10 Curse Words You Don’t Know
May 24th, 2009
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The word “swear” has two meanings, or at least it seems that way. Swearing, as in swearing an oath, means making a solemn promise, whereas swearing also means using foul language. The two meanings are closely related since the swearing of an oath traditionally involved swearing on the Bible or in God’s name. So when, in the 16th century, people developed a habit of invoking “sacred names” when no oath was being made, they were guilty of “taking sacred names in vain.” Such an act was profane (the opposite of sacred) and the word used to describe such a horrendous sin was profanity.
The same applies to cursing, since cursing traditionally involved invoking sacred names (or even demonic names) and wishing ill upon someone. So inappropriate cursing is also profanity. Here is a list of 10 words that you’ve probably not met with before, which relate to swear words and curse words in one way or another.
1. Etymon. As a general rule, swearing of any kind is frowned on in polite society and has been through the ages. So there is a tendency to invent euphemisms for swear words, so that they might be used in a milder form. In the Middle Ages, the fashion was for religious swear words like
egad and
zounds.
Egad was a simple substitute for “God”.
Zounds was a shortening of “God’s wounds” as was – excuse my French –
woundikins.
Odds bodkins was “God’s body” and
gadzooks was “God’s hooks” referring to the nails that pinned Christ on the cross.
You might think that the creation of such religious swear words has stopped, but it hasn’t. The newer ones simply don’t sound so archaic.
Gee whiz and
jeez (for Jesus) are quite recent, as are;
jeepers creepers (for Jesus Christ),
doggone (for God damn),
gosh (for God) and
great Scott (for good God). Also recent is the use of the names
Christopher Columbus,
Judas Priest and
Jiminy Cricket as mild swear words, for which the etymon is Jesus Christ – but you probably wouldn’t know that unless you were told. An etymon, by the way, is a root word from which other words derive and etymology is, of course, the study of etymons.
2. Execration: To most people, the use of such religious swear words is now regarded as tame and has no real place in execration. When you really want to express yourself in a curse, obscure Christian euphemisms no longer cut the mustard. However direct curses are rarely offensive in the words they employ, since they whole point is to wish ill on someone rather than deliver a spirited insult.
Take for example the Chinese curse; “may you come to the attention of the authorities!” It may sound a little lame at first blush, but that’s probably because a certain amount of bile has been lost in translation. I’m told by US tax offenders that “May you come to the attention of the IRS!” is about as mean as a curse can get. Even so, it doesn’t have the poetic grit of my favorite Arab curse “May wild asses defile the grave of your grandmother!” and neither does it have the surreal spitefulness of my favorite Liverpool curse “May the hairs on your arse turn to hammers and beat your balls to death!”
3. Cambronne: “It’s a load of old cambronne” is a phrase that used to be heard in the tea rooms and coffee houses of 19th century England when someone doubted the veracity of some idea or opinion. Sadly it has fallen out of use and lives on only in foot notes to treatises on latrinalia (the definition of which is discussed below). The word
cambronne is eponymous as every Frenchman surely knows. Here’s one version of its origin:
The scene is the final hours of the battle of Waterloo and General Pierre Cambronne finds himself heavily outnumbered and surrounded by English soldiers and cannon. Commanding the British troops, the generous General Colville with his young interpreter Charles Bartleby-Snobsworth by his side, calls to General Cambronne with the words;
“I say, old boy, no need for any further nastiness, why not lay down your weapons and we can all watch the rest of the pyrotechnics from here.”
Colville unfortunately cannot speak a word of French, and Bartleby-Snobsworth, his interpreter, actually skipped French classes at Eton to play Cricket, so he only knows “un mot ou deux.” General Cambronne, who speaks flawless English, chooses foolishly to respond in French, shouting out bravely; “La garde meurt et ne se rend pas!”
Bartleby-Snobsworth doesn’t understand a word of this and mishears it anyway, thinking Cambronne said
merde not
muert. So when Colville asks him what Cambronne said, he replies;
“
!, sir. The Frenchy said ‘
’.”
“That’s hardly polite,” mutters General Colville as he signals the orders to fire the cannons.
–~~~~~~~~~~~~–
That’s one version of what happened at Waterloo and it’s a load of old cambronne, but the fact is that no-one seems to know the truth. After-battle commentary included both Cambronne saying “Merde!” and Cambronne saying “La garde meurt et ne se rend pas!” (The Guard dies and does not surrender!) Cambronne, who survived but was wounded, denied saying either of these things. Nevertheless
merde became known in France as
le mot Cambronne and in Britain
cambronne became an eponymous euphemism.
