Bloody
Encyclopedia
Bloody is the adjectival
form of blood
but may also be used as an expletive attributive
(intensifier
) in Australia
, Britain
, Ireland
, Canada
, Singapore
, South Africa
(in the form of bladdy or blerrie), New Zealand
, India
, Pakistan
, Anglophone Caribbean
and Sri Lanka
. Nowadays it is considered (by most of the population of these countries) to be a very mild expletive, and unlikely to cause offence in most circles.
invocation of the Virgin Mary. The abbreviated form "By'r Lady" is common in Shakespeare's plays around the turn of the 17th century, and interestingly Jonathan Swift
about 100 years later writes both "it grows by'r Lady cold" and "it was bloody hot walking to-day"
http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/s/s97s/letter24.html suggesting that a transition from one to the other could have been under way.
Others regard this explanation as dubious. Eric Partridge
, in Words, Words, Words (Methuen, 1933), describes this as "phonetically implausible". Geoffrey Hughes
in Swearing: A social history of foul language, oaths and profanity in English (Blackwell, 1991), points out that "by my lady" is not an adjective whereas "bloody" is, and suggests that the slang use of the term started with "bloody drunk" meaning "fired up and ready for a fight".
Another theory is that the offensive use of the word arose during the Wars of the Roses
when Royalty and nobility or those "of the blood" (meaning blue-blooded descendants of Charlemagne) wrought death and the most bloody destruction on England. Elizabeth I is also supposed to have used it when referring to her elder sister, Mary, due to her persecution of Protestants.
Another thought is that it simply comes from a reference to blood, a view that Eric Partridge
prefers. However, this overlooks the considerable strength of social and religious pressure in past centuries to avoid profanity. This resulted in the appearance or minced-oath
appropriation of words that in some cases appear to bear little relation to their source: "Crikey" for "Christ
"; "Gee" for "Jesus
"; "Heck" for "Hell
"; "Gosh" for "God
"; "dash", "dang" or "darn" for "damn". These, too, might be considered implausible etymologies if looked at only from the point of view of phonetics. Given the context in which it is used, as well as the evidence of Swift's writing, the possibility that "bloody" is also a minced oath
(or more precisely, a slang usage of an otherwise legitimate word masquerading as a minced oath) cannot be lightly dismissed. The suggestion that it originated as a reference to Jesus "bleeding" on the cross is compelling for its shock value, callousness and sacrilegious intent, just as the Irish, and those of the diaspora, will exclaim "suffering Jesus" in response to something shocking.
It has also been surmised that "bloody" is related to the Dutch bloote, "in the adverbial sense of entire, complete, pure, naked, that we have transformed into bloody, in the consequently absurd phrases of bloody good, bloody bad, bloody thief, bloody angry, &c, where it simply implies completely, entirely, purely, very, truly, and has no relation to either blood or murder, except by corruption of the word."
and British Empire
. Various substitutions were devised to convey the essence of the oath, but with less offence; these included "bleeding", "bleaking", "cruddy", "smuddy", "blinking", "blooming", "bally", and "ruddy".
On the opening night of George Bernard Shaw
's comedy Pygmalion
in 1914, Mrs Patrick Campbell
, in the role of Eliza Doolittle, created a sensation with the line "Walk! Not bloody likely!" and this led to a fad for using "Pygmalion" itself as a pseudo-oath, as in "Not Pygmalion likely".
The use of bloody in adult UK broadcasting aroused controversy in the 1960s & 1970s but is now unremarkable (for comparison, in the Harry Potter
movies, which are geared towards children, the character Ron says "bloody hell" many times in all the movies).
and has not been considered profane there for some time. The word was dubbed "the Australian adjective" by The Bulletin
on 18 August 1894. One Australian performer, Kevin Bloody Wilson
, has even made it his middle name. Also in Australia, the word "bloody" is frequently used as a verbal hyphen, or 'infix', correctly called Tmesis
as in "fanbloodytastic". In the 1940s an Australian divorce court judge held that "the word bloody is so common in modern parlance that it is not regarded as swearing". Meanwhile, Neville Chamberlain
's government was fining Britons for using the word in public. The use of "bloody" as an intensifier used to be considered highly offensive in India
.
The word as an expletive is seldom used in the USA. However, in Canada
, it is more common in English-speaking provinces, especially among older Canadians and Commonwealth immigrants. In the USA the term is usually used when the intention is to mimic an Englishman, though there are some who have adopted it from the British as an everyday term. The term however can sometimes be seen in an American movie or TV episode. For example, in Episode One, Series One of 1987 TV series "Tour of Duty
", an American infantry officer whose outpost is under attack, is seen screaming down the phone, "where the bloody hell are you?", attempting to get air support for a napalm attack. The term "scream bloody murder" (meaning to loudly object to something) is also in common use, without any connection with the British usage.
