abarrach
For people who are more religious, saying Jesus out of context is also cussing.
This reminds me of a news article (I searched for it, and it turns out that it was from 2003. I thought it was more recent than that.) where someone commented that students don't know enough about the bible and cited an example where students only recognise the word "Jesus" as a swear word.
abarrach
As for nudity, I think it comes in large part from the literal interpretation of the Bible's account of the fall from Eden.
For Judeo-Christian cultures this is probably true, but nudity is a taboo in many other cultures too.
DarlingCrescent
I have wondered about that, myself. If you think about it, most curse words' origins are not very offensive at all. Whenever I have asked someone this question, the response I usually get is something along the lines of, "It's the meaning behind the word that makes it bad."
So, you might as well say that "butt" is a curse word. Or "fornicate." Because both words have the same meaning behind them as "a**" and "********" in those particular contexts. So, what is it that makes these words so obscene?
So, you might as well say that "butt" is a curse word. Or "fornicate." Because both words have the same meaning behind them as "a**" and "********" in those particular contexts. So, what is it that makes these words so obscene?
The meaning of the words are often a reason why they're bad (usually words about sex or excrement, or blasphemy), but in English, the words that came from Anglo-Saxon (also called Old English) are often ruder than the words with the same meaning but originating from Latin (often via Norman French) because it was the language of the ruling class.