(np) Swear words, etymology, and the history of English

Tue Apr 19 04:58:03 CDT 2016

 > Have you ever noticed that many of our swear words (or /curse words 
/in American English) sound very much like German ones and not at all 
like French ones? From vulgar words for body parts (a German /Arsch/ is 
easy to identify, but not so the French /cul/), to scatological and 
sexual verbs (doubtless you can spot what /scheissen /and /ficken/ mean, 
but might have been more stumped by /chier/ and /baiser/), right down to 
our words for hell (compare /Hölle/ and /enfer/), English and German 
clearly draw their swear words from a shared stock in a way that English 
and French do not. Given that nearly two thirds of the words in English 
come from Romance roots and only a quarter from Germanic roots, this 
seems odd ... <

http://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/2015/06/swear-words-etymology-and-the-history-of-english/

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