Why the fuck do we prohibit profanities?

The etymology of swear words

Vikki and Charlee

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Epithets Profanit

iesVulgarity

“Deprave, and corrupt those whose minds are open to such immoral

influences” – British Hicklin doctrine

C R A P

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S H I TT

O

R

E

I

G

H

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A

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Francis Grove’s slang dictionary 1811

APPLE DUMPLIN SHOP

ARBOR VITAE

ARRAH NOW

ATHANASIAN WENCH

BACK BITER

BACK GAMMON PLAYER

BALUM RANCUMBALLOCKS

BASTARDLY GULLION

BEARD SPLITTER

BITE

TO BLOW THE GROUNSILSBOB TAIL

BRISTOL MAN

BUCK FITCH

BUMBO

BUNTER

BUTTERED BUN

CARVEL'S RING

CHEESER

CHIMNEY CHOPS

COCK ALLEY

CODS

COMMODITY

CORINTHIANSCORNED

COT, or QUOT

CRAW THUMPERSCRINKUM CRANKUM

CROPSICK

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FUBSEY. Plump. A fubsey wench; a plump, healthy  wench.

FUDDLE. Drunk. This is rum fuddle; this is excellent  tipple, or drink. Fuddle; drunk. Fuddle cap; a drunkard.

C**T. The chonnos of the Greek, and the cunnus of the Latin dictionaries; a nasty name for a nasty thing: un con Miege.

A concise history of

Fuck

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Eric Partridge

Fuck

Old Germanic ‘ficken’ or ‘fucken’

- To strike or penetrate

Latin‘futuere’

- To copulate

Dutch‘fokken’

- To breed (cattle)

Swedish dialect‘fokken’

- Same meaning in English

Related to Latin words for puncture and prick

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1278 – a man named ‘John Le-Fucker’

1348 – Black Death, ‘Fornication Under Consent of the King’

16th Century – in common usage

1598 – John Florio’s A Worlde of Wordes

1680 – Mock song by Earl of Rochester

18th Century – considered a vulgar term

1928 - D.H. Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover was written

1960 – Lady Chatterley’s Lover Trial against Penguin Books

1972 – ‘fuck’ appears in the OED

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Lady Chatterley’s Lover

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1928 – written by D.H. Lawrence

1928 till 1960 – banned from print

1960 – ‘Lady Chatterley’s Trial’

‘If I use the taboo words, there is a reason. We shall never free the phallic reality from the “uplift” taint till we give it its own phallic

language, and use the obscene words.’ – D.H. Lawrence

‘…the most evil outpouring that has ever besmirched the literature of our country. The

sewers of French pornography would be dragged in vain to find a parallel in

beastliness.’ – John Bull, reviewing Lady Chatterley’s Lover (1928)

Geoffrey Hughes, swearing – pg. 191

Geoffrey Hughes, swearing – pg. 192

The Mock Song, by John Wilmot, The Earl of Rochester, 1680

I swive as well as others do,I’m young, not yet deformed,

My tender heart, sincere, and trueDeserves not to be scorned.

 Why Phyllis then, why will you swive,

With forty lovers more?Can I (said she) with Nature strive,

Alas I am, alas I am a whore. 

Were all my body larded o’er,With darts of love, so thick,

That you might find in ev’ry pore,A well stuck standing prick;

 Whilst yet my eyes alone were free,

My heart, would never doubt,In am’rous rage, and ecstasy,

To wish those eyes, to wish those eyes fucked out. 

Source: Kristin Gecan, http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/180801 [accessed 9th May 2013]

“As soon as you deal with it [sex] explicitly, you are forced to choose between the language of the nursery, the gutter and the anatomy class” – C. S. Lewis

Bibliography

Allan, Keith, Euphemism and dysphemism: language used as shield and weapon

(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991).

Battistella, Edwin. L, Bad Language: Are Some Words Better Than Others? (Oxford:

Oxford University Press, 2005).

Hughes, Geoffrey, Swearing: a social history of foul language, oaths and profanities in

English (London: Penguin, 1998).

Jacot de Boinod, Adam, The Meaning of Tingo: and other extraordinary words from

around the world (London: Penguin, 2005).

Robertson, Geoffrey, The Trial of Lady Chatterley's Lover

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/oct/22/dh-lawrence-lady-chatterley-trial [accessed

22nd April 2013].

http://www.pbm.com/~lindahl/florio/209.html [accessed 2nd May 2013]

http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/178328?rskey=Yi2K21&result=1&isAdvanced=false#eid

[accessed 22nd April 2013]