written by monks, contain lots of earthy words and phrases that surprise modern readers. Modern; taboo words were common colloquial terms in both written and spoken English. Foul language was often referred to as fole wordes or the much stronger shitwordes. Chaucer uses “shitworde” several times in “The Canterbury Tales” in a rather matter of fact, tone neutral way. When I taught Chaucer in Middle English, my students delighted in discovering these “foul” words being used by the best educated writers of the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries.
I also highly recommend the Anglo Saxon kenning “word hoard” used fo mean vocabulary in “Beowulf.” The Beowulf poet says that
“Beowulf opened his word hoard” when he began to speak formally. Pass it on as a synonym for vocabulary.
I too, dislike it: there are things that are important beyond all this Fiddle Faddle.
Have you tried Cracker Jack?
Sometimes I would say “Golly!” when I meant the s-word and if I was really pissed, the Gomer Pyle version of “Gah-ah-ah-leeeeee!”. My cube neighbors must have wondered what was up.
If you read Rex Stout, Inspector Cramer is always saying "Cheese and Rice!" After I'd read all the Nero Wolfe books (two or three times, sometimes) and watched all the A&E shows (excellent), one day it occurred to me that "cheese and rice" was Cramer's way of substituting for "Jesus Christ."
(It rhymes).
I did not know this when I was young, but the worst words are blasphemies. When people stab their toe and say "Jesus Christ!" When you reduce Christ to a vulgarity. Or when you say "goddamn it."
The vast majority of people who say "goddamn it" aren't thinking of God and probably don't believe in hell or damnation. They are not talking to God. So it's an awful thing to say.
When I was younger I used to say "goddamn it," which to my mind was like "damn it" which was G-rated, Gone With the Wind stuff. And then, when I got older and discovered Christ, I had to break myself of the habit.
The way I did it, I simply switched the expression to "God bless America!" So now if I drop something on my foot, I yell out, "God bless America!" I usually add a "motherfucker" or a few other choice words. But I have successfully moved 99% of my blasphemies out of my vocabulary, even when I'm shocked by pain or some other thing.
So, yeah, translation is a beautiful way to deal with bad words, way better than biting your tongue and not saying anything.
"Bugger" is a fine old Britishism that didn't jump the pond very well.
ha ha
30 years ago, when I was an Australia (and very drunk) I got into a street yell with a couple of Australians, one of whom called me a "wanker."
And I laughed at him and said, "Yeah yeah, I love to wank! I wank all the time, bitch!" Or whatever I said. I used to be the king of the insults. Anyway, "wanker" is decidedly weak sauce, insult-wise.
I didn't realize it at the time (I was too drunk) but they might have jumped me and beat me up. Because I would have been useless in a fight.
But two of my relatively sober Aussie friends saw the confrontation and started walking next to me. And that made it three to two. Although I was drunk as shit, so really 2.5 to 2. Anyway, they disappeared, there was no fight, and it was all good.
"God has a special providence for fools, drunkards, and the United States of America." -- Otto von Bismark
Bugger off, wanker.
Just kidding. I once overheard a couple of older guys chatting in the street. One was just moving in and was expressing frustration with some bulky furniture in colorful language. The neighbor came over and said, "I heard you cursing over here, and thought you'd make a good Presbyterian."
Make of it what you will, it struck me as a sort of koan.
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