The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #51082   Message #778344
Posted By: Raedwulf
06-Sep-02 - 07:06 PM
Thread Name: BS: Mediaeval Swear Words
Subject: RE: BS: Mediaeval Swear Words
Fibula - you've obviously never worked on the railways on the mainland! Admittedly when I did (many years ago) I never did literally hear the sentence "f*****g f****r's f*****g f****d*", but I certainly, on a daily basis, heard it used as noun, adjective, verb & adverb, which constitutes the 4 main parts of speech...

Bloody (from the OED) - ORIGIN mid 17thC. The use bloody to add emphasis to an expression is of uncertain origin, but is thought to have a connection with the 'bloods' (aristocratic rowdies) of the late 17th & early 18thC; hence the phrase 'bloody drunk' [me at the moment, funnily enough =)] (= 'as drunk as a blood) meant 'very drunk indeed'. After the mid 18thC until quite recently bloody, used as a swear word, was regarded as unprintable, probably from the mistaken belief that it implied a blasphemous reference to the blood of christ, or that the word was an alteration of 'by our lady'; hence a widespread caution in using the term even in phrases such as 'bloody battle', merely referring to bloodshed.

I quote verbatim. Well apart fom my little interjection (but then I really am bloody (or at least mildly bruised) drunk! *BG*)