Swearing was normal at all levels of society in the 18th century and up to the reign of Sailor Bill or Victoria, though those who didn't swear were considered more respectable. It was the imposition of Victorian moral codes, backed up by the threat of social sanctions (if a "gentleman") or economic ones if an employee, that both reduced its currency and made it more shocking when it was used. The people most affected were those with social pretensions, and most particularly the lower middle and upper working classes.

By my parents' youth, the 1920s to 1940s, language was so powerful that there was a whole genre of lyrics that never quite used "bad" words, like "I can't do my bottom belly button up", and "I ran a bug around a tub, I'll have his blood, he knows I will". My father's family, in a brief period of prosperity, had a wind-up gramophone on which they played "With his head stuck underneath his arm". There's a line that runs something like "Is Arsenal going to win the cup". The children used to deliberately make the needle jump, so it came out as "'is arse..'is arse..".