4. Quadriliteral:
“Good authors too, who once knew betters words,
Now only use four letter words, writing prose
Anything goes.”
Or at least that’s what the lyrics of the Cole Porter song will insist. However, quadriliteral words (four letter words) are still largely avoided in many situations. The f-word, king of the quadriliterals, was in common usage in the 16th Century and only became a vulgar term in the 18th century – banned even from the Oxford English Dictionary. It was outlawed in print in England, by the Obscene Publications Act of 1857 and in the U.S. by the Comstock Act of 1873. The censorship didn’t persist because writers saw the need to use the f-word.
Norman Mailer tried to reintroduce the word in his novel
The Naked and the Dead in 1948. He was prevailed upon by his publisher to replace the offensive quadriliteral with the word
fug throughout and he agreed. When, at some later date, he was introduced to Dorothy Parker, she greeted him with, “So you’re the man who can’t spell
.”
By 1950 James Jones’
From Here to Eternity was published with the inclusion of 50 f-words. By the time the 1960s came around, the f-word was slipping past the censors on a regular basis and Kenneth Tynan, the English Theatre critic, made a name for himself world-wide by becoming the first person to use the questionable quadriliteral on live television.
5. Hadeharia. I was informed by my parents at an early age that the f-word, the king of the quadriliterals, was a word that I should never use. When I was growing up, I spent copious amounts of time working with some down-to-earth working men with whom with the use of the f-word as an adjective (f-ing) was pretty much constant and liberally mixed with the use of the f-word as a noun. I estimated that the f-word made up about 10 percent of all the words that came out of their mouths. They had even developed inventive usages for the f-word like
face,
worthy and
tard.
Later on in life, when I saw Reservoir Dogs at the movies, I realized that Quentin Tarantino must have run into exactly the same group of guys. I’d love to find a word that describes the habit of constantly using the f-word but I don’t think there is one. However there is a word,
hadeharia, which means the constant use of the word “hell”. Sadly I’ve never met a hadeharian. I presume the word dates back to the time when “hell” was consider a strong word. We should replace it with the word
fugaharia in memory of Norman Mailer.
6. Lalochezia: Lalochezia is the use of foul or abusive language in response to sudden stress or pain. It’s a quirk of many people, in my experience – with the most common expletive being the s-word or the f-word. However lalochezia need not be confined to such unimaginative expletives. It can be flowery.
I remember, for example, a relative of mine working on a boat engine. He pushed too hard on a wrench, which promptly slipped off the bolt it was gripping and this caused him to smash his hand into the engine casing. “You snot gobbling bastard!” he screamed at the motor, which struck me as delightfully inappropriate.
My mother, from whom I never heard a single swear word in my life, was inclined to simply shout “Damn! Damn! Damn!” when pain moved her to explete. Very mild indeed, but at least it was a quadriliteral. In any event, from my observations, euphemisms seem to work just as well as the foulest of language. I remember a very polite aunt of mine shouting “sugar! sugar! sugar! sugar! sugar!” when her hammer hit her thumb and then muttering “sugar” under her breath when she realized I was watching her.
Personally, my habit is to make a lot of noise. Indeed, it seems quite inappropriate to me to try to articulate anything in response to unwelcome sensory stimuli. So, I just scream my heart out.
–~~~~~~~~~~~~–
7. Latrinalia: The c-word is undoubtedly the queen of all swear words and, as in the game of chess, the queen is more powerful than the king, at least in its putative ability to offend. It wasn’t always like that. Most people will be surprised to discover that London once boasted a district called
Gropecunte Lane, named in honor of the prostitutes that worked there. When Londoners eventually decided that a name change was in order, they decided on the euphemism
Threadneedle Street so that the essential character of the locale would not be lost.
This is the street on which the Bank of England was eventually built and, oddly, the Bank of England became affectionately known as “The Old Lady of Threadneedle Street.” However, that title was not in honor of any of the ladies that were affectionately known in Threadneedle Street prior to the appearance of the bank. It was to honor the memory of Sarah Whitehead whose brother Philip, a former employee of the bank, was executed for the crime of forgery. This caused poor Sarah to lose her mind and, after his execution, she turned up at the bank asking for him every day for 25 years, until she died of old age.
