Curse Words

One thing that interests me about curse words is that they tend to carry very little meaning, or at least very little descriptive meaning.  They also seem to be least offensive when they are used denotatively.  Hopefully I can make this point clear with a few examples.

I will focus on the classic four letter words, as English has many words which are profane to varying degrees but fuck, shit, and damn are the prototypes.  Their descriptive meanings, as I understand them, are:

Fuck - to have sexual intercourse with 

Shit - poop, or the act of pooping

Damn - to sentence to an eternity of torment in hell

These words seem to be least obscene when they are used with these descriptive meanings.  For example, consider the sentences:

Panda bears in captivity don't want to fuck.

Bears shit in the woods

God damns sinners

These sentences may not be totally fit for polite conversation, but as sentences containing four letter words go they are pretty mild.  Compare them to sentences like:

What the fuck!?

I can't believe this shit!

I don't give a damn!

Without too much loss of literal meaning, these sentences could be rewritten:

This is ridiculous!

I am upset and incredulous!

I don't care!

In the first group of sentences, the curse word does not provide any denotative meaning to the sentence.  In each, the denotative meaning is understood, and the curse word is used for emphasis.  Its meaning is entirely connotative, and indicates that the speaker is angry and that the listener should be disgusted with the mutually understood topic of conversation.  It seems that curse words become more profane as their use becomes more connotative and less denotative, and that they are most profane when they are totally devoid of denotative meaning.  

To make this more clear, consider the following pairs of examples: 

Shit!

I took a shit.

Fuck!

I like to fuck.

Damn!

God has the power to damn.

In each pair of sentences, the latter uses the word denotatively.  The former uses it almost totally connotatively; when someone exclaims "Shit!" they are not talking about poop but suggesting something about their mental state.  In my opinion, the former sentence is more profane in all 3 cases.

Just for fun, I am going to list a lot more pairs of examples.  You can let me know if you agree with my thesis.

My bitch just had puppies.

You bitch!

The painting was of an old French whore.

You whore!

Lorena cut off her husband's dick.

Yeah, he's a dick.

I took a crap.

Crap!