How Has Cursing Become Socially Acceptable?

“Pardon my French” is a term that you do not hear a lot nowadays.

As more people swear as if the words are those you hear in kindergarten,it raises the question: is cursing such a big deal any more? How has cursing become more socially acceptable?

The most common curses originate in Germanic, a branch of the Indo-European language family that includes English, German, Dutch, Frisian, the Scandinavian languages, and Gothic. However, many other curse words derive from a Latin root. There are two different types of swears of the years. There were oaths, where the swear word or phrase would take the Lord’s name in vain, and bscene words which were racial and sexual slurs.

Latin swearing was, in some ways, much like our own. Based on sexual and excretory taboos. The Roman sexual perspective was quite different from ours, leading to some distinctive swearwords. Romans divided people into active or passive, not heterosexual and homosexual. The society had a patriarchal system in which the gender role of the male was the main authority, emphasized by the “active” masculinity as a symbol of power and status. Men were free to have intercourse with men, but it was considered acceptable only in accordance with the law of Lex Scantinia, a Roman law that was created to punish any male citizen of high status for taking a willing role in passive sexual behaviour. Failure to take the “top” or “active” role in sex would bring his name and family reputation into disrepute or infamia thus the most offensive phrases that someone could say, were slurs about a person being passive.

In the Medieval Ages, the most offensive oath was believed to actually tear apart the body of Christ. Phrases that incorporated body parts, like swearing “by God’s bones” or “by God’s nails,” were looked upon the opposite of the Catholic church. The phrases were believed to actually injure Christ’s physical body as he sat at the right hand of God in heaven. Though, what we find offensive today, was not found offensive in the 15th century. The curse words we hear today were actually used as direct terms and the appeared everywhere.

The most insulting thing you could say to a person during the Renaissance period was only slightly more offensive than “umm...”. In the 17th and 18th century conversations were scatter with insults like ‘sblood’, ‘zounds’, and the well known British curse word ‘bloody’.

Today the worst word are racial slurs, but the world is getting more offended by labels and titles of any sort. It is becoming more taboo to label anyone or anything in a single word, whether the word sums up a person’s race, size, physical or mental capability.

With social media, like Twitter, swear words have become more apparent in people's daily life. And with the tolerance of this increase, there will be more, worse curse words that will be welcomed by the family of swears. So what do you think the new curse words will be?