Bad language!

petallus, thanks for this useful information. I don't possess these volumes - maybe will put them on wish list for next Christmas!

They are only words usually alternatives for bodily excreta or sexual descriptions and so should not really worry us as they all happen! - it really is the context in which they are used that is important.

Triciaf there are nine volumes plus a companion of names and words.

I hate bad language. I wont watch any film with it in.

Petallus - how many volumes are there in that edition?
The version I read, in the '90s, was in 6 editions plus an extra one with explanatory notes. From the local library.

I've got the Latham and Matthews version of S Pepys. I was having a look in the glossary and there is very little in there which is rude. A couple of interesting things:

Pintle (penis)
Shit in his hat and then clap it on his head (self explanatory)
Windfucker, (a talkative braggart - my favourite)

Another classic with down-to -earth language is Pepys Diaries. I don't think you can get the un-expurgated version now, and the original was in Pepys' private code.

I find the article informative, serious, and very funny in places! Interesting.

To discuss the subject at all, you can't avoid the words...I save the words for extreme situations - like when I broke my wrist, when I needed really strong words!

I think the words in the article are only regarded as smutty by people who have smutty minds. If used in non-smutty ways they are just as good as their 'polite' (usually French) alternatives.

It's how words are used that matters.

I have a book called "The Lure of the Limerick" which has plenty of ripe words in it - it is very funny and very clever indeed. I am not offended!

When I was having a spinal block a few weeks ago, in preparation a very cold substance was sprayed on my back. It was like plunging into icy water and took my breath away.

I yelled out an involuntary 'God!'. I was relieved I hadn't said fck instead because I do use that word a bit too much.

But, now I am wondering which of the two options is the most offensive.

I don't mind swearing if there is just cause, I'm not the one being sworn at and there are no children in earshot.

I used to be a very repressed person (even more than now) and I never swore but then I never felt any strong negative emotions either (well obviously I did but I internalised them). The first time I felt anger I was having a heart attack. Then a friend taught me the value of the harsh sounds in some swear words like the 'ck' in 'f*ck'.

DH has olive skin. When he was a boy, a neighbour's son kept calling him Asian. Now Asian isn't an offensive word but the context was meant to be insulting and so it became offensive. DH finally thumped him (as boys did in those days). His mum stormed around to his house and when she heard the whole story she thumped him too .

I suppose what I'm trying to say it that swearing in in the ear of the beholder.

I am surprised that those who condemn blasphemy did not pick etheltbags up on "I just say 'oh heck' or 'oh my god'."

"oh my god!!" - obviously blasphemy!

"Heck" is a corruption of "Hell". Well, that's an alternative, so it's OK, but we know what the original was. We know too that "bloody" is a corruption of swearing "by our lady" - the Virgin Mary. That is still a taboo word but the blasphemy part has now been forgotten.

I've not read that article, must look it up.

I did Canterbury Tales at school and the nuns edited it before we saw it!

You can't lump all swearing into one category. What I can't stand is those people whose every sentence contains a swear word, and unforgivsbly, usually the same one or two words repeatedly.

Whereas the odd expletive, chosen and used aptly, works.

For goodness' sake! Just the sight of certain words in print is a red rag to some of the bulls on this thread! It's not a rude article. It is an academic article about the origin of words now regarded as smutty. Language changes all the time and will continue to do so. Why take offence at this non-provocative study?

ethelbags I think that the sad part of our society is when it is assumed that "professional" people are intrinsically superior. One only has to look at the newspapers to realise that boorish, morally questionable and downright criminal behaviour is certainly not confined to the "non-professional classes".

Professional people breed well mannered children and children who attend expensive nurseries will be well behaved kids !

I worked in a convent boarding school where the children were from professional families, the nuns offered me places for my two daughters but I chose the local comprehensive where those rough kids from cheap nurseries also attended , I made a wise decision.

I've got a book called The Oxford Book of Humorous Prose by Frank Muir, which goes back 500 years plus. The early entries are full of rude words and situations, in fact I cut them out and burnt them at some time when in a Mary Whitehouse mood.
What about some of the Canterbury Tales?

I agree that in general, people are less uptight about the use of swearing than they were when I was a teenager. I do get offended when I hear people using foul and abusive language aggressively. If it's in response to a shock, or used in humour, it bothers me less.

I knew what the article says already, that words we now regard as "bad" were not so originally. This supports my oft repeated argument that it is how words are used that makes them "bad". In other words, if you speak rudely people usually know if you are being rude by your usage or, face to face, by your body language. By 'usage' I don't mean just using a word; its context and its connotations within that context (in other words, what you intend it to mean) give its real meaning.

Words are not bad of themselves.

The effing and blinding of a drunken person is not pleasant to hear but it's the drunkenness that is the real problem.

A person who lets out a so-called 'rude' expletive in a moment of shock or other intense emotion is not being rude. The use of the expletive is a psychological release and probably a good thing.

So that's why I stick with "listen to the meaning, not the words". I find it serves me well.

We had the same stuff about Portia's speech concerning what had happened to her ring – and why – in the The Merchant of Venice. An integral part of the play and a smart lady!

That article just goes to show nothing changes! This language about bodily functions has been in use for centuries as have those double entendre riddles.

We were probably a whole lot less twee about these expressions three hundred years ago. Perhaps we should blame Victorian prudishness.

However it is discourteous to use bad language to people you know or suspect might be very offended by it.

This prudishness is often age related, but Grans of our generation and a number of woman I know who are about 10 yrs older than I am are a whole lot less uptight about such things than our parents and grandparents were.

A schools recording of Macbeth we had for O level missed out the "porters speech" where the castle porters were talking about the effects of alcohol on sexual desire and sexual performance.

I don't know when that recording was made but it was obviously considered too rude for 16 yr olds in the 1960s

CBA to even read the article

I don't like swearing in my home....my adult children still don't swear in front of me. I just find it appalling when people swear in front of small children as well.