h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I don't know about that, I hear the word "bum" for posterior pretty often.

Why is posting 19 the same as posting 18?

Restraint rather than swearing: in one of my late grandmother's bound volumes of "Girl's Own Paper" for around 1880 was the verse:
"She hit the nail a fearful whack. I mean to say, she tried. She bathed her thumb in arnica, and then sat down and cried."

'Bloody hell' comes from 'Ye bloody vines of Hades'. The sap of the vines was the blood of the dead.
'Oh dear me' comes from 'O deo mio' - 'O my God!'

Astro-logica

Bloody just means 'really' in slang
but emphasises extreme

Bum - posterior: I'd heard it was originally intended as a more polite form of bottom - I suppose like 'cripes', rather than 'by Christ' although I'm marginally unconvinced by that explanation. Anyhow, eventually it became more rude. Apparently.

With ar*e, though, I think in the days of yore you decided if you were going to be vulgar or not - and then went with that. so Chaucer uses 'ers', which has a much nicer sound than our modern eqivalent, and used a word for female genitalia which is avoided in most polite conversation. One can only assume (considering he didn't hesitate to use either) that they were about as rude as each other - plus I'm not aware if the word bum existed. Shakespeare, much later and facing censorship, was equally vulgar. Just more subtle. Marginally. Henry V anyone?

Oh Jesus, Henry V, yes... studied the play at school and was not surprised by the fact it was equally rude and hilarious. Just subtle with it, so much so that the dimmer members of the A level English class had to have it explained to them, a fact that caused a lot more laughter a lot of the time rather than the mention of what was actually written on the page.