Re: Swearing

On Thu, 27 Sep 2007 13:59:06 -0400, Harlan Messinger
<hmessinger.removethis@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in
<news:5m29bbFbctuiU1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> in sci.lang:

[...]

"Bloody" *is* a corrupted religious reference: "by our Lady".

Myth. The OED, in a draft revision dated Sept. 2007:

The origin is not quite certain; but there is good reason
to think that it was at first a reference to the habits
of the ʽbloodsʼ or aristocratic rowdies of the end of the
17th and beginning of the 18th c. The phrase ʽbloody
drunkʼ was apparently = ʽas drunk as a bloodʼ (cf. ʽas
drunk as a lordʼ); thence it was extended to kindred
expressions, and at length to others; probably, in later
times, its associations with bloodshed and murder (cf. a
bloody battle, a bloody butcher) have recommended it to
the rough classes as a word that appeals to their
imagination. We may compare the prevalent craving for
impressive or graphic intensives, seen in the use of
jolly, awfully, terribly, devilish, deuced, damned,
ripping, rattling, thumping, stunning, thundering, etc.
There is no ground for the notion that ʽbloodyʼ,
offensive as from associations it now is to ears polite,
contains any profane allusion or has connexion with the
oath ʽ's blood!ʼ

[...]

Brian
.

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