BS: Mediaeval Swear Words

Subject: RE: BS: Mediaeval Swear Words
From: Steve Parkes
Date: 04 Sep 02 - 12:05 PM

It's a pretty good rule of thumb that swearwords do NOT come from acronyms. Even if Dante had been considerate enough to write in Modern English at a time when the English spoke Middle English and Dante spoke whatever form of Italian it was!

There are plenty of exressions to chose from still (more or less) in use today: "cor stone the crows" is "Christ on the cross"; "cor strike me pink" (a bit rare, admittedly!) is "God stripe me pink" (i.e. by beating me). One I particularly like is "bozzimacoo", sadly now fallen from common use. It's supposed to have derived from the French "baisser mon cul"--"kiss my arse", picked up by English soldiers during one or more of those endless wars that have gone on from 1066 onwards. First World War soldiers came back with a few too: "san fairy anne" ("&ccedl;a'ne fait rien"--"it doesn't matter") is a well-known one.

Steve

Subject: RE: BS: Mediaeval Swear Words
From: hesperis
Date: 04 Sep 02 - 11:51 AM

Wow! Thanks for all the wonderful responses! These are all very useful.

Now... more? *g*

Subject: RE: BS: Mediaeval Swear Words
From: C-flat
Date: 04 Sep 02 - 09:43 AM

Having read this thread I am much happier with my use of swear words as I feel I am doing my bit to uphold and maintain the fine traditions that have been passed down to us.
The next time my better half chastises my colourful language I shall direct her to this item. :~)

Subject: RE: BS: Mediaeval Swear Words
From: GUEST,Bagpuss
Date: 04 Sep 02 - 09:39 AM

A bit off topic, but for a comprehensive dictionary of modern swearing, see:

http://www.viz.co.uk/profanisaurus/profanis.htm

Subject: RE: BS: Mediaeval Swear Words
From: JedMarum
Date: 04 Sep 02 - 09:35 AM

interesting stuff here! It's funny that nowwadays make swears out of body parts and bodily functions. In Mediaeval times it seems quite clear the swears were related to religious matters - and modern Italian swears are comments on one's parentage or family.

Subject: RE: BS: Mediaeval Swear Words
From: GUEST
Date: 04 Sep 02 - 09:14 AM

I think the contributor was suggesting (wrongly as shown by the etymology given earlier) that acronym was coined in reference to the phrase used in Dante. Can't comment really since I haven't read any Dante, philistine that I am. I should have cut off the article before it got into the silly acronym speculation, as the etymology stuff is pretty sound I believe.

Subject: RE: BS: Mediaeval Swear Words
From: Amos
Date: 04 Sep 02 - 09:00 AM

What blather!! ACRONYMS in Dante?? Come on!! I love the superior certainty with which someone asserts this as a fact. I am near-certain that acronyms, at least as we know them, were not used in Dante or in Chaucer, I am open to correction.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Mediaeval Swear Words
From: Dave Bryant
Date: 04 Sep 02 - 08:14 AM

Until the middle of the 20th century there were restrictions on the use of many words and expressions on stage and in published books. Many alternatives were used to circumvent the censor. Even Brendan Behan's novel "Borstal Boy" uses "Fugh" and "Fughing" and when Dorothy Parker was intoduced to Behan, she is reported to have said "Oh you're that young Irishman who can't spell fuck ! The prohibition also covered the various names of the Holy Trinity - hence terms like "egad".

When you consider that the swear words allowed in books and plays barely a century ago would have been much tamer than those really in use amongst unpolite society, how much can we rely on those recorded in even earlie tims ?

Subject: RE: BS: Mediaeval Swear Words
From: GUEST,Hille
Date: 04 Sep 02 - 07:44 AM

You could also try the 'Horrible Histories' series written primarily for kids - they do an entire book full of it - just trying to locate it in the house amidst much modern day swearing to get you an ISBN number. Nope! Bit, it's paperback and in print *G*. Hope that's helpful?

Subject: RE: BS: Mediaeval Swear Words
From: Micca
Date: 04 Sep 02 - 07:24 AM

you might try and Find Robert Graves ( yes THAT Robert Graves) " Lars Porsena or the future of Swearing" and this is a possibly helpful site too ( sorry haven't got the Blue clicky kit here at work)http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A753527

Subject: RE: BS: Mediaeval Swear Words
From: GUEST
Date: 04 Sep 02 - 06:57 AM

Most swearwords in modern english have long roots in the language, so you could use pretty much any of the current usual ones.

