This swear word rules the roost

While many original swear words were those that blasphemed higher powers, the lower human bodily functions could evoke equal outrage. One of the more curious phallic metaphors was that of the ‘c*ck’. Roosters have long served as symbols of masculinity, virility and dominance, though it’s not clear when man first correlated the cockerel to the penis.

In The Taming of the Shrew, Shakespeare’s Katherine proclaims, “Your c*ck is not for me. It has no fighting spirit.” Curiously, the Bard also pioneered the witty use of ‘prick’: “He that sweetest rose will find, must find love’s prick” – a word that was offensive enough to 19th-century sensibilities to be censored to “thorn”.