On 2008-01-19 11:23, Håkan Lindgren wrote:
> Piotr Gasiorowski:
> While we're at it, the oldest known f*** word in English was <sard>,
I don't think so. It was still used here and there in the 17th c., then
died out. In ME texts, <swi:ven> (Mod.E swive) is more common (OE
swi:fan, its ancestor, meant simply 'move', at least as far as its
textual documentation goes). Shortly before 1500, the most successful of
the competing synonyms, <fuck>, made its first appearance on paper (of
course it may have existed since the origin of English). It was already
a taboo word at that time, which you can tell from the fact that its
first certain attestation is encrypted:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flen_flyys
It's just a shot in the dark, but I wonder whether Br.E sod mightn't owe
something to <sard>. It's usually believed to be an abbreviation of
<sodomy, -ite, -ise>, but this may be a false popular etymology. I can't
follow this idea now, it requires a visit to the university library.
Piotr