Warning - the below article does not have the offending words censored.

http://www.bizarremag.com/ask/words.html

Where do today's swear words come from?

MARK P: Swearing actually provides a perfect introduction to the etymology of English. Most swear words originated with Middle English, the English that began to be written and spoken as the country gradually lost its ties to France, between about 1100 and 1500. English, in both language and grammar developed primarily out of the languages of our previous conquerors, specifically Germanic, Scandinavian and Romance (the language of Rome).

So, a quick poke around the Oxford English Dictionary reveals that "shit" comes from the olde English for diarrhoea, scitte, which is itself Germanic in origin, from scheissen, possibly via the Danish shitjen. So it's one that's been with us for some time. Shite too goes back along way, and was even used to describe a whole range of birds in the heron family during the late 18th century: shitepokes were allegedly so called for their habit of crapping themselves when disturbed. Good to see twitchers had a sense of humour back then.

Cunt is also of Middle English origin, traceable via the Middle Dutch and Danish word kunte, and the Norwegian and Swedish, kunta. All meant much the same thing that they do today.

Bugger is an interesting one, being a Middle English term, deriving from the French, used to describe enemies of the Catholic Church, specifically the Bogomils. This large and influential religious sect, who preached across in Eastern Europe, were particularly popular in Bulgaria and Serbia, and Bogomil became the state religion of Bosnia and Hungary until the Muslims invaded the Balkans in the 14th century.

The Bogomils were a major influence on the Cathars, or Albigenians (named after the Languedoc town of Albi where they were based), a powerful Christian movement that became large enough to pose a serious threat to the Catholic Church. At least the Catholics saw it that way. When the Cathars refused to submit to Church authority, Pope Innocent III had these peaceful, enlightened, Gnostic, vegetarian ascetics brutally annihilated in the Albigensian Crusade of 1209-1229. One of the most disgraceful moments in Catholic history, this saw the slaughter and torture of tens of thousands of men, women and children for no good reason at all.

Anyway, I digress. Bugger clearly comes from the French bougre, referring to the Bogmils. While it's fairly standard behaviour to accuse your enemies of "unnatural" acts, it's interesting to speculate on how bougre, or bugger, may have come to mean specifically the noble art of buggery. The Cathars are often linked to another mighty Christian offshoot of the time, the Knights Templar, who sprung up during the Crusades and returned to Northern France very rich, powerful and secretive indeed. What it was they that they discovered in the Holy Land, nobody is quite sure, though there are hundreds of ideas, some dafter than others, filling hundreds of books. One of the key accusations that the Church made about the Templars was that they worshipped the head of a bearded god known as Baphomet – said by some to be the head of Jesus himself, or perhaps John the Baptist. Part of this worship was alleged to involve the kissing of another knight's buttocks, perhaps an act of earthy spiritual humility, perhaps a total fabrication on the part of the Church. So it's possible that such rumoured arse-kissing behaviour may have turned the straightforward insult bougre or bugger, into the act buggery that some people know and love today.

Back to swear words then…where were we? Fuck! This seems to be a bit later in origin than most of the other words, tracing back to the early 16th century, though again of Germanic origin, via the Swedish focka and the Dutch, fokkelen. It's thought to originate in an Indo-European root word meaning to strike. However, according to one reader anyway, the word was used in the old days to describe a woman who openly enjoyed sex, and the word stood for "full of carnal knowledge". These lovers of sex were then known as "fuckers". This is certainly puts a nice folkloric spin on plain old etymology. Can anyone suggest any others?

Re: Where do swear words come from?

Jaysun: I remember reading that "fuck" originated with monks--who used "fvccant" back in their time--and, sure enough, after performing a web search using "fvccant," here's what I found in the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language:

"The obscenity fuck is a very old word and has been considered shocking from the first, though it is seen in print much more often now than in the past. Its first known occurrence, in code because of its unacceptability, is in a poem composed in a mixture of Latin and English sometime before 1500. The poem, which satirizes the Carmelite friars of Cambridge, England, takes its title, "Flen flyys," from the first words of its opening line, "Flen, flyys, and freris," that is, "fleas, flies, and friars." The line that contains fuck reads "Non sunt in coeli, quia gxddbov xxkxzt pg ifmk." The Latin words "Non sunt in coeli, quia," mean "they [the friars] are not in heaven, since." The code "gxddbov xxkxzt pg ifmk" is easily broken by simply substituting the preceding letter in the alphabet, keeping in mind differences in the alphabet and in spelling between then and now: i was then used for both i and j; v was used for both u and v; and vv was used for w. This yields "fvccant [a fake Latin form] vvivys of heli." The whole thus reads in translation: "They are not in heaven because they fuck wives of Ely [a town near Cambridge].""

