Tuesday, March 21, 2006

Bleedin' 'eck!

"Americans have never taken to the slang word bloody, but Aussies use it a lot, and have for a long time. In the late 19th century, writes David Crystal in The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language, it was known as 'the great Australian adjective,' and by the 1940s it was no longer considered a swear word.
"It was a different story in Britain, where bloody turned increasingly taboo after its debut in the 17th century."

Jan Freeman in The Boston Globe explores the sanguine intensifier.

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