Page 599 - Practical English Usage 3ed - Michael Swan, Oxford

3 swearwords
a
exclamation of annoyance
Damn (it)!
Blast (it)! (BrE)
God damn it!
God damn! (especially ArnE) Hell!
Examples of use:
Damn it! Can't you hurry up? Christ! It's raining again!
Ok. fuck! I've lost the address!
exclamation of surprise
(My) God! Jesus!
Christ! Jesus Christ!
God damn! (especially ArnE)
b
c
Examples of use:
My God! Look at that!
Well, I'm damned! What are you doing here?
Bugger me! There's Mrs Smith. I thought she was on holiday.
surprised question
Who/What/Why etc the hell ...? (ArnE also ... in hell . ..?) Who/What/Why etc the fuck ...?
Examples of use:
What the hell do you think you're doing? Where the fuck are the car keys?
taboo words and swearwords 575
All of the words listed above, and a few others, are used in swearing. The meaning of a swearword is always different from its literal (taboo) meaning (see introduction above). Compare:
What are you doing fucking in my bed?
(= Why are you making love in my bed? - literal meaning of fucking)
What are you fucking doing in my bed?
(= Why the hell are you in my bed? - fucking used as a swearword)
The meaning of a swearword can also change with its grammatical form. For instance, piss offis an aggressive way of saying go away; pissed is British slang for drunk; pissed offis British slang for fed up. Many swearwords are grammatically very flexible. Fucking, for example, can act both as an adjective (e.g. fucking idiot) and as an intensifying adverb (e.g. fucking good, fucking soon, it's fucking raining, fucking well shut up). It is even sometimes put into the middle of another word (abso-fucking-lutely). Swearwords are the only words in the language that have this grammatical range.
The following list shows some of the most common expressions used in swearing; they are grouped according to meaning.
(My) God! Jesus!
Christ! Jesus Christ!
Bugger (it)! (BrE) Sod (it)! (BrE) Shit!
Fuck (it)!
Well, I'll be damned!
Son ofa bitch! (especially ArnE) Damn me!
Bugger/Fuck me! (BrE)
Well, I'm damned/buggered!·(BrE)
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