Where Did Cursing Come from?

In English, swear words and curse words like shit have a Germanic root, as likely does fuck, though damn and piss come from Old French and ultimately Latin. The more technical and polite alternatives are often Latin in origin, such as defecate or excrete (for shit) and fornicate or copulate (for fuck).

Who invented swearing?

We don't know how the earliest speakers of English swore, because it wasn't written down. Before the 15th century – which is when swearing first appeared in writing – most writing was done by monks, and they were too good, and their work too important, for them to write down swear words.

What was the first swear word?

Fart, as it turns out, is one of the oldest rude words we have in the language: Its first record pops up in roughly 1250, meaning that if you were to travel 800 years back in time just to let one rip, everyone would at least be able to agree upon what that should be called.