Many so-called swear words were once perfectly acceptable words. The S-word was still acceptable in George Washingtons time. "Fart" has only more recently become unacceptable.

The "F" word though was always taboo. For this reason it was rarely recorded in print. The earlies existing reference to it is in the satirical poem "Flen flyys" from 1475. Written half in English and half in Latin. The poem satirises some horny Carmelite friars in the English county of Cambridgeshire. It goes "Non sunt in coeli, quia gxddbov xxkxzt pg ifmk". Meaning "[The friars] are not in heaven,since ..." they are fornicating. The poem can be decoded taking in account the alphabet of the time had U and V interchangeable, as were I and J. UU represented W. "Fvccant vvivys of heli" (from the poem) is a Latin/English mix which reads "They f*** the wives of Ely..."

The two big English swear words,the F word and the S word are interesting. Because every language seems to have some equivalent. Merde, merda and merda is the S-word equivalent in French,Italian and Latin. And for the F-word, Foutre,Ficken and Pierdolic in French,German and Polish respectively. Pierdolic is interesting. Because it shows that the F-word sometimes begins with a P in languages. But it always seems to begin with an F or P,IAE.