The Midnight Train Podcast

Our History of Swear Words. (Sorry, Mom)

2022-09-27

Sign up for our Patreon for bonuses and more! www.themidnightrainpodcast.com Do you happen to swear? Is it something you happen to do when you stub your pinky toe on the coffee table? What about when you've just finished dinner and you pull that glorious lasagna out of the oven, burn yourself and then drop your Italian masterpiece on the floor, in turn burning yourself once again? Odds are that if you’re listening to this show, you have a rather colorful vernacular and aren’t offended by those that share...

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Do you happen to swear? Is it something you happen to do when you stub your pinky toe on the coffee table? What about when you've just finished dinner and you pull that glorious lasagna out of the oven, burn yourself and then drop your Italian masterpiece on the floor, in turn burning yourself once again? Odds are that if you’re listening to this show, you have a rather colorful vernacular and aren’t offended by those that share in your “darker” linguistic abilities. Those dramatic and often harsh, yet exceedingly hilarious words, have a pretty amazing history. Were they written in manuscripts by monks? Or, did we find them used by regular people and found in prose like the names of places, personal names, and animal names? Well, could they tell us more about our medieval past other than just that sex, torture, plagues and incest was all the rage? Let’s find out!

Fuck

Let’s start with our favorite word. Let’s all say it together, kids. “Fuck!” This most versatile yet often considered one of the worst of the “bad words” doesn’t seem to have been around in the English language prior to the fifteenth century and may have arrived later from the German or th Dutch. Leave it to those beautiful Germans to introduce us to such a colorful word. In fact, the Oxford English Dictionary says it wasn’t actually used until 1500. However, the name of a specific place may have been used even earlier.

Many early instances of fuck were said to actually have been used to mean “to strike” rather than being anything to do with fornicating. The more common Middle English word for sex was ”swive”, which has developed into the Modern English word swivel, as in: go swivel on it. Some of the earliest instances of fuck, seen to mean “hitting” or “striking,” such as Simon Fuckebotere (from in 1290), who was more than likely in the milk industry, hitting butter, or Henry Fuckebeggar (1286/7) who may have, hit the poor.

The earliest examples of the word fuck in the English language appeared in the names of places. The first of these is said to be found near Sherwood in 1287: Ric Wyndfuk and Ric Wyndfuck de Wodehous. These both feature a kestrel known as the Windfucker which, we must assume, went in the wind. The next definite example comes from Bristol 1373 in Fockynggroue, which may have been named for a grove where couples went for “some quiet alone time.”

However, Somewhere among the indictment rolls of the county court of Chester (1310/11), studied by Dr. Paul Booth of Keele University (Staffordshire), a man whose Christian name was Roger is mentioned three times. His less Christian last name is also recorded. The name being mentioned repetitively pretty much means it did not result from a spelling mistake but rather it’s the real thing. Meaning, the man’s full name was Roger Fuckebythenavele. Not only does his second name move back the earliest use of fuck in its modern sense by quite a few decades; it also verifies that it is, in fact, a Middle English word. But of course, there are those fuckers that will undoubtedly debate it’s fucking origin.

The stem *fukkō-, with its characteristic double consonant, is easy to explain as a Germanic iterative verb – one of a large family of similar forms. They originated as combinations of various Indo-European roots with *-nah₂-, a suffix indicating repeated action. The formation is not, strictly speaking, Proto-Indo-European; the suffix owes its existence to the reanalysis of an older morphological structure (reanalysis happens when people fail to analyze an inherited structure in the same way as their predecessors). Still, verbs of this kind are older than Proto-Germanic.

*fukkō- apparently meant to ‘strike repeatedly, beat’ (like, say, “dashing” the cream with a plunger in a traditional butter churn). Note also windfucker and fuckwind – old, obsolete words for ‘kestrel’.

A number of words in other Germanic languages may also be related to fuck. One of them is Old Icelandic fjúka ‘to be tossed or driven by the wind’ < *feuka-; cf. also fjúk ‘drifting snowstorm’ (or, as one might put it in present-day English, a fucking blizzard). These words fit a recurrent morphological pattern observed by Kroonen (2012): Germanic iteratives with a voiceless geminate produced by Kluge’s Law often give rise to “de-iterativised” verbs in which the double stop is simplified if the full vocalism or the root (here, *eu rather than *u) is restored.

