'Gadzooks', 'sneeze' and 'damn' were once swear words. So what changed? (2024)

When Kate was growing up, saying "bum" was completely taboo.

Lee says her 87-year-old mum is horrified by the f-word, but will use "bloody" in almost every sentence.

And Anna, a grandma, drops the c-bomb in conversation with her young neighbour, in order to connect.

These RN Life Matters listeners are just a few of the many Australians with a strong connection — positive or negative — to swearing, a practice which has changed wildly over the centuries and has much to teach us about ourselves.

From the once offensive "gadzooks" to slurs about body parts that have really stood the test of time, where did our swear words come from and why do we so love to use them?

The many ways to swear

There are four main reasons we swear, explains Howard Manns, senior lecturer in linguistics at Monash University.

There's the expletive function — handy, say, when you stub your toe.

We swear to abuse and insult. But we also swear to express solidarity; for example, we might call someone a "funny bastard".

That function is one repeated across the world.

"Calling your friend a bastard, or whatever you might call them, to index closeness is something we see in a lot of languages and a lot of cultures," Dr Manns says.

"It's been likened, actually, to the way that dogs and other animals playfully bite each other. It's our way as humans of playfully biting people that we like or want to like us."

Swearing can also be used to mark strength or attitude, by putting a distinctive twist on language.

"Sure, I can say 'absolutely'," Dr Manns says.

"But isn't it a little bit spicier if I say 'abso-bloody-lutely?'"

Origins of swear words

Swear words are derived from taboos — that's why "gadzooks" was once considered a swear word.

Taken from "God's hooks", it refers to the nails used to put Jesus on the crucifix.

"If you go back into Old English times, religious taboos were absolutely the harshest taboos you could use for your swear words," Dr Manns says.

"Damn" is another example.

"If you go back to the 14th century, it was essentially like using the f-word," he says.

"You find Englishmen using it so much that the French actually called the Englishmen 'damn' when they referred to them because they just heard them saying this word all the time."

The Victorian era is ripe for fascinating examples of swear words.

"A word like 'breast' or a word like 'leg' was really, really spicy for a long time. And we see evidence for this in that, for instance, we used to — and perhaps some people still do — refer to chicken breasts as 'white meat' and chicken legs as 'dark meat'.

"This is a carryover of the Victorian era."

For centuries, there have been words deemed inappropriate for women but acceptable for men, particularly within the realm of swearing.

"Verbal hygiene" and "watching the way you speak" were concepts commonly applied to women.

But from the 1960s to 1980s there was a movement of "verbal activism" that sought to change that, Dr Manns says.

"You had people like Germaine Greer who were going out of their way, first of all to use these words in public to try to tear down some of the taboo that was around women using words.

"But also you had them just making sure that men heard them and understood that women said these words too."

Some women paid a cost for their verbal activism. Germaine Greer, for example, was convicted and risked jail time for saying "bullsh*t" and "f*ck" at a town hall meeting in New Zealand in 1972.

Bodily fluids hanging in there

Not all swear words have changed over time. Those to do with body parts or bodily fluids, for example, "are sticking on a little bit longer", Dr Manns says.

"Because these [continue to be] taboo words for people … in everyday society."

But that doesn't mean the way we use those words hasn't evolved.

Dr Manns points to work by Monash University PhD researcher Dylan Hughes, who observed Victorian secondary school students and noted that they used the c-word as an insult related to another person.

"But they won't use it if there's even the slightest touch of sexism associated with it, so there's definitely a lot of care taken," he says.

And as for who in the English-speaking world swears the best — or at least, the most — the jury is out.

Dr Manns says there is some evidence to suggest that Australians swear more than people in other countries.

But other research suggests, for better or worse, that we're trailing behind the US.

Point of pride? Or room for improvement?