Free Flight, Free Speech

Where did swear words come from and why are they "bad words"???

The sense you is making is NOT!!!

Some of you may be thinking, you may be thinking: You're an idiot.

Good observation. Now explain this please!

LOL


So you are interested in "functional linguistics" now?
If so, at least, prepare for the Festival that will be happening soon:

WARNING: PARENTAL ADVISORY, multilingua Explicit, swear words, and insults inside



(in a second thought, which one could apply to Emperor Curtis? [DO NOT ANSWER, it is a rhetorical question!])

They might be impolite, but IMO really only bad if you think it's bad. If you say it's bad then people use them more! LOL

e.g. My boy is 6 years old now and he's picking up words here and there (TV, friends, etc). The best I could do is not have a big reaction to it, but rather just tell him it's not polite to use them haphazardly.

I honestly don't know. Everyone has a vocabulary they use when mad. Some people use different words than others. I guess they are 'bad' bdcause society decided that they are bad.

legoboyvdlp wrote:I honestly don't know. Everyone has a vocabulary they use when mad. Some people use different words than others. I guess they are 'bad' bdcause society decided that they are bad.

Exactly, but not only because they are 'bad' when everyone determines they are 'bad', but also when society uses them too often and then they decided it is 'bad'. Energy needs to go somewhere, uttered in forms of expletives are usually where they go, because people do it.

It IS, however, impolite to use it it haphazardly in front of parents, or grandparents, or people you generally know or care about, simply because of the meanings of those words alone. Doesn't mean that is bad overall, but there are levels of respect to go through first..

S -- old english word for purging, diarhhea. All I need to say.

So I guess is something is bad, people compared it to diarhhea.

F -- norwegian, swedish

D - latin for condemn

I find, in general, that those who object the loudest and most frequently to the use of "harsh language" are often those who don't have any problem insulting others, it's just that they do that using "nice" words. By and large I find people focus too much on the how words sound rather than the message they convey.

Very good point Lydiot, One can completely burn down a person using polite words only. It is probably more effective than using swear words straight in someone's face. Some how society women, teenage girls and some gays have a perfect feeling for this art. And some well respected users of the other forum. The moderators lack such sophistication and can not recognize this behaviour. Resulting in wrongly blaming people that protest this behaviour. Therefore i have decided a while ago not to deliver my words to such simplistic moderation anymore.

Kind regards, Vincent

KL-666 wrote:Very good point Lydiot, One can completely burn down a person using polite words only. It is probably more effective than using swear words straight in someone's face. Some how society women, teenage girls and some gays have a perfect feeling for this art. And some well respected users of the other forum. The moderators lack such sophistication and can not recognize this behaviour. Resulting in wrongly blaming people that protest this behaviour. Therefore i have decided a while ago not to deliver my words to such simplistic moderation anymore.

Kind regards, Vincent

I agree with you 100%. I never insult people using swears, it is pretty pointless. Most people aren't even offended.

Ooookaaayyy, a bit late, but nevertheless, a few cents ...

Roughly about a million years ago, humans made the first attempts in language. Of course, given the limited possibilities (you can compare the chords of a modern Homo sapiens sapiens with those a Homo erectus had), the number of sound combinations available was mostly used for three combinations of sound series (which later developed into words)

1.) Warnings from immidiate danger
2.) Warnings from behavioral impacts (means, if the tribe leader growls, it's a bad sign)
3.) Expressions of affection (which made intertribe breeding and thus better mixing of the genetic pool easier and thus established an evolutionary advantage)

Category 1 still exists. We know one word lines like "stop!", "turn!", "Caution!" and so on and with increasing use of technology this category has expanded to "Master Caution Alert!" and "Engine fire!"

Category 2 has developed into cuss and swear words mostly. Societies got so complex, what was originally functional as warning not to cross serious social boundaries has become common place, but many of them have still such meaning. Telling some one to "fuck off" makes no sense semantically. But it basically tells the other one, he is annoying and should perform his basic life functions somewhere else. And it is far more poignant.
Now, if you speak more than one language and have roots in different cultures, you may have noticed, that the majority of swear words in the English language comes from the sexual area while slawian languages and semi-slawians prefer the digestive system. Well, if you see, where those languages come from, where they formed, you see, we talk about different life circumstances. On the English Island, a low population, split into at least three hostile groups in 5th and 6th century imposed a lot of problems with finding the girls ... thus, English sweat words are typicall f*-words or, also quite common in older sources, "bleeding" which actually historically refers to the female period.
On the other hand, Germans and Polish and Czech and so on, they had far less problems to find girls, bru they had also a variety of crops, for example ray, that is very fibre rich. Now, add to this a lot of fat (speaking for example Polish mast goose) and a multitude of stone-fruits like plums ... and you have an idea why those folks got a little obsessed with the digestive system.

Category 3 is by far the biggest nowadays. Of course, we are all the descendants of guys who found the right words with the girls. And since getting to the girls is often a competitive business, being creative there offers an evolutionary advantage next to looking good or being just smarter. So, this is obvious. The point is, especially in English, English swear words are mostly connected to sexuality and often not very women-friendly. So, they are a bit in the way when trying to get a girl to give you some, right? Which makes them "bad" in the sense of being counterproductive.
Now, here is the fun part. Imagine you have kids, little boys, ... who exactly raises them? Mostly the mothers! And they train their little boys from early on to be successful girl hunters, even they explain that part to those boys. It's some unspoken consent, whole societies follow without even remembering the original reason. But your mommy knows, you will never get a gf if your only strategy is to go to the girl and say "ey, f*cking bl**ding b*itch, lets go scr*ew!"
Makes sense?