Kluge's law had a noticeable effect on Proto-Germanic morphology. Because of its dependence on ablaut and accent, it operated in some parts of declension and conjugation, but not in others, giving rise to alternations of short and long consonants in both nominal and verbal paradigms.

If the verb is really native (“Anglo-Saxon”), one would expect Old English *fuccian (3sg. *fuccaþ, pl. *fucciaþ, 1/3sg. preterite *fuccode, etc.). If these forms already had “impolite” connotations in Old English, their absence from the Old English literary corpus is understandable. We may be absolutely sure that *feortan (1/3 sg. pret. *feart, pret. pl. *furton, p.p. *forten) existed in Old English, since fart exists today (attested since about 1300, just like the word fuck) and has an impeccable Indo-European etymology, with cognates in several branches. Still, not a single one of these reconstructed Old English verb forms is actually documented (all we have is the scantily attested verbal noun feorting ‘fart(ing)’).

One has to remember that written records give us a strongly distorted picture of how people really spoke in the past. If you look at the frequency of fuck, fucking and fucker in written English over the last 200 years, you may get the impression that these words disappeared from English completely ca. 1820 and magically reappeared 140 years later. Even the first edition of the Oxford English Dictionary pretended they didn’t exist. The volume that should have contained FUCK was published in 1900, and Queen Victoria was still alive.

According to the Oxford English Dictionary:

Forms:

α. 1500s fucke, 1500s– fuck; also Scottish pre-1700 fuk.

Frequency (in current use): Show frequency band information

Origin: Probably a word inherited from Germanic.

Etymology: Probably cognate with Dutch fokken …

In coarse slang.

In these senses typically, esp. in early use, with a man as the subject of the verb.

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intransitive. To have sexual intercourse.

▸ ?a1513 W. Dunbar Poems (1998) I. 106 Be his feirris he wald haue fukkit.

transitive. To have sexual intercourse with (a person).

In quot. a1500 in Latin-English macaronic verse; the last four words are enciphered by replacing each letter with the following letter of the alphabet, and fuccant has a Latin third-person plural ending. The passage translates as ‘They [sc. monks] are not in heaven because they fuck the wives of Ely.’

[a1500 Flen, Flyys (Harl. 3362) f. 47, in T. Wright & J. O. Halliwell Reliquiæ Antiquæ (1841) I. 91 Non sunt in cœli, quia gxddbov xxkxzt pg ifmk [= fuccant uuiuys of heli].]

transitive. With an orifice, part of the body, or something inanimate as an object. Also occasionally intransitive with prepositional objects of this type.

[1680 School of Venus ii. 99 An hour after, he Ferked my Arse again in the same manner.]

transitive. To damage, ruin, spoil, botch; to destroy, put an end to; = to fuck up 1a at Phrasal verbs 1. Also (chiefly in passive): to put into a difficult or hopeless situation; to ‘do for’.

Cf. also mind-fuck v.

1776 Frisky Songster (new ed.) 36 O, says the breeches, I shall be duck'd, Aye, says the petticoat, I shall be f—d.

transitive. U.S. To cheat; to deceive, betray. Frequently without.

1866 G. Washington Affidavit 20 Oct. in I. Berlin et al. Black Mil. Experience in Civil War (1982) v. xviii. 792 Mr. Baker replied that deponent would be fucked out of his money by Mr. Brown.

transitive. In oaths and imprecations (chiefly in optative with no subject expressed): expressing annoyance, hatred, dismissal, etc. Cf. damn v. 6, bugger v. 2a. See also fuck it at Phrases 2, fuck you at Phrases 1b.

1922 J. Joyce Ulysses ii. xv. [Circe] 560 God fuck old Bennett!

Phrases

Imprecatory and exclamatory phrases (typically in imperative or optative with no subject expressed sense).

P1. Expressing hostility, contempt, or defiant indifference.

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go fuck yourself and variants.

1895 Rep. Senate Comm. Police Dept. N.Y. III. 3158 By Senator Bradley: Q. Repeat what he said to you? A. He said, ‘Go on, fuck yourself, you son-of-a-bitch; I will give you a hundred dollars’; he tried to punch me, and I went out.

fuck you.

