trumad: Women should not be swearing on DU...it's ‘just trashy!’

[kentauros]

91. It has a rich history that should not be dismissed merely because it's "crude"

And, most have no idea where these words have come from, only in how they 'hear' them used today. Read a little, learn a bit

[font color="fuchsia"][font size="5"]Etymology of the 7-Deadlies[/font][/font]
WARNING! WARNING WILL ROBINSON!
This is a long post, so y'all don't have to go looking at the links for each etymological meaning

shit (v.)
Old English scitan, from Proto-Germanic *skit- (cognates: North Frisian skitj, Dutch schijten, German scheissen), from PIE *skei- "to cut, split, divide, separate" (see shed (v.)). The notion is of "separation" from the body (compare Latin excrementum, from excernere "to separate," Old English scearn "dung, muck," from scieran "to cut, shear;" see sharn). It is thus a cousin to science and [link: http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=conscience&allowed_in_frame=0|conscience].

"Shit" is not an acronym. The notion that it is a recent word might be partly because it was taboo from c.1600 and rarely appeared in print (neither Shakespeare nor the KJV has it), and even in "vulgar" publications of the late 18c. it is disguised by dashes. It drew the wrath of censors as late as 1922 ("Ulysses" and "The Enormous Room&quot , scandalized magazine subscribers in 1957 (a Hemingway story in "Atlantic Monthly&quot and was omitted from some dictionaries as recently as 1970 ("Webster's New World&quot .

Extensive slang usage; meaning "to lie, to tease" is from 1934; that of "to disrespect" is from 1903. Shite, now a jocular or slightly euphemistic and chiefly British variant of the noun, formerly a dialectal variant, reflects the vowel in the Old English verb (compare German scheissen); the modern verb has been influenced by the noun. Shat is a humorous past tense form, not etymological, first recorded 18c. To shit bricks "be very frightened" attested by 1961. The connection between fear and involuntary defecation has generated expressions since 14c., and probably also is behind scared shitless (1936).


shit (n.)
Old English scitte "purging, diarrhea," from source of shit (v.). Sense of "excrement" dates from 1580s (Old English had scytel, Middle English shitel for "dung, excrement;" the usual 14c. noun seems to have been turd). Use for "obnoxious person" is since at least 1508; meaning "misfortune, trouble" is attested from 1937. Shit-faced "drunk" is 1960s student slang; shit list is from 1942. Up shit creek "in trouble" is from 1937 (compare salt river). To not give a shit "not care" is from 1922. Pessimistic expression Same shit different day attested from 1997. Shitticism is Robert Frost's word for scatological writing.
The expression {the shit hits the fan} is related to, and may well derive from, an old joke. A man in a crowded bar needed to defecate but couldn't find a bathroom, so he went upstairs and used a hole in the floor. Returning, he found everyone had gone except the bartender, who was cowering behind the bar. When the man asked what had happened, the bartender replied, 'Where were you when the shit hit the fan?' [Hugh Rawson, "Wicked Words," 1989]

piss (v.)
late 13c., from Old French pissier "urinate" (12c.), from Vulgar Latin *pissiare, of imitative origin. To piss away (money, etc.) is from 1948. Related: Pissed; pissing. Pissing while (1550s) once meant "a short time."

He shall not piss my money against the wall; he shall not have my money to spend in liquor. {Grose, "Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue," 3rd edition, 1796}

piss (n.)
late 14c., from piss (v.). As a pure intensifier (piss-poor, piss-ugly, etc.) it dates from World War II. Piss and vinegar first attested 1942. Piss-prophet "one who diagnosed diseases by inspection of urine" is attested from 1620s. Piss proud "erect upon awakening" is attested from 1796.

fuck (v.)
until recently a difficult word to trace, in part because it was taboo to the editors of the original OED when the "F" volume was compiled, 1893-97. Written form only attested from early 16c. OED 2nd edition cites 1503, in the form fukkit; earliest appearance of current spelling is 1535 -- "Bischops ... may fuck thair fill and be vnmaryit" (Sir David Lyndesay, "Ane Satyre of the Thrie Estaits"), but presumably it is a much more ancient word than that, simply one that wasn't written in the kind of texts that have survived from O.E. and M.E. Buck cites proper name John le Fucker from 1278. The word apparently is hinted at in a scurrilous 15c. poem, titled "Flen flyys," written in bastard Latin and M.E. The relevant line reads:

