Why do we have words that we “aren’t supposed to say”? What decides what makes a swear word a bad word?
It can’t be meaning, because “poop” is fine and
“shit” is not. Or “sex” or “ruin” is fine, but “fuck” is not.
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In English, at least, a lot of “four letter words” originate from Anglo Saxon, which after the conquest of the Normans who spoke an early French language, nobility was associated with French and peasants were associated with Old English. It’s theorized by some that the “bad” words are bad because of their socioeconomic association, the idea of which which just permeated for centuries until now.
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