1905 L. Schindler Testimony 20 Dec. in People State of N.Y. Respondent, against Charles McKenna (1907) (N.Y. Supreme Court) 37 Murray said to me, ‘Fuck you, I will give you more the same.’ And as he said that, I grabbed the two of them.

P2. fuck it: expressing dismissal, exasperation, resignation, or impetuousness.

1922 E. E. Cummings Enormous Room iv. 64 I said, ‘F— it, I don't want it.’

P3. fuck me and elaborated variants: expressing astonishment or exasperation.

1929 F. Manning Middle Parts of Fortune II. xi. 229 ‘Well, you can fuck me!’ exclaimed the astonished Martlow.

Cunt

Cunt is a vulgar word for the vulva or vagina. It is used in a variety of ways, including as a term of disparagement. Reflecting national variations, cunt can be used as a disparaging and obscene term for a woman in the United States, an unpleasant or stupid man or woman in the United Kingdom, or a contemptible man in Australia and New Zealand. However, in Australia and New Zealand it can also be a neutral or positive term when used with a positive qualifier (e.g., "He's a good cunt"). The term has various derivative senses, including adjective and verb uses.

Feminist writer and English professor Germaine Greer argues that cunt "is one of the few remaining words in the English language with a genuine power to shock".

The earliest known use of the word, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, was as part of a placename of a London street, Gropecunt Lane. Use of the word as a term of abuse is relatively recent, dating from the late nineteenth century. The word appears not to have been taboo in the Middle Ages, but became that way toward the end of the eighteenth century, and was then not generally not allowed to be printed until the latter part of the twentieth century.

There is some disagreement on the origin of the term cunt, although most sources agree that it came from the Germanic word (Proto-Germanic *kunto, stem *kunton-), which emerged as kunta in Old Norse. The Proto-Germanic form's actual origin is a matter of debate among scholars. Most Germanic languages have cognates, including Swedish, Faroese, and Nynorsk (kunta), West Frisian, and Middle Low German (kunte), Middle Dutch (conte), Dutch kut (cunt), and Dutch kont (butt), Middle Low German kutte, Middle High German kotze ("prostitute"), German kott, and maybe Old English cot. The Proto-Germanic term's etymology ia questionable.

It may have arisen by Grimm's law operating on the Proto-Indo-European root *gen/gon "create, become" seen in gonads, genital, gamete, genetics, gene, or the Proto-Indo-European root guneh or "woman" (Greek: gunê, seen in gynaecology). Relationships to similar-sounding words such as the Latin cunnus ("vulva"), and its derivatives French con, Spanish coño, and Portuguese cona, or in Persian kos (کُس), have not been conclusively demonstrated. Other Latin words related to cunnus are cuneus ("wedge") and its derivative cunēre ("to fasten with a wedge", (figurative) "to squeeze in"), leading to English words such as cuneiform ("wedge-shaped"). In Middle English, cunt appeared with many spellings, such as coynte, cunte and queynte, which did not always reflect the actual pronunciation of the word.

The word, in its modern meaning, is attested in Middle English. Proverbs of Hendyng, a manuscript from some time before 1325, includes the advice:

(Give your cunt wisely and make [your] demands after the wedding.) from wikipedia.

The word cunt is generally regarded in English-speaking countries as unsuitable for normal publicconversations. It has been described as "the most heavily tabooed word of all English words".

Quoted from wikipedia:

Some American feminists of the 1970s sought to eliminate disparaging terms for women, including "bitch" and "cunt". In the context of pornography, Catharine MacKinnon argued that use of the word acts to reinforce a dehumanisation of women by reducing them to mere body parts; and in 1979 Andrea Dworkin described the word as reducing women to "the one essential – 'cunt: our essence ... our offence'".

While “vagina” is used much more commonly in colloquial speech to refer to the genitals of people with vulvas than “cunt” is, its origins are defined by its service to male sexuality, making “cunt” — interestingly enough — the least historically misogynistic of the two. “Cunt” has also been used in Renaissance bawdy verse and in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, but it was not until Shakespeare’s era that its meaning began to fundamentally shift, during the dawn of Christian doctrine.

Arguably, if cunt simply means and refers to “vagina”, then why would that be bad? Vaginas are pretty great! They provide people with pleasure, they give life, and they’re even a naturally developed lunar calendar! So, why would a person refer to another, assumedly pissy person as a vagina?