Reference to an earlier mention, a 'John Le Fucker' listed in 1250, is made in John Ayto's Dictionary of Word Origins. He was probably so-called in mockery, or as a parody. It seems a little odd then that Chaucer, who clearly knew a few rude words, doesn't use the term in his Canterbury Tales, begun in 1385. The earliest reference cited in The Oxford English Dictionary is 1503.

J: I was under the impression that the word "fuck" was derived from the acronym for "fornication under carnal knowledge". I suppose that if you were caught screwing around before marriage this is what you were charged with under some legal system somewhere.

Fuck is an acronym from Dante's Inferno For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge. Do more research.

[What a cunt! MOP]

Some other suggestions (mostly unlikely) include:

Fornication Under Consent of the King: suggesting one needed the King's permission to shag out of wedlock. Soldiers were said to be automatically granted the right when out raping and pillaging in foreign lands.

For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge: For those held in prison for sex out of wedlock.

File Under Carnal Knowledge: allegedly marked on Scotland Yard rape files.

For a more detailed examination of this sticky issue, visit the ever-reliable Snopes

Subject: RE: BS: Mediaeval Swear Words
From: Kate
Date: 04 Sep 02 - 06:21 AM

Chaucer's The Miller's Tale has some great ones. The one that sticks in my mind though is quint (spelling?) meaning female genitalia (i.e swop a few letters around). Remember reading it for A Level English and every one having a good giggle.

Subject: RE: BS: Mediaeval Swear Words
From: HuwG
Date: 04 Sep 02 - 05:50 AM

"Bloody" is a contraction of "By our Lady" i.e. swearing on the Virgin Mary.

Still in use, obviously. However, it seems to have lost it's original meaning and is almost always assumed to mean, "Covered in blood", or perhaps, "Sanguinary", which describes the messy work of a butcher or knacker.

Subject: RE: BS: Mediaeval Swear Words
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 04 Sep 02 - 04:58 AM

We have used a paper copy in our pace-egg play for ages. can't remember where I first saw it though.

DtG

Subject: RE: BS: Mediaeval Swear Words
From: Madam Gashee
Date: 04 Sep 02 - 04:49 AM

Dave the gnome: Where on earth did you find that!!!
It's brilliant! Skipper Jack & myself can freely swop insults all morning now!!
You've made our day!

Subject: RE: BS: Mediaeval Swear Words
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 04 Sep 02 - 04:09 AM

Not quite mediaeval but good for a laugh...

Try this thou dankish plume-plucked mouldwarp!

Cheers

Dave the Gnome

Subject: RE: BS: Mediaeval Swear Words
From: GUEST,KingBrilliant
Date: 04 Sep 02 - 03:45 AM

Wouldn't swear to the accuracy but...
Strewth = God's truth = still in use
Blimey = (reputedly) God Blind Me = still in use
I've got a feeling that "God's teeth" is a gentlification of the more blasphemous "God's death"

Kris

Subject: RE: BS: Mediaeval Swear Words
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 04 Sep 02 - 02:40 AM

God's teeth - is one that the Dark Company (Mediaeval re-enactment society) used quite a lot, along with some of the commoner Anglo Saxon ones.....

Codlings was another I liked, codlings being what goes in a codpiece.

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: Mediaeval Swear Words
From: Bob Bolton
Date: 04 Sep 02 - 02:35 AM

G'day Hesperis,

I don't know how common ... or how much like our current concepts of "swearing" ... but another that comes to mind is "Odd's Bodkins" = "God's bodikins" = (swearing on) the testicles of God! This links in with the (rather dubious?) connections between testis giving us both "testify" and "testicle" in modern English.

Regards,

Bob Bolton

Subject: RE: BS: Mediaeval Swear Words
From: GUEST,Maeve
Date: 04 Sep 02 - 02:21 AM

"Zounds", short for "God's wounds" is a mediaeval swear word. I don't know how common it was.

Subject: Mediaeval Swear Words
From: hesperis
Date: 04 Sep 02 - 01:39 AM

I need to know for a writing project. Which swear words were used in Mediaeval times and possibly before then? (Please give meanings where possible.) I don't want to use modern swear words in this story.

Thanks!

~*sirepseh*~