Curse Words

There sure are a lot of words that people now call curse words. What do you think will be a curse word in the future? Curse words, such as,

Bitch
Fuck
Ass
Piss
Dick
Damn
Crap
Hell
Cocksucker
Motherfucker

What were curse words like in the Medieval Times?

[Hell, crap, damn].......While they're not appropriate during formal occasions, these aren't curse words.

[bitch, piss, dick, ass].....These are vulgar slang for a female, urine/urination, the penis, and the buttocks (respectively). They're vulgar, but not curse words. While calling a female a "bitch" is very insulting, I don't think the word "bitch" is as powerful as the word "fuck." "Piss", "dick" and "ass" certainly aren't as powerful. However, one must use caution when using these words (especially "bitch").

*Note: I'm not trying to downplay the word "bitch." Like I said, it's very insulting to call a woman a bitch. However, the word is commonly used when referring to a mean woman:

Example: "That woman was such a bitch to me. She was rude and insensitive throughout the night."

Women will sometimes kid around with each other or even refer to themselves as being "bitchy" if they're in a bad mood:

Example: "I'm in a horrible mood today. I'm being really bitchy."


[Fuck, cocksucker, motherfucker, shit]......While they're used often, these are curse words, i.e. vulgar slang with a powerful connotation. One must be careful when using these words (appropriate times only).

My old teacher use to tell people that they were cursing when they used words like ''bitch'', ''hell'', ''damn'', ''crap'', ''piss''. Well, I guess we all have are own ideas of what exactly curse words are. But I wonder what they called curse words in the Medieval Times.

In English, they had many of the same swear words in Medieval times as they do now. But some swear words now weren't swear words then.

"Cock", which is now a slang word for a penis, used to be a slang word for God.

"Jesus" was considered worse than "fuck" and "shit." So were "God damn" and even "Hell."

"Shit" wasn't a swear word until the early 19th Century.

"Cunt" used to be harmless. Chaucer used it in his Canterbury Tales, spelling it "queynte", "queinte", and even "Kent."

"Piss" comes from the Vulgar Latin "pissiare." The French word for "urinals" is "pissoirs."

Nowadays, Hell isn't a swear word. It is just the name of a place. It may be a swear word in the US but it isn't in the UK.

No, it's not a swear word here either unless you're a religious nut.

mjd,
What do you consider a cuss word (or curse word)? All the words listed above make it in my book. Just tell me the criteria; I don't need examples.

Thanks

Ness,

If I were in a restaurant and I said "What the hell do I want!?", it might be perceived as being a bit uncouth, but I don't think it would sound quite as vulgar as "what the fuck do I want?" I mean seriously, "hell", "crap", "damn"...kids don't even get in trouble for saying those in school anymore (My teachers often said "crap").

I think it just has to do with the POWER of the word and whether it's allowed on "basic cable" or not ("Ass" certainly is these days).

Well, I just keep in mind what my English literature teacher told us in our senior class. She said that using curse words or swear words was a sign that a person's vocabulary was not very extensive. There are enough other words to use, and to make what one wants to say effective and to the point.

Mjd, It's interesting how you grouped the curse words into different categories but I think ''bitch'' would go in the last catagory. The catagory with ''fuck'', ''motherfucker'', ''cocksucker'', ''shit'' catagory. In my old science class the students got in trouble for saying even ''damn'', ''hell'' and ''crap'', especially ''damn'' and ''hell''.

Yeah, I suppose "bitch" could be put into the last category.

Euphemisms

Hell-heck
Damn-darn
Crap-shux
Fuck-fudge
Ass-buttocks
Piss-urinate-urine
Dick-penis
Shit-shoot

.