[Millennium]

I've been thinking about this one lately. In English, the use of profanity is often referred to as swearing or cursing.

Now, the cursing part I can understand. But where does "swearing" come from? I've even heard such words referred to as "oaths" before. This goes back at least as far as Shakespeare, and possibly even further back than that, but where did they get the idea for it?

[Mastrap]

No idea where 'swearing' comes from but if you're interested in the origin of words http://www.wordorigins.org/ is a good place to start.

[Face Ache]

****ed if I know.

[petehammer]

I don't have an answer, except you brought to mind the South Park episode:

"Leave it to Americans to think that bad mean good, pissed means angry, and curse words to mean something other then a word that is cursed!"

[einmakom]

Millenium,

The best book on this is Geoffrey Hughes' "Swearing: A Social History of Foul Language, Oaths and Profanity in English." Penguin Books 1998.

Most people used to swear to or by but now swear at.

It seems to go back to about the year 1000 or earlier.

piss c1290
sh*t c1000
fart c1250
**** c1203
f*ck c1503
arse c1000
c*ck c1400

Caxton's AEsop (1483) provides good examples.

And thenne the sad wether ranne after him
And the wulf which supposed that it had ben the dogge sote thryes by the waye for the grete fere that he hadde .... [Later he explains] 'I dyde shyte thre grete toordes.'

Later on euphemisms for these words sprang up, as well as the different categories of use:

The personal: 'You ----!'
personal by reference: 'The ----!'
detinational: '---- off!'
cursing: '---- you!'
general expletive of anger, annoyance, frustration: '----!'
explicit expletive: '---- it!'
capacity for adjectival extension: '----ing' or '----y'
verbal usage: 'to ---- about.'

[beb]

In the book A World Lit by Fire, Martin Luther threw shist (earlier incarnation of s--t) at the devil. Jon of Arc called the English women the God damns.

The only thing that comes to mind about the derivation of swearing as being derogatory is from Hamlet. Somewhere in the first act the ghost whispers "swear" to silence the men about the whole mess. I'm guessing here, but the derivation must spawn with the seriousness in taking an oath or duty�so that...

Nope, nevermind that doesn't work out either. Sorry.

[voyageur]

And thenne the sad wether ranne after him
And the wulf which supposed that it had ben the dogge sote thryes by the waye for the grete fere that he hadde .... [Later he explains] 'I dyde shyte thre grete toordes.'

Somehow that sounds really really funny.