There is also "Bloody hell
", often pronounced "Bloody 'ell," which can mean "Damn it," or be used as a general expression of surprise or as a general intensifier. It is talked about in a limerick
about the letter H (aitch)-
In March 2006 Australia
's national tourism commission launched an advertising campaign
targeted at potential visitors in several English-speaking countries. The ad sparked a surprise controversy because of its ending (in which a cheerful, bikini-clad spokeswoman delivers the ad's call-to-action by saying "...so where the bloody hell are you?
"). Initially, the Broadcast Advertising Clearance Centre
(BACC) required that a modified version of the ad be shown in the United Kingdom, without the word "bloody". However, in May 2006, the Advertising Standards Authority
(ASA) ruled that the word "bloody" was not an inappropriate marketing tool and the original version of the ad was permitted to air.
In Singapore
, the word bloody is commonly used as a mild expletive in Singapore's colloquial English
. The roots of this expletive derives from the influence and informal language British officers used during the dealing and training of soldiers in the Singapore Volunteer Corps
and the early days of the Singapore Armed Forces
.
When more Singaporeans were promoted officers within the Armed Forces, most new local officers applied similar training methods their former British officers had when they were cadets or trainees themselves. This includes some aspects of British Army lingo, like 'bloody (something)'.
When the newly-elected Singapore government implemented compulsory conscription, all 18 year old able bodied Singapore males had to undergo training within the Armed Forces. When National servicemen completed their service term, some brought the many expletives they picked up during their service into the civilian world and thus became a part of the common culture in the city state. The word 'bloody' also managed to spread to the north in neighbouring Malaysia, to where the influence of Singapore English has spread. The use of 'bloody' as a substitute for more explicit language increased with the popularity of British and Australian films and television shows aired on local television programmes.
The term 'bloody' in Singapore may not be considered explicit, but its usage is frowned upon in formal settings.
, is used as a euphemism
for a variety of bad words.
Adjective
In grammar, an adjective is a 'describing' word; the main syntactic role of which is to qualify a noun or noun phrase, giving more information about the object signified....
form of blood
Blood
Blood is a specialized bodily fluid in animals that delivers necessary substances such as nutrients and oxygen to the cells and transports metabolic waste products away from those same cells....
but may also be used as an expletive attributive
Expletive attributive
Expletive comes from the Latin verb explere, meaning "to fill", via expletivus, "filling out". It was introduced into English in the seventeenth century to refer to various kinds of padding—the padding out of a book with peripheral material, the addition of syllables to a line of poetry for...
(intensifier
Intensifier
Intensifier is a linguistic term for a modifier that amplifies the meaning of the word it modifies. Examples are "very," "quite," "extremely," "highly," and "greatly." An intensifier is the opposite of a qualifier, a modifier that weakens the word modified: "fairly," "somewhat," "rather," "a...
) in Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
, Britain
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
, Ireland
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
, Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
, Singapore
Singapore
Singapore , officially the Republic of Singapore, is a Southeast Asian city-state off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, north of the equator. An island country made up of 63 islands, it is separated from Malaysia by the Straits of Johor to its north and from Indonesia's Riau Islands by the...
, South Africa
South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
(in the form of bladdy or blerrie), New Zealand
New Zealand
New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...
, India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
, Pakistan
Pakistan
Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...
, Anglophone Caribbean
Anglophone Caribbean
The term Commonwealth Caribbean is used to refer to the independent English-speaking countries of the Caribbean region. Upon a country's full independence from the United Kingdom, Anglophone Caribbean or Commonwealth Caribbean traditionally becomes the preferred sub-regional term as a replacement...
and Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka is a country off the southern coast of the Indian subcontinent. Known until 1972 as Ceylon , Sri Lanka is an island surrounded by the Indian Ocean, the Gulf of Mannar and the Palk Strait, and lies in the vicinity of India and the...
. Nowadays it is considered (by most of the population of these countries) to be a very mild expletive, and unlikely to cause offence in most circles.
Etymology
Many theories have been put forward for the origin of the term. One theory is that it derives from the phrase "by Our Lady", a sacrilegiousSacrilege
Sacrilege is the violation or injurious treatment of a sacred object. In a less proper sense, any transgression against the virtue of religion would be a sacrilege. It can come in the form of irreverence to sacred persons, places, and things...
invocation of the Virgin Mary. The abbreviated form "By'r Lady" is common in Shakespeare's plays around the turn of the 17