Tagged Questions
8
votes
2answers
929 views
What makes a word offensive? [closed]
Whilst I was sat on the bus yesterday, I overheard a group of teenagers discussing various things. As per the usual social requirement at that age, every 5th word was an expletive. Not exactly the ...
33
votes
6answers
2k views
How did “Jew” become pejorative?
For some reason, the word Jew often carries a pejorative or offensive connotation, which the related adjective Jewish does not carry. This is most obvious when either word is used as an attributive:
...
5
votes
4answers
847 views
Were “devil” and “damned” really offensive words in Victorian times?
I've been reading Trollope's The Way We Live Now, and have noticed a little stylistic quirk; that the words devil and damned appear blanked out, as d----- and d------. They appear in sentences like...
...
10
votes
5answers
19k views
What is the origin and history of the word “motherf---er”?
I'm not a native English speaker, but I would like to know how and why people started using mother fucker. Today it seems it has lost its meaning because people use it all the time, but was there a ...
36
votes
4answers
3k views
Who is Jesus H. Christ?
When used as an expletive, the name Jesus Christ often gets an H inserted into the middle of it for some reason. I've heard lots of guesses about what the H stands for, the most popular one being ...
8
votes
4answers
632 views
What is the historic process for converting vulgar words into simply rude words?
I have noticed a pattern involving vulgarities where the previous generation's evil words become accepted as merely off-color or rude in the following generation. Is this merely each generation's ...
1
vote
2answers
3k views
Origin and meaning of “damn straight”
The phrase "damn straight" is now used as a way to emphatically agree with a statement, but where does it come from, and what did it mean originally?
14
votes
5answers
2k views
Was the word “nigger” an expletive in Mark Twain's day?
Was the word "nigger" a deliberately derogatory and offensive word in Mark Twain's time, or was it just a normal word to describe an ethnicity in those days?
Background: I'm curious as to whether ...
