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

[Smoke Teff]

The same basic concepts in English often have a high/Romantic variant and a low/Germanic variant. 

Urinate/piss
Defecate/shit
Copulate/fuck

> On Apr 19, 2016, at 4:58 AM, Kai Frederik Lorentzen <lorentzen at hotmail.de> wrote:
> 
> 
> > 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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