-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- I'm no etymologist, nor do I play one on TV, but... A few words of note about the "four letter words": a) at one time they were quite acceptable, even after the Norman invasion of England; read Chaucer's Canterbury Tales... meant to be read in polite company, mind you. A few Old English texts are also peppered with them, which at the time was also quite acceptable... b) ...while words for bodily functions like shit, pis, fuck, etc. were acceptable, blasphemes were not... "god dammit" and "ods-bodkin" and "bloody" ("odsblood") were really naughty, even legally punishable(?). Note that the latter are quite usable on TV and have been used in congress on C-SPAN quite often while the former are illegal... you can make a very good religious argument for banning blasphemes and allowing words for bodily functions... c) for a Latin-speaker in Ancient Rome, "feces" = "shit", etc. etc. Some languages do not distinguish a polite word vs. a naughty word for these things (a very important point) d) they're just words... superstitious beliefs that a word is harmful... ObCrypto: I wish I knew.... back to your regularly scheduled programme. bob bruen wrote:
For what it's worth department:
The four letter words that are considered indecent are an anachronism from the days when the French/Normans ruled England, (~1066-1300's). A quick look at the words and their acceptable counterparts will make clear the issue. The four letter word are all of English derivation and the socially acceptable ones are of French (sometimes Latin) derivation. Even the term "four-letter" is a derogatory term for the English language in general, because the French considered English second rate because the words tended to be short, unlike French. Anyone who supports the suppression of these words is merely enforcing the old French repression of the English and the English language from over 500 years ago. Why think for yourself when tradition can do it for you?
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