MIND YOUR LANGUAGE

etymology (n) an account of the origins and the developments in meaning of a word.
Concise Oxford Dictionary.

Once limited to blasphemy, ‘bad language’ has evolved over many thousands of years to represent both the lowest and the highest forms of human expression. Such words can cause the greatest offence if used casually and repeatedly, at an inappropriate time or place, or in the wrong company. Yet often, a well-timed swear-word can make people laugh. Among friends, almost any word might be considered acceptable, while even the mildest of curses might be distressing if heard coming from the mouth of a child. Even something as simple as the type of voice a person has can affect how the word is received. Should a British Royal swear it might be considered witty, while the exact same phrase coming from an East-end garage mechanic might be interpreted as crude and base. And words that might once have been commonplace are nowadays considered entirely unacceptable.

Two nations divided by a common language.
Oscar Wilde.

With swearing, context is everything. Words that are in common use in the UK are indecipherable to American ears, and vice versa. It takes more than just a simple ‘bloody’ (a corruption of ‘By your Lady’, a religious exclamation from the Middle Ages’) to swear like a Brit. Most British swear-words have a history longer than that of the United States itself, evolving out of even older European languages such as Norse, High German and Latin (hence British phrases like ‘a stream of Anglo-Saxon’ or, most commonly, ‘pardon my French’). For instance, the word ‘ass’ in American-English, meaning buttocks or anus, evolved from the British word ‘arse’. Before WW1, people in southern English would pronounce the word ‘ass’, meaning donkey, with a long ‘a’, making it indistinguishable from ‘arse’ in spoken English. Considered only moderately vulgar in the UK, it can be put to a number of different, often contradictory uses… The phrase ‘can’t be arsed’ signifies apathy or a lack of enthusiasm, yet to ‘get your arse in gear’ means to become organised or to ‘hurry up. ‘Arse over tit’/'tip’, ‘arse over apex’, ‘arse up’ or ‘arse about’ are all phrases which describe a spectacular prattfall or clumsy action. The word ‘prattfall’, incidentally, also means ‘arse over tit’; ‘pratt’ being an old word for ‘arse’ that has come to lose its meaning over the years. The word ‘pratt’ is still, however, used to this day to mean a fool. A ‘Smart arse’ (signifying someone who is too clever for their own good) can be used either affectionately or to cause offence, while ‘Silly arse’ merely means a fool. To ‘arse about’ can also mean to play the fool. A ’short-arse’, however, is someone with short legs.

A less-offensive term for ‘posterior’ in the UK is ‘bum’, which in America might referred to as ‘butt’. It made its first appearance in around the 14th Century, and was put to good use by Shakespeare: In Measure for Measure, Escalus asks Pompey what his second name is. ‘Bum, Sir’ replies Pompey. To which Escalus replies ‘Troth, and your bum is the greatest thing about you; so that in the beastliest sense you are Pompey the Great.’ (They don’t tell ‘em like that any more - thank goodness). However, in America the word as a noun has come to means tramp or hobo, while as a verb to mean ’scrounge’ or borrow’.

Just for fun, one of my classic favourites Two Ronnies Swear Box

Source www.bbc.co.uk

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