Where did bad words originate?

Answer 1

Bad words are mostly words with other meanings that were corrupted with vulgar meanings and used to attack other people or for the purposes of being rude. They tend to fall into these categories:

1. Misused religious terms and phrases. The original problem with these were that they took God and spiritual matters lightly, reduced God to mean leverage in taking oaths or making bets, or reduce God to someone anyone could use as a means to intimidate others. So they were used irreverently, to "swear" (to make an oath, seal a promise), or used to "curse" (pronounce curses upon). To profane something means to make sacred things common, hence the word profanity. Apparently, the terms swearing, cursing, and profanity first referred to this category of rude words and phrases.

2. Rude names for common things. The word vulgar means "common," and often means things said by uneducated people. So vulgar words often refer to rude words for relieving oneself, body parts, sex acts, names of groups of people, and so on.

3. Sexual words. While this ties in with vulgarity above, rude sexual words also are included as obscenity - rude words or images of a sexual nature. Such things are offensive as they are used to shock, intimidate, or control others.

4. Hate speech. These include words that attack someone's gender/sex, sexual orientation, race, ethnicity, handicaps, religion, or family status. There is overlap with the above, but they are also used to marginalize people, used while discriminating against others, used while bullying others, and used to intimidate others, mostly for things that cannot be helped.

Answer 2

Bad words or swear words have different origins depending on the language and culture. Some bad words may have evolved from ancient taboo language, while others may have originated from insults, slang, or derogatory terms used directed towards specific individuals or groups. Over time, these words gained negative connotations and became associated with vulgar or offensive language.