So, should we as society fight the negative stereotypes and embrace the term cunt again? It’s a tiny word that bears a lot of weight, but it should be anything but scary or offensive. It can be a massive dose of love instead of an enormous force of hate if we actively define our vocabulary rather than letting it define us.

Words only have that type of power when the uptight, vanilla flavored, missionary only Karen’s and Kevin’s of the world decide they don’t like them. This has been going on for as long as we’ve been using words. So, let’s take it back.

We love you, ya cunts!

coarse slang in later use.

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The female genitals; the vulva or vagina. Cf. quaint n.1

a1400 tr. Lanfranc Sci. Cirurgie (Ashm.) (1894) 172 In wymmen þe necke of þe bladdre is schort, & is maad fast to the cunte.

1552 D. Lindsay Satyre Procl. 144 First lat me lok thy cunt, Syne lat me keip the key.

1680 Earl of Rochester et al. Poems 77 I fear you have with interest repaid, Those eager thrusts, which at your Cunt he made.

1865 ‘Philocomus’ Love Feast iii. 21 I faint! I die! I spend! My cunt is sick! Suck me and fuck me!

A woman as a source of sexual gratification; a promiscuous woman; a slut. Also as a general term of abuse for a woman.

1663 S. Pepys Diary 1 July (1971) IV. 209 Mr. Batten..acting all the postures of lust and buggery that could be imagined, and..saying that the he hath to sell such a pouder as should make all the cunts in town run after him.

As a term of abuse for a man.

1860 in M. E. Neely Abraham Lincoln Encycl. (1982) 154 And when they got to Charleston, they had to, as is wont Look around to find a chairman, and so they took a Cunt

A despised, unpleasant, or annoying place, thing, or task.

1922 J. Joyce Ulysses ii. iv. [Calypso] 59 The grey sunken cunt of the world.

Bitch

Women were frequently equated to dogs in Ancient Greek literature, which was used to dehumanize and shame them for their alleged lack of restraint and sexual urges. This is believed to have originated from the hunter goddess Artemis, who was frequently depicted as a pack of hounds and was perceived to be both beautiful and frigid and savage. According to popular belief, the term "bitch" as we use it today evolved from the Old English word "bicce," which meant a female dog, about the year 1000 AD. The phrase started out as a critique of a woman's sexuality in the 15th century but eventually evolved to signify that the lady was rude or disagreeable.

Clare Bayley has connected this growth of the term "bitch" as an insult to the suffrage struggle and the final passage of women's suffrage in the early 20th century, particularly the 1920s. Men were intimidated when women started to challenge their subordinate roles in the patriarchal power structure, and the phrase started to be used to ferocious and irate females. Men's respect for women and the prevalence of the term are clearly correlated, since usage of the term rapidly decreased during World War II as men's appreciation of women's contributions to the war effort increased.

However, as they competed with women for employment after the war ended and the men went back to work, the word's usage increased once more. As the housewife paradigm started to fade away during the war, the position of women in the workplace and society as a whole underwent an irreparable change. However, males perceived the presence of women in the workforce as a challenge to their supremacy in society.

With songs like Elton John's "The Bitch is Back" ascending the charts in 1974, the slur became more common in mainstream culture and music in the latter decades of the 20th century. As a result of artists like Kanye West and Eminem using the term "bitch" to denigrate women and depict violence against them in their lyrics, hip-hop culture has also long been accused of being misogynistic.

We just need to look at Hillary Clinton's recent campaign for president in 2016 to understand how frequently this slur is leveled at women, especially those in positions of authority who are defying patriarchal expectations and shattering glass ceilings. Rep. AOC being called a "fucking bitch" by a GOP Rep. is another similar example. It is evident that the usage of the phrase and the degree to which males regard women to be a danger are related.

bitch (v.)

"to complain," attested from at least 1930, perhaps from the sense in bitchy, perhaps influenced by the verb meaning "to bungle, spoil," which is recorded from 1823. But bitched in this sense seems to echo Middle English bicched "cursed, bad," a general term of opprobrium (as in Chaucer's bicched bones "unlucky dice"), which despite the hesitation of OED, seems to be a derivative of bitch (n.).

bitchy (adj.)

1925, U.S. slang, "sexually provocative;" later (1930s) "spiteful, catty, bad-tempered" (usually of females); from bitch + -y (2). Earlier in reference to male dogs thought to look less rough or coarse than usual.

