LOL, Bugsy!

Right you are, Amos. From This Site, see the paragraph entitled "The Psychology of Profanity." (And, that's to say nothing of ancient China, Greece, Rome, etc.) Here's a snippet with the "words" in bold (my emphasis):

"The history of profanity is closely connected with the history of religion, since profanity prevailed at those times and among those people where great sacredness attached to the names of the gods, or to matters of religion. In England, for instance, in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, after the monkish teaching had implanted a vivid consciousness of the suprasanctity of the body of Christ, and of every scene connected with His death, there burst upon the country a wave of imprecation in which profane use was made of the body and members and wounds of Christ, and of many things connected with His sufferings. Fossil remains of these oaths have come down to us in such expressions as 'zounds,' 's'death,' 'bodikins,' 'odsbodikins,' etc. The significance of this historical circumstance will be seen when we discover that the psychological value of an oath depends upon the force of the 'shock' which it is capable of giving. The occasion of profanity in general is a situation in which there is a high degree of emotion, usually of the aggressive type, accompanied by a certain feeling of helplessness."