Use of this type of swearing in inappropriate or trivial circumstances ("taking The Name in vain") was considered wrong and sinful. The use of the term swearing in common speech came to represent this usage. Many current "swear" words originate from this usage:
became
and eventually
Similarly
became
In later years (Can someone give an idea of dates here. I know that sexual words and words connected with bodily functions were used openly in medieval times, but by Victorian times were totally unacceptable.), words connected with bodily functions (shit, piss, fart, etc.) and sexual words (fuck, cunt, etc.) which had previously been acceptable, became unacceptable in polite speech. The term "swearing" came to include these. With the reduction of the importance of religion, the use of swearing by holy things has reduced, and the latter use increased. Thus, in medieval times, "that meal tasted like shit!" would have been considered merely impolite, but "damn and blast the cook, that was a terrible meal" would have been shocking and even sinful, today the opposite is true.
(I believe words of Anglo-Saxon origin are more likely to be swear words than ones of French origin. Can anyone expand?) (And indeed Latin. It's broader than that, not just swearing - there is a whole "respectability" thing, medical terms etc ... hearty vs cordial or cardiac, cancer vs oncology. Someone needs to get refs from that excellent Bill Bryson book.)
Common swear words in contemporary american English include George Carlin's infamous list of Seven Words You Can't Use On Television[?]: Shit, Piss[?], Fuck, Cunt, Cocksucker[?], Motherfucker and Tits.
wikipedia.org dumped 2003-03-17 with terodump