The earliest use of "bitch" specifically as a derogatory term for women dates to the fifteenth century. Its earliest slang meaning mainly referred to sexual behavior, according to the English language historian Geoffrey Hughes:

The early applications were to a promiscuous or sensual woman, a metaphorical extension of the behavior of a bitch in heat. Herein lies the original point of the powerful insult son of a bitch, found as biche sone ca. 1330 in Arthur and Merlin ... while in a spirited exchange in the Chester Play (ca. 1400) a character demands: "Whom callest thou queine, skabde bitch?" ("Who are you calling a whore, you miserable bitch?").

In modern usage, the slang term bitch has different meanings depending largely on social context and may vary from very offensive to endearing, and as with many slang terms, its meaning and nuances can vary depending on the region in which it is used.

The term bitch can refer to a person or thing that is very difficult, as in "Life's a bitch" or "He sure got the bitch end of that deal". It is common for insults to lose intensity as their meaning broadens ("bastard" is another example). In the film The Women (1939), Joan Crawford could only allude to the word: "And by the way, there's a name for you ladies, but it isn't used in high society - outside of a kennel." At the time, use of the actual word would have been censored by the Hays Office. By 1974, Elton John had a hit single (#4 in the U.S. and #14 in the U.K.) with "The Bitch Is Back", in which he says "bitch" repeatedly. It was, however, censored by some radio stations. On late night U.S. television, the character Emily Litella (1976-1978) on Saturday Night Live (portrayed by Gilda Radner) would frequently refer to Jane Curtin under her breath at the end of their Weekend Update routine in this way: "Oh! Never mind...! Bitch!"

Bitchin' arose in the 1950s to describe something found to be cool or rad.

Modern use can include self-description, often as an unfairly difficult person. For example, in the New York Times bestseller The Bitch in the House, a woman describes her marriage: "I'm fine all day at work, but as soon as I get home, I'm a horror....I'm the bitch in the house."Boy George admitted "I was being a bitch" in a falling out with Elton John.

Generally, the term bitch is still considered offensive, and not accepted in formal situations. According to linguist Deborah Tannen, "Bitch is the most contemptible thing you can say about a woman. Save perhaps the four-letter C word." It's common for the word to be censored on Prime time TV, often rendered as "the b-word". During the 2008 U.S. presidential campaign, a John McCain supporter referred to Hillary Clinton by asking, "How do we beat the bitch?" The event was reported in censored format:

On CNN's "The Situation Room," Washington Post media critic and CNN "Reliable Sources" host Howard Kurtz observed that "Senator McCain did not embrace the 'b' word that this woman in the audience used." ABC reporter Kate Snow adopted the same location. On CNN's "Out in the Open," Rick Sanchez characterized the word without using it by saying, "Last night, we showed you a clip of one of his supporters calling Hillary Clinton the b-word that rhymes with witch." A local Fox 25 news reporter made the same move when he rhymed the unspoken word with rich.

A study reported that, when used on social media, bitch "aims to promote traditional, cultural beliefs about femininity". Used hundreds of thousands of times per day on such platforms, it is associated with sexist harassment, "victimizing targets", and "shaming" victims who do not abide by degrading notions about femininity

Son of a bitch

The first known appearance of "son-of-a-bitch" in a work of American fiction is Seventy-Six (1823), a historical fiction novel set during the American Revolutionary War by eccentric writer and critic John Neal. The protagonist, Jonathan Oadley, recounts a battle scene in which he is mounted on a horse: "I wheeled, made a dead set at the son-of-a-bitch in my rear, unhorsed him, and actually broke through the line."

The term's use as an insult is as old as that of bitch. Euphemistic terms are often substituted, such as gun in the phrase "son of a gun" as opposed to "son of a bitch", or "s.o.b." for the same phrase. Like bitch, the severity of the insult has diminished. Roy Blount Jr. in 2008 extolled the virtues of "son of a bitch" (particularly in comparison to "asshole") in common speech and deed. Son of a bitch can also be used as a "how about that" reaction, or as a reaction to excruciating pain.

