What was the original profanity?

zaman89

The original meaning of profanity was restricted to blasphemy. http://www.firstamendmentcenter.org/analysis.aspx?id=18508 May 23 08, 4:23 PM

BRY2K

This is an excerpt from an EXCELLENT article on the history of profanity: "Terms of profanity have historically been taboo words. Some words originally considered profane have become much less offensive with the increasing secularity of society, while others, primarily racial or ethnic epithets which can be considered part of hate speech, have become increasingly taboo". Read it at your own risk. http://www.experiencefestival.com/a/Profanity_-_History/id/4960289 May 23 08, 5:10 PM

queproblema

Perhaps we should mention the definition and etymology of "profane." It's the opposite of "sacred" and came from words meaning "before the temple." After originally meaning "irreverent," in has come to mean any kind of verbal abuse or coarseness. http://www.answers.com/topic/profane My ninth grade civics teacher, no nun, taught us that a person who can't express himself without resorting to profanity has too limited a vocabulary. Since then I've noticed that people with ample vocabularies employ such words only to be "one of the boys," to deliberately display irreverence or coarseness, or as a colloquial intensifier. Gen. Patton would be an exception. May 23 08, 5:35 PM