Seems to me it's useful to make some distinctions here. When we say "swear" in this thread, we have blurred what are actually at least four different categories of bad language:

Swear: to take an oath, calling on something or someone of sacred stature to bear witness to the truth of the assertion. (By the way, in the Bible, what is prohibited is NOT swearing, but "false swearing", that is, perjury.)

Vulgar and/or excretory language. Self explanatory, I think.

Blasphemy or sacrilegious talk.

Curse: To call down, by express or implicit reference to the supernatural, some dire fate upon someone or something.

Thus, if I drop a can of sauerkraut on my toe and say, "Shit!" and my wife says, "Don't swear!" I reply, "I didn't swear. I was only vulgar."

If I deny that I ate the last of my wife's Godiva chocolates (when I really did) and tell her, "God strike me dead if I did!" I've engaged in false swearing, and perhaps also in blasphemy.

If I tell someone, "Go to Hell!" or "Damn you!" or "May God strike you down!" I'm cursing.

If I burn my finger on the stove and yell, "Jesus!" I'm engaging in blasphemy (or maybe it would be sacrilege; sometimes it is hard to tell them apart.)

By the way, very often we see that last-named subcategory spelled "sacrelige" or "sacreligious", as if the roots were "sac" (meaning something or other bad, I guess) and "religion" or "religious". That's not the word. "Sacrilege" comes from "sacri" meaning sacred, and "lego", meaning to steal, so sacrilege is really stealing sacred objects, or by extension, to use a sacred term for low or base uses.

End of pedantic rant.

Dave Oesterreich