In politics the phrase "Yes, he is a son of a bitch, but he is our son of a bitch" has been attributed, probably apocryphally, to various U.S. presidents from Franklin Roosevelt to Richard Nixon. Immediately after the detonation of the first atomic bomb in Alamogordo, New Mexico, in July 1945 (the device codenamed Gadget), the Manhattan Project scientist who served as the director of the test, Kenneth Tompkins Bainbridge, exclaimed to Robert Oppenheimer "Now we're all sons-of-bitches."

In January 2022, United States President Joe Biden was recorded on a hot mic responding to Fox News correspondent Peter Doocy asking, "Do you think inflation is a political liability ahead of the midterms?" Biden responded sarcastically, saying, "It's a great asset — more inflation. What a stupid son of a bitch."

The 19th-century British racehorse Filho da Puta took its name from "Son of a Bitch" in Portuguese.

The Curtiss SB2C, a World War 2 U.S. Navy dive bomber, was called "Son-of-a-Bitch 2nd Class" by some of its pilots and crewmen.

In American popular culture, the slang word "basic" is used to derogatorily refer to persons who are thought to favor mainstream goods, fashions, and music. Hip-hop culture gave rise to "basic bitch," which gained popularity through rap music, lyrics, blogs, and videos from 2011 to 2014. "Bros" is a common word for their male counterparts. Other English-speaking nations have terms like "basic bitch" or "airhead," such as modern British "Essex girls" and "Sloane Rangers," as well as Australian "haul girls," who are noted for their love of shopping for expensive clothing and uploading films of their purchases on YouTube.

Oxford English Dictionary

transitive. To call (a person, esp. a woman) a bitch.

1707 Diverting Muse 131 Why how now, crys Venus, altho you're my Spouse, [If] you Bitch me, you Brute, have a care of your Brows

transitive. To behave like a bitch towards (a person); to be spiteful, malicious, or unfair to (a person); to let (a person) down.

1764 D. Garrick Let. 23 Aug. (1963) II. 423 I am a little at a loss what You will do for a Woman Tragedian to stare & tremble wth yr Heroes, if Yates should bitch You—but she must come.

intransitive. To engage in spiteful or malicious criticism or gossip, esp. about another person; to talk spitefully or cattily about.

1915 G. Cannan Young Earnest i. x. 92 It's the women bitching at you got into your blood.

intransitive. Originally U.S. To grumble, to complain (about something, or at someone).

Frequently collocated with moan.

1930 Amer. Speech 5 238 [Colgate University slang] He bitched about the course.

†3. intransitive. To back down, to yield. Obsolete. rare.

1777 E. Burke Let. 9 May in Corr. (1961) III. 339 Norton bitched a little at last, but though he would recede; Fox stuck to his motion.

Shit

shit (v.)

Old English scitan, from Proto-Germanic *skit- (source also of North Frisian skitj, Dutch schijten, German scheissen), from PIE(proto indo-european) root *skei- "to cut, split." 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 conscience.

"Shit" is not an acronym. Nor is it a recent word. But it was taboo from 1600 and rarely appeared in print (neither Shakespeare nor the KJV has it), and even in the "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"), scandalized magazine subscribers in 1957 (a Hemingway story in Atlantic Monthly) and was omitted from some dictionaries as recently as 1970 ("Webster's New World"). [Rawson]

It has extensive slang usage; the meaning "to lie, to tease'' is from 1934; that of "to disrespect" is from 1903. Also see shite. Shat is a humorous past tense form, not etymological, first recorded 18th century.

To shit bricks "be very frightened" attested by 1961. The connection between fear and involuntary defecation has generated expressions in English since the 14th century. (the image also is in Latin), and probably also is behind scared shitless (1936).

shit (n.)

Middle English shit "diarrhea," from Old English scitte "purging, diarrhea," from source of shit (v.). The general sense of "excrement" dates from 1580s (Old English had scytel, Middle English shitel for "dung, excrement;" the usual 14c. noun for natural discharges of the bodies of men or beasts seems to have been turd or filth). As an exclamation attested in print by 1920 but certainly older. Use for "obnoxious person" is by 1508; meaning "misfortune, trouble" is attested from 1937.

Shit-faced "drunk" is 1960s student slang; shit list is from 1942. Shit-hole is by 1937 as "rectum," by 1969 in reference to undesirable locations. Shitload (also shit-load) for "a great many" is by 1970. Shitticism is Robert Frost's word for scatological writing.

