References on the History and Origin of Profanity

[Baker, John]

        I don't have any references to suggest other than such standard works as the Oxford English Dictionary, Jonathan Lighter's Random House Historical Dictionary of American Slang (vol. 1 and 2), (Jonathon) Green's Dictionary of Slang, and Jesse Sheidlower's The F-Word, although Christopher Fairman's paper entitled simply Fuck and Fred Shapiro's article, The Politically Correct United States Supreme Court and the Motherfucking Texas Court of Criminal Appeals: Using Legal Databases to Trace the Origins of Words and Quotations, may also be of use.  However, separate from your specific request, I do want to mention the California Supreme Court's decision in Lyle v. Warner Brothers Television Productions, http://files.findlaw.com/news.findlaw.com/hdocs/docs/ent/lylewb42006opn.pdf, with its discussion of the creative process and the remarkable passage on page 24:

Although plaintiff contends the writers "sorely understated the actual climate" of the writers' room in her interview, these types of sexual discussions and jokes (especially those relating to the writers' personal experiences) did in fact provide material for actual scripts.FN9
FN9 Of course, explicit sexual references typically were replaced with innuendos, imagery, similes, allusions, puns, or metaphors in order to convey sexual themes in a form suitable for broadcast on network television. For example, "motherfucker" was replaced with "mother kisser," "testicles" with "balls," and "anal sex" with "in the stern."


        I've posted about this before, but I still can't believe that network executives consider "balls" to be a euphemism for "testicles."


John Baker


-----Original Message-----
From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf Of Dorita Barr
Sent: Monday, April 23, 2012 2:10 PM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: References on the History and Origin of Profanity

Hello all.

I am currently doing a research project on the use of profane words such as ass, bitch, damn, fuck, hell, shit, and piss in Prime-Time television programs. I would like to include information on the history of profane words and their origins, but I am having a difficult time finding articles/works that address where profane words originated from. If you all know of any scholars or references who address the history and origin of profanity, would you please let me know? I'd really appreciate it.

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