Curse Words Traced Back To 11th Century - Curse Words INSIDE!

[matcom]

<snip>

No one can prove whether our earliest ancestors swore, but it's dang likely.

Linguists have traced some of Americans' favorite four-letter words to the 11th century. Over the next 600 years, many other profane terms were incorporated into the lower-class vernacular of most languages. By 1785, an English scholar, Captain Francis Grose, had enough material to assemble a Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue. According to Grose, "fusty luggs" referred to a "sluttish woman," and a man's sexual organ was known as a "plug tail." Women's breasts were variously referred to as "apple dumplin' shop" and "Cupid's kettle drums." An exclamation of surprise was "zounds!"; a foolish fellow a "nincumpoop."

Immigrants brought their oaths to America. In the country's early years, most cussing involved religious, rather than sexual, taboos. Taking the Lord's name in vain was a sin, but throughout the ages people coined substitutes considered slightly less blasphemous: As early as 1743 came "golly" and "gosh," and later "ye gods," "by George" and "doggone." Similarly, "Jiminy" began substituting for Jesus in the 1830s, followed by "Jiminy Crickets," "gee whillikins" and "jeez." "Shucks," "sugar," "heck" and "Sam Hill" served other rhetorical purposes.

http://online.wsj.com/article_email/0,,SB108733346213937839-IhjfYNolad3nZyvanyHaauCm4,00.html

[THUNDER HANDS]

1. I can't wait to call my g/f

Fusty luggs tonight. I'm sure she'll love that. :D

[matcom]

2. she will probably call you a "plug tail"

:D

[THUNDER HANDS]

5. ZOUNDS!

[Richardo]

3. "Cupid's kettle drums" - just about the funniest thing I've seen in awhile

HAHAHAHAHAHA!

(Co-workers watching me supress giggles - must......stop......laughing!) :D

[Fenris]

4. Check out the apple dumplin' shop on that fusty luggs.

What I wouldn't do to her with my plug tail!

:spank:

[Dogmudgeon]

6. My favorites

None of this information (in the WSJ) is all the original, but recent discoveries have made the case stronger for certain word origins. Still, most of these cuss-words have been around for a long time. And many of them deserve resurrection.

Odd's Wucks an' Tar(nation)!: God's Works and Damnation! i.e., everything in the universe. "Tarnation" comes from that saying.

Smockage: Copulation. Smock = skirt. We might say "Skirtage" today (much as we'd say "Poonage").

By His Hooks (and Ladders): Hooks were the nails used to attach Jesus to the cross. The ladder was used to bring him down.

Gadzooks!: God's Hooks (see above).

Nether Eye: Variously, the vagina or the anus. Used in several places in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales

Moss-back; Mossyback: A sexually active woman; young people used to have sex al fresco and when the woman was on her back underneath her partner, her back would pick up grass, dirt, and moss.

Old Berkeley Hunt: Early Cockney rhyming slang for the female sex organs (the word "Hunt" rhymes with).

Shiver My Timbers: "Make my ship's hull creek in response to rough seas!" Most people know this one, but don't know it was used by sailors and their "Night-Time Mollies" in harbor brothels as a metaphor for "Give me an intense sexual experience to make me tremble."

Your Father's Moustache!: Popularized again in the 1920s, it originally referred to another part of your father's body.

Mort Wop Apace: A street-walking prostitute. Probably introduced by the influx of Italian gentry in the 1500s, since "Mort" = dead(ly), "Wop" = handsome, from Guappo. It means, roughly, "A Walking Deadly Beauty", or maybe a "walking Killer Hottie"

I got more ... but I gotta remember 'em first ...

--bkl

[Misunderestimator]

7. I love Cupid's Kettle Drums...

I mean, really I do... :evilgrin:

[underpants]

8. fusty luggs

:evilgrin:

[Screaming Lord Byron]

10. It means 'dirty or soiled ears' in Scots.

There you go.

[GOPisEvil]

9. Now just what the Sam Hill is going on here?!?!

[sniffa]

11. i smeLL a copy cat thread a-coming