Up shit creek "in trouble" is by 1868 in a South Carolina context (compare the metaphoric salt river, of which it is perhaps a coarse variant). Slang not give a shit "not care" is by 1922. Pessimistic expression same shit different day is attested by 1989. To get (one's) shit together "manage one's affairs" is by 1969. Emphatic shit out of luck is by 1942.

The expression when the shit hits the fan "alluding to a moment of crisis or its disastrous consequences" is attested by 1967.

Expressing anger, despair, surprise, frustration, resignation, excitement, etc.

1865 Proc. Court Martial U.S. Army (Judge Advocate General's Office) U.S. National Arch.: Rec. group 153, File MM-2412 3 Charge II. Private James Sullivan...did in contemptuous and disrespectful manner reply..‘Oh, shit, I can't’ or words to that effect.

Ass/Asshole

The word arse in English derives from the Proto-Germanic (reconstructed) word *arsaz, from the Proto-Indo-European word *ors-, meaning "buttocks" or "backside". The combined form arsehole is first attested from 1500 in its literal use to refer to the anus. The metaphorical use of the word to refer to the worst place in a region (e.g., "the arsehole of the world"), is first attested in print in 1865; the use to refer to a contemptible person is first attested in 1933. In the ninth chapter of his 1945 autobiography, Black Boy, Richard Wright quotes a snippet of verse that uses the term: "All these white folks dressed so fine / Their ass-holes smell just like mine ...". Its earliest known usage in newspapers as an insult was 1965. As with other vulgarities, these uses of the word may have been common in oral speech for some time before their first appearances in print. By the 1970s, Hustler magazine featured people they did not like as "Asshole of the Month." In 1972, Jonathan Richman of Modern Lovers recorded his song "Pablo Picasso", which includes the line "Pablo Picasso was never called an asshole."

Until the early 1990s, the word was considered one of a number of words that could not be uttered on commercial television in the United States. Comedian Andrew Dice Clay caused a major shock when he uttered the word during a televised MTV awards show in 1989. However, there were PG-13 and R-rated films in the 1980s that featured use of the word, such as the R-rated The Terminator (1984), the PG-13-rated National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation (1989), and the PG-rated Back to the Future (1985). By 1994, however, vulgarity had become more acceptable, and the word was featured in dialog on the long-running television series NYPD Blue, though it has yet to become anything close to commonplace on network TV. In some broadcast edits (such as the syndication airings of South Park), the word is partially bleeped out, as "assh—". A variant of the term, "ass clown", was coined and popularized by the 1999 comedy film Office Space.

The word is mainly used as a vulgarity, generally to describe people who are viewed as stupid, incompetent, unpleasant, or detestable. Moral philosopher Aaron James, in his 2012 book, Assholes: A Theory, gives a more precise meaning of the word, particularly to its connotation in the United States: A person, who is almost always male, who considers himself of much greater moral or social importance than everyone else; who allows himself to enjoy special advantages and does so systematically; who does this out of an entrenched sense of entitlement; and who is immunized by his sense of entitlement against the complaints of other people. He feels he is not to be questioned, and he is the one who is chiefly wronged.

Many would believe the term ass to be used to describe an ungulate or a hoofed mammal of the smaller variety. Those people would be correct. However ass would be used as slang to describe the incompetence of people as they seem to resemble that of a donkey. Slow and stupid. We don't see donkeys in this manner but the people of old may have.

A stupid, irritating, or contemptible person; a person who behaves despicably. Cf. arsehole n. 3, shithole n. 2.

Quot. 1954, from a story originally told in 1933, provides evidence for the development of this sense from figurative uses of sense 1.

[1954 V. Randolph Pissing in Snow (1976) lxx. 106 When God got the job [of making men and women] done,..there was a big pile of ass-holes left over. It looks to me like the Almighty just throwed all them ass-holes together, and made the Easton family.]

Dick/dickhead

Dick is a common English language slang word for the human penis. It is also used by extension for a variety of slang purposes, generally considered vulgar, including: as a verb to describe sexual activity; and as a term for individuals who are considered to be rude, abrasive, inconsiderate, or otherwise contemptible. In this context, it can be used interchangeably with jerk, and can also be used as a verb to describe rude or deceitful actions. Variants include dickhead, which literally refers to the glans. The offensiveness of the word dick is complicated by the continued use of the word in inoffensive contexts, including as both a given name (often a nickname for Richard) and a surname, the popular British dessert spotted dick, the classic novel Moby-Dick, the Dick and Jane series of children's books, and the American retailer Dick's Sporting Goods. Uses like these have given comic writers a foundation to use double entendre to capitalize on this contradiction.

