Thursday, October 13, 2016

Holy Sh*t: A Brief History of Swearing by Melissa Mohr

I picked this book out of curiosity about the content it could have, and I must say that I was not disappointed.

The book talks about the journey of swearing (abuses and otherwise). It draws a picture that how the obscenities have developed in the society over a period of time.

It gives a lot of example of living conditions and social acceptance (or taboo) of a particular time and how the obscenities grew in those conditions.

One thing which I took from this book was that all the things which were taboo ended up being a swear world, which involved from God to body excrete or various body parts. Over a period of time even the sexual preference became a taboo and being considered as an obscenity.

Cast, colour, creed, class etc also became the swearing words give the social condition over a period of time.

I also noted that the author quotes that swearing give way to the frustration of a person and the magnitude is defined as which condition that person is going through.

I understand that swearing doesn't go well with the society, and considered a bad thing but this is an imperative part of the social fabric. It does change over different times, and the single source is what is taboo (or considered abnormal) for the society at that point of time.

Small and quick read.

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