Talking Shit

English has absorbed a myriad of influences, but our usage has tended to prioritise imported words over those of our Anglo-Saxon roots. In fact, our core profanities today derive originally from Anglo-Saxon words, which only became vulgar to use when French became the language of the court (this also explains why these curse words tend to be four letters long and have strong consonants). It’s not that those words – or these scatological topics – were inherently profane. It’s that we made them so by distancing ourselves from what use to be native. 

Black, Christina. "On Giving a Shit" book review of Between Two Stools: Scatology and its Representations in English Literature, Chaucer to Swift by Peter Smith. Review 31, Accessed on July 31, 2015, http://review31.co.uk/article/view/332/on-giving-a-shit