Non sunt in celi
quia fuccant uuiuys of heli

"They (the monks) are not in heaven because they fuck the wives of (the town of) Ely." Fuccant is pseudo-Latin, and in the original it is written in cipher. The earliest examples of the word otherwise are from Scottish, which suggests a Scandinavian origin, perhaps from a word akin to Norwegian dialectal fukka "copulate," or Swedish dialectal focka "copulate, strike, push," and fock "penis." Another theory traces it to M.E. fyke, fike "move restlessly, fidget," which also meant "dally, flirt," and probably is from a general North Sea Germanic word; cf. M.Du. fokken, Ger. ficken "fuck," earlier "make quick movements to and fro, flick," still earlier "itch, scratch;" the vulgar sense attested from 16c. This would parallel in sense the usual M.E. slang term for "have sexual intercourse," swive, from O.E. swifan "to move lightly over, sweep" (see swivel). But OED remarks these "cannot be shown to be related" to the English word. Chronology and phonology rule out Shipley's attempt to derive it from M.E. firk "to press hard, beat."

Germanic words of similar form (f + vowel + consonant) and meaning 'copulate' are numerous. One of them is G. ficken. They often have additional senses, especially 'cheat,' but their basic meaning is 'move back and forth.' ... Most probably, fuck is a borrowing from Low German and has no cognates outside Germanic. (Liberman)

French foutre and Italian fottere look like the English word but are unrelated, derived rather from L. futuere, which is perhaps from PIE base *bhau(t)- "knock, strike off," extended via a figurative use "from the sexual application of violent action" (Shipley; cf. the sexual slang use of bang, etc.). Popular and Internet derivations from acronyms (and the "pluck yew" fable) are merely ingenious trifling. The O.E. word was hæman, from ham "dwelling, home," with a sense of "take home, co-habit." Fuck was outlawed in print in England (by the Obscene Publications Act, 1857) and the U.S. (by the Comstock Act, 1873). As a noun, it dates from 1670s. The word may have been shunned in print, but it continued in conversation, especially among soldiers during WWI.

It became so common that an effective way for the soldier to express this emotion was to omit this word. Thus if a sergeant said, 'Get your ----ing rifles!' it was understood as a matter of routine. But if he said 'Get your rifles!' there was an immediate implication of urgency and danger. (John Brophy, "Songs and Slang of the British Soldier: 1914-1918," pub. 1930)

The legal barriers broke down in the 20th century, with the "Ulysses" decision (U.S., 1933) and "Lady Chatterley's Lover" (U.S., 1959; U.K., 1960). Johnson excluded the word, and fuck wasn't in a single English language dictionary from 1795 to 1965. "The Penguin Dictionary" broke the taboo in the latter year. Houghton Mifflin followed, in 1969, with "The American Heritage Dictionary," but it also published a "Clean Green" edition without the word, to assure itself access to the lucrative public high school market.

The abbreviation F (or eff) probably began as euphemistic, but by 1943 it was being used as a cuss word, too. In 1948, the publishers of "The Naked and the Dead" persuaded Norman Mailer to use the euphemism fug instead. When Mailer later was introduced to Dorothy Parker, she greeted him with, "So you're the man who can't spell 'fuck' " (The quip sometimes is attributed to Tallulah Bankhead). Hemingway used muck in "For whom the Bell Tolls" (1940). The major breakthrough in publication was James Jones' "From Here to Eternity" (1950), with 50 fucks (down from 258 in the original manuscript). Egyptian legal agreements from the 23rd Dynasty (749-21 B.C.E.) frequently include the phrase, "If you do not obey this decree, may a donkey copulate with you!" (Reinhold Aman, "Maledicta," Summer 1977). Fuck-all "nothing" first recorded 1960.

Verbal phrase fuck up "to ruin, spoil, destroy" first attested c.1916. A widespread group of Slavic words (cf. Pol. pierdoli?) can mean both "fornicate" and "make a mistake." Fuck off attested from 1929; as a command to depart, by 1944. Flying fuck originally meant "have sex on horseback" and is first attested c.1800 in broadside ballad "New Feats of Horsemanship." For the unkillable urban legend that this word is an acronym of some sort (a fiction traceable on the Internet to 1995 but probably predating that) see here, and also here. Related: Fucked; fucking. Agent noun fucker attested from 1590s in literal sense; by 1893 as a term of abuse (or admiration).

