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Reading this. It's a lot of fun, if you're into swearing, insults, and literary history
Montagu's book devotes one long chapter to the peculiar history of the word "bloody", which, he writes, "accumulated so much magic that it provided an unfailing source of energy for use in all sorts of refined meanings."
Why we swear like a trooper, trucker, sailor, fishwife.
Updated my @stronglang post with notes from Ashley Montagu's 1967 book The Anatomy of Swearing:
https://stronglang.wordpress.com/2022/12/11/trooper-trucker-sailor-fishwife-what-we-swear-like-when-we-swear-like-a-something/
"So long as Western societies cling to their chaotically unhealthy attitudes toward sex, the swearer will never want for four-letter words."
—Ashley Montagu, The Anatomy of Swearing
Thank you for this analysis!
I’d suggest to group Turks with pagans/heathens/heretics since these terms historically all refer to non-Christians.
@fiee @stronglang Thanks for reading it! That's a good point; I've added a quick parenthesis to suggest the conflation.