I'm not going to weigh in on the stupidity of people who are offended by a single word, so I'll just go over the etymology of our favourite curse words.
Fuck:
Some evidence indicates that in some English-speaking locales it was considered acceptable as late as the
17th century meaning "to strike" or "to penetrate
The usually accepted first known occurrence is in
code in a poem in a mixture of
Latin and English composed some time before
1500. The poem, which satirizes the
Carmelite friars of
Cambridge, England, takes its title, "
Flen flyys", from the first words of its opening line, "
Flen, flyys, and freris" (= "
Fleas,
flies, and
friars"). The line that contains
fuck reads "
Non sunt in coeli, quia gxddbov xxkxzt pg ifmk". Removing the
substitution cipher[2] on the phrase "
gxddbov xxkxzt pg ifmk" yields "
non sunt in coeli, quia fvccant vvivys of heli", which translated means "they are not in heaven because they fuck wives of
Ely" (
fvccant is a fake Latin form).
[3] The phrase was coded likely because it accused some Church personnel of misbehaving; it is uncertain to what extent the word "fuck" was considered acceptable at the time.
Shit:
Scholars trace the word back to
Old Norse origin (
skīta), and it is virtually certain that it was used in some form by preliterate
Germanic tribes at the time of the
Roman Empire. It was originally adopted into
Old English as
scitte, eventually morphing into
Middle English schītte. The word may be further traced to Proto-Germanic *
skit-, and ultimately to
Proto-Indo-European *
skheid-, ". Ancient Greek language had 'skor' (root 'skat-' from which modern Greek 'skatá'). The words 'skÃtur' (noun) and 'skÃta' (verb), still exist in the Icelandic language today, and in other Scandinavian languages variations of 'skit' are also often used.
Piss:
Middle English
pissen < Old French
pissier < Vulgar Latin
pissiāre, probably of echoic origin
Cunt:
Cunt derives from a
Germanic word (Proto-Germanic
*kunton), which appeared as
kunta in
Old Norse. The Proto-Germanic form itself is of uncertain origin.
[1] In
Middle English it appeared with many different spellings such as
queynte, which did not always reflect the actual pronunciation of the word. There are
cognates in most Germanic languages, such as the
Swedish,
Faroese and
Old Norwegian kunta,
Frisian kunte,
Dutch kut, and German
kott. While
kont in Dutch refers to the
buttocks,
kut is considered far less offensive in Dutch speaking areas than
cunt is in the English speaking world. The
etymology of the
Proto-Germanic term is disputed. It may have arisen by
Grimm's law operating on the
Proto-Indo-European root *gen/gon = "create, become" seen in
gonads,
genital,
gamete,
genetics,
gene, or the Proto-Indo-European root
*gwneH2/guneH2 = "
woman" seen in
gynaecology. Relationships to similar-sounding words such as the
Latin cunnus (vulva), and its
derivatives French con,
Spanish coño, and
Portuguese cona, have not been conclusively demonstrated. Other Latin words related to
cunnus:
cuneatus, wedge-shaped;
cuneo v. fasten with a wedge; (figurative) to wedge in, squeeze in, leading to English words like
cuneiform (wedge-shaped).
Tits:
From Old English
titt. Compare
teat.