DUCK F-CK-R. The man who has the care of the poultry on board a ?hip of war. ("Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue," 1796)

cunt (n.)
"female intercrural foramen," or, as some 18c. writers refer to it, "the monosyllable," Middle English cunte "female genitalia," by early 14c. (in Hendyng's "Proverbs" -- ?eve þi cunte to cunni(n)g, And crave affetir wedding), akin to Old Norse kunta, Old Frisian, Middle Dutch, and Middle Low German kunte, from Proto-Germanic *kunton, of uncertain origin. Some suggest a link with Latin cuneus "wedge," others to PIE root *geu- "hollow place," still others to PIE *gwen-, root of queen and Greek gyne "woman."

The form is similar to Latin cunnus "female pudenda" (also, vulgarly, "a woman&quot , which is likewise of disputed origin, perhaps literally "gash, slit," from PIE *sker- (1) "to cut," or literally "sheath," from PIE *kut-no-, from root *(s)keu- "to conceal, hide."

Hec vulva: a cunt. Hic cunnus: idem est. {from Londesborough Illustrated Nominale, c.1500, in "Anglo-Saxon and Old English Vocabularies," eds. Wright and Wülcker, vol. 1, 1884}

First known reference in English apparently is in a compound, Oxford street name Gropecuntlane cited from c.1230 (and attested through late 14c.) in "Place-Names of Oxfordshire" (Gelling & Stenton, 1953), presumably a haunt of prostitutes. Used in medical writing c.1400, but avoided in public speech since 15c.; considered obscene since 17c.

in Middle English also conte, counte, and sometimes queinte, queynte (for this, see q). Chaucer used quaint and queynte in "Canterbury Tales" (late 14c.), and Andrew Marvell might be punning on quaint in "To His Coy Mistress" (1650).

"What eyleth yow to grucche thus and grone? Is it for ye wolde haue my queynte allone?" {Wife of Bath's Tale}

Under "MONOSYLLABLE" Farmer lists 552 synonyms from English slang and literature before launching into another 5 pages of them in French, German, Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese. (A sampling: Botany Bay, chum, coffee-shop, cookie, End of the Sentimental Journey, fancy bit, Fumbler's Hall, funniment, goatmilker, heaven, hell, Itching Jenny, jelly-bag, Low Countries, nature's tufted treasure, parenthesis, penwiper, prick-skinner, seminary, tickle-toby, undeniable, wonderful lamp, and aphrodisaical tennis court. Dutch cognate de kont means "a bottom, an arse," but Dutch also has attractive poetic slang ways of expressing this part, such as liefdesgrot, literally "cave of love," and vleesroos "rose of flesh."

Alternative form cunny is attested from c.1720 but is certainly much earlier and forced a change in the pronunciation of coney (q.v.), but it was good for a pun while coney was still the common word for "rabbit": "A pox upon your Christian cockatrices! They cry, like poulterers' wives, 'No money, no coney.' " {Philip Massinger: "The Virgin-Martyr," Act I, Scene 1, 1622}

cocksucker (n.)
1890s, "one who does fellatio" (especially a male homosexual); 1920s as "contemptible person," American English, from cock (n.1) in phallic sense + sucker (n.). Used curiously for aggressively obnoxious men; the ancients would have recoiled at this failure to appreciate the difference between passive and active roles; Catullus, writing of his boss, employs the useful Latin insult irrumator, which means "someone who forces others to give him oral sex," hence "one who treats people with contempt."

motherfucker (n.)
also mother-fucker, mother fucker, usually simply an intensive of fucker (see fuck (v.)), attested from 1956; implied in clipped form mother (with the context made clear) by 1928; motherfucking is from 1933.

tit (n.1)
"breast," Old English titt "teat, nipple, breast" (a variant of teat). But the modern slang tits (plural), attested from 1928, seems to be a recent reinvention, used without awareness of the original form, from teat or from dialectal and nursery diminutive variant titties (pl.).