American English Insults and Their History

[bitheerani319]

Knowing formal, correct, academic English will be of great help in many contexts: to communicate with your coworkers in other countries, to impress your boss, to study abroad… But as we all know, languages ​​are not always spoken in their most formal, correct, and academic version. To understand street English (and Tarantino movies!) it is essential to have a basic vocabulary of insults. That is why today we want to share with you some of the most popular insults in American English and their history.


Free Guide: Tips to dramatically improve your spoken English level


Fuck
Quite similar to the very Spanish “joder,” fuck is perhaps the most iceland phone number list insult in English, and is used by both Americans and other English speakers. Often, to be polite, English speakers refer to it with the euphemism the F bomb .

Its origins date back to the Norwegian fukka and the Swedish focka , meaning "to copulate." Examples of its use can be found in English literature as far back as the 16th century.

In the late 19th century, fuck was also used as an acronym for the phrases for unlawful carnal knowledge and fornication under consent of the king.



Shit
Like fuck, shit comes from Germanic and Scandinavian languages ​​and is one of the oldest words in English. It was originally a technical term for diarrhea in cattle.

A curious fact is that old forms of shit appear in the names of some English places, such as Schitebroc, which literally means "river of shit."

Nowadays, this word appears in a lot of swear words. Here are some examples: shit-faced, shithead, shiting bricks, not giving a shit, when the shit hits the fan . Do you know what they mean?



Piss
This word refers to both the action (to piss) and the fluid (to piss). Its origin dates back to the 14th century and comes from French ( pissier ) and Vulgar Latin ( pissiare ). After World War II, it also began to be used as an intensifying adjective: piss-poor, piss-ugly…