This is a whole series. Now I know what Iâm going to be watching for the rest of the day. I do wish, though, there had been a bit of etymological discussion for the origin of âsodâ as a swear word. Give me a moment while I check the Oxford English Dictionary.
Oh, according to it the use of âsodâ as a swear word derives from its use meaning âOne who practises or commits sodomyâ. That probably would have been a bit strong for this video. After all she doesnât deal with âbuggerâ.
When Four Weddings & A Funeral was shown on regular network TV here in the US I tuned in to see how theyâd deal with Hugh Grantâs repeated use of âFuck!â They replaced it with âbuggerâ. We silly Americans!
This is a good start. Then go rent In the Loop. 
Thatâs OK. It took me ages to work out what âmelon farmerâ meant. Two languages, 99% of words look the same, about 40% have similar meanings.
I prefer muddy funster.
I remember Michael Cane explaining the origin of the two-finger insult. When bowmen were captured, one of their fingers was cut off. At the beginning of battle, when the opposing armies faced each other, the bowmen would stand on the hill and raise their two fingers, showing that they were ready for battle.
The most British swearing known to man must be Brian Blessed repeatedly shouting âBOLLOCKSâ with his arm in ice-water, being watched by Stephen Fry:
The same BBC TV programme featured some great freestyle swearing from Mr Blessed as well:
@daneel
Also, it would have been just the English bowmen. The longbow was the Panzerfaust of its day, capable of stopping the armoured cavalryman just as the Pzf could stop a tank. The Burgundians et al had no answer to it at first, hence the dramatic success of the Anglo-Normans.
On which note I mention a joke of that era; on one occasion the Burgundian watchword was âĂ Beaumont le vicomteâ, but it was leaked to the opposition who amused themselves by shouting at the enemy âĂ beau con le vit montâ (Google is your friend here, NSFW). Sadly as apocryphal as the origin of the two finger gesture.
I also love the way Craig Ferguson does it.
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
(I will watch anything that has both Brian blessed and stephen fry in it)
Thatâs been popping up on my netflix list for some time and itâs bloody time. To. See. It.
That etymology gets repeated a lot, despite it being obvious bollocks. The gesture goes back before the long bow, perhaps to Roman times, or even earlier. It seems to have a shared meaning/root with the raised middle finger and the obscene version of the âcornuto.â
Itâs funny, the other folk etymology I hear a lot is âby our ladyâ for âbloody,â which Iâve read so much I thought it was true until now. I guess swear words/gestures end up with a lot of weird, incorrect attempts to explain them.
Yeah, itâs difficult to find the true origins of a lot of common phrases and gestures. They usually have vague or multiple origins, and the most colorful one usually gets picked up.
D I I I I I I I I I I I I V E !!!
: )
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This particular conflation of England with Britain is particularly galling to this Scot.
I really feel like there is an important and frequently used British profanity that wasnât covered here.
Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious?
Smeg?