Latrinalia, as you may be able to deduce from its etymons, refers to words like the c-word that are fit only for restroom walls. The British punk band, The Sex Pistols, made a spirited attempt to bring the c-word into common usage with a song, Pretty Vacant, with the word vacant being pronounced vay-kunt, as in “we’re vay-kunt …and we don’t care” In doing this, they were doubtless following the artistic tradition of William Shakespeare, who put the following words into the mouth of Malvolio in Twelfth Night; “These be her very c’s, her u’s, and her t’s, and thus she makes her great p’s” However, neither Shakeseare nor the Sex Pistols succeeded in popularizing its common usage.
8. Dysphemism: The abusive British word
berk is a euphemism for the c-word from cockney rhyming slang; berk being short for Berkshire Hunt. So is
Oxford, which is short for Oxford punt. Other non-rhyming slang euphemisms include the velvet glove, the oval office and the sausage wallet. There are many more. Euphemisms grow wild in the field of latrinology, but dysphemisms are less common.
A dysphemism is the opposite of a euphemism. It refers to the deliberate use of a more, rather than less, vulgar term. A simple example would be to call someone a
wit rather than a fool. The meaning is the same, but the word used is somewhat more expressive. It’s interesting that some apparent dysphemisms are, technically, not dysphemisms at all. For instance the word
cock-up derives from the habit brewers had of turning the spigot or cock of a barrel upwards if the beer inside had spoiled.
If you choose to describe a fool as a
prick rather than a
wit, you might believe you’re inferring that he’s a penis. That’s the common belief, but the derivation is otherwise. In farming equipment used to yoke oxen to ploughs there was a shaft of sharpened wood, called a prick, used to keep the oxen in place. If oxen didn’t pull as directed, the prick dug into them. Kicking against the prick, as oxen sometimes did, thus became a metaphor for resisting authority stupidly.
In the UK, the French Connection, a chain of boutiques, hit on the idea of rebranding itself as French Connection UK or
FCUK for short. To my mind that counts as a deliberate dysphemism. Nevertheless, it turned out to be a fcuking brilliant marketing ploy that attracted more than a little attention, especially when they came out with their Eau De Toilette, which they simply named
FCUK Her.
9. Grawlix: Grawlixes are typographical symbols that appear in dialogue balloons in graphical comics to indicate that some swear word or other is implied. The term was coined by the Mort Walker, the Beetle Bailey cartoonist after he’d been using grawlixes for a while. Using grawlixes, the f-word becomes f@&# or if you want to be less specific about which unacceptably offensive word is used, you can simply plump for something like
*$&#%!
This is not the only strategy available if you want to partially censor words. You can modify the words with asterisks as in
what the , disemvowel them as in
what the fck or resort to abbreviation as in
wtf. You can substitute euphemism like
effing or
freaking (but please, not
fugging.)
There’s also bleeping as in “why don’t you take a flying bleep at a rolling doughnut.” This technique is often used for text that is intended to be read out. However, as the example demonstrates, with bleeping you can easily lose a very effective alliteration. Apropos of which, the
flying bleep is not a meaningless poetic idea. In earlier times, it was a term used to describe having sex on horseback while the horse was in motion and thus gaining entry to the
5 foot high club.
–~~~~~~~~~~~~–
10. Scatolinguistics: Scatolinguistics started out as meaning the study of words related to excrement. The word was coined by James McCawley who was an influential linguist and, for much of his life, professor of linguistics at Chicago University. He wrote his scatolinguistic treatises under the pseudonyms of Quang Phuc Dong and Yuck Foo of the nonexistent South Hanoi Institute of Technology.
For want of appropriate terms, scatolinguistics has now come to mean the study of the etymology and usage of all vulgar and profane expressions. To my mind, there ought to be special area of study within this for the distinction between British and American profanity. In some areas the words are identical, which is fine, but there are jarring differences. For example,
fanny in America is a mild alternative to ass, whereas in the UK it is a profanity only slightly less severe than the c-word.
The British use both
and
tosser as insults (meaning masturbator) and America simply has no equivalents. The British don’t use
motherer, which has to do with tradition. The word was coined by African slaves to describe the slave owners who had raped their mothers. While Americans are likely to say
butt-naked, the British equivalent is
bollock-naked. Americans say
when Brits would say
bollocks. This is odd because the word bollocks is from the Old English word
beallucas, meaning testicles. One can only assume that the word
bollocks was regarded as offensive to idealistic Protestants and thus didn’t make it onto the Mayflower.
10 curse words you don't know
Originally Posted by Copperknickers II
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