All humans swear, all of us has an array of naughty words that exclaims discontent, pain and such. For example here in norway, my home country, christianity is the origin of pretty much all the swear words. Hence the name, I swear upon god, jesus and the holy ghost, or the devil to varying degrees of intensity. Words for naughty bits are also used as profanity, but for now let's look at the religious angle and how it will eventually tie into the topic of world building. Context is important after all.
Like I just mentioned, my vocabulary in Norwegian is built upon judeo Christian figures, I mainly use those when angry, or irritated. When I accidentally stub my toe into a table leg, my response is usually "faen". Which is just another name for the devil living down below according to unreliable sources. Regardless, it is more or less the Scandinavian equivalent of shouting the dreaded F word, because bad words apparently makes people bad. "Think of the children." Is the usual argument, that or you're going to burn in hell.
A fellow I grew up with swore like a drunk sailor, one without a notable vocabulary, or creativity. He would quite often shout "faen i helvete faens fitte." Roughly it translates to "satan in hell, devils female reproductive system." I'm fairly certain he turned out alright.
Essentially old folks from generations past have a very constrained relationship with these words and strive to avoid uttering them, or use less crass versions. I guess it is considered rude and unclothed to swear, which is probably the origin of the widespread bleeping of these words in televised media. Even youtube strikes down monetization when a video uses bad words too often and too early.
Anyhow, we have words like the Devil, satan, hell, anything that has to do with the devil and his home. We also take the lord name in vain. Technically we're not, because god is a title, not a name. Jesus is a very common word to shout when surprised.
Naturally this all ties into religion and our world, however in a world not unlike our own, or in a different reality there is no Chrisianity. If one of the biggest religions known to us is absent, swearing would, and should take another direction. Many authors are kinda unaware of this and just uses hell, because of familiarity, regardless if it makes sense, or not. The same holds true for various idioms and phrases. Seriously a lot of common phrases only make sense on our earth, some not even then.
Judge Dredd is one of these series that put a lot of effort into making the universe have its own vocabulary. Good God, holy Christ, Jesus jumped up Christ on a pogostick just does not hold up. Let alone putting the cart before the horse in a world with no equines. Though referring to a person being damned, and burn in hell does carry quite a bit of familiarity and does not require an ounce of brain power to use. Just like dropping the f bomb to be edgy as heck.
Essentially what I am getting at is this. A world without Jews and Christ needs profanity that fits the setting, and that all humans swears, some just more than other.
Njål #zaceron
Signing out
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