In the mid-17th century, dick became slang for a man as a sexual partner. For example, in the 1665 satire The English Rogue by Richard Head, a "dick" procured to impregnate a character that is having difficulty conceiving:

“The next Dick I pickt up for her was a man of a colour as contrary to the former, as light is to darkness, being swarthy; whose hair was as black as a sloe; middle statur'd, well set, both strong and active, a man so universally tryed, and so fruitfully successful, that there was hardly any female within ten miles gotten with child in hugger-mugger, but he was more than suspected to be Father of all the legitimate. Yet this too, proved an ineffectual Operator.”

An 1869 slang dictionary offered definitions of dick including "a riding whip" and an abbreviation of dictionary, also noting that in the North Country, it was used as a verb to indicate that a policeman was eyeing the subject. The term came to be associated with the penis through usage by men in the military around the 1880s.

The term "dick" was originally used to describe a vile or repulsive individual in the 1960s.

A stupid, annoying, or objectionable person (esp. a male); one whose behaviour is considered knowingly obnoxious, provocative, or disruptive. Cf. dick n.1 6.

1960 S. Martinelli Let. 28 Dec. in C. Bukowski & S. Martinelli Beerspit Night & Cursing. (2001) 132 You shd listen to yr own work being broadcast [on the radio]... You cd at least tell ME when to list[en] dickhead!

Twat

noun Slang: Vulgar.

vulva.

First recorded in 1650–60; perhaps originally a dialectal variant of thwat, thwot (unattested), presumed Modern English outcome of Old English thwāt, (unattested), akin to Old Norse thveit “cut, slit, forest clearing” (from northern English dialect thwaite “forest clearing”)

What does twat mean?

Twat is vulgar slang for “vagina.” It’s also used, especially in British English slang, a way to call someone as stupid, useless, or otherwise contemptible person.

While twat has been recorded since the 1650s, we don’t exactly know where it comes from. One theory connects twat to the Old English term for “to cut off.” The (bizarre) implication could be that women’s genitalia were thought to be just shorter versions of men’s.

Twat was popularized in the mid-1800s completely by accident. The great English poet Robert Browning had read a 1660 poem that referred, in a derogatory way, to a “nun’s twat.” Browning thought a twat must have been a kind of hat, so he incorporated it into his own work.

Words for genitalia and other taboo body parts (especially female body parts) have a long history of being turned into abusive terms. Consider a**, d*ck, p***y, among many others. In the 1920s, English speakers started using twat as an insult in the same way some use a word like c**t, although twat has come to have a far less offensive force than the c-word in American English. In the 1930s, twat was sometimes used as a term of abuse for “woman” more generally, and over the second half of the 1900s, twat was occasionally used as slang for “butt” or “anus” in gay slang.

Twat made headlines in June 2018 when British actor Danny Dyer called former British Prime Minister David Cameron a twat for his role in initiating the Brexit referendum in 2016—and then stepping down after it passed.

Twat is still common in contemporary use as an insult implying stupidity, especially among British English speakers.

Even though it’s a common term, twat is still vulgar and causes a stir when used in a public setting, especially due to its sexist nature. Public figures that call someone a twat are often publicly derided. Online, users sometimes censor the term, rendering it as tw*t or tw@t.

If you’re annoying, you might be accused of twattiness; if you’re messing around or procrastinating, you might be twatting around; if you’re going on about something, you might be twatting on. Twatting is also sometimes substituted for the intensifier ”fucking”.

As a term of abuse: a contemptible or obnoxious person; a person who behaves stupidly; a fool, an idiot. Now chiefly British.

The force of this term can vary widely. Especially when applied to a woman, it can be as derogatory and offensive as the term cunt (cunt n. 2a), but it can also be used (especially of men) as a milder form of abuse without conscious reference to the female genitals, often implying that a person's behaviour, appearance, etc., is stupid or idiotic, with little or no greater force than twit (twit n.1 2b).

1922 ‘J. H. Ross’ Mint (1936) xxxv. 110 The silly twat didn't know if his arse-hole was bored, punched, drilled, or countersunk.

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