I find that article a bit flaky.
Most often, swear words grow less vulgar with time.
But just as often they grow more
vulgar; this happened to shit
, which in Anglo-Saxon and mediaeval English was an acceptable everyday (if crude) word for an everyday (if crude) thing, and to bloody
Back in Shakespeare’s day, when one’s lineage mattered a lot more, the word bastard was so offensive it was often written “b-d.”
I just don’t believe that. Shakespeare introduces two illegitimate sons of noblemen, the Bastard of Falconbridge (King John
) and the Bastard of Orleans (Henry VI Part 1
) who are routinely addressed as such in polite conversation. To be the bastard of a king or a duke might not be quite as good as being his legitimate heir, but it was a matter for pride nonetheless.
Likewise for God damn and hell, which were considered so bad back in the 17th century that they were often spelled with dashes.
Were they? I’ve always thought that habit was a result of the creeping gentility of the later 18th century at earliest. Can anybody confirm or disprove this?