Re: A few more risque words

From: Torsten Pedersen
Message: 5274
Date: 2001-01-03

An interesting book, the title of which escapes me, about swear words
in various languages, claimed that Germany and Scandinavia, swear-
wise, are "shit-and-the-devil" territory. The idea of sex as
humiliation and insult is supposed to come into American English via
Slavic, especially Russian, which in its turn got it from Turkish.

The *pIzd- root appears in Danish as "fise", fart (ablauting verb, so
obviously old). I see in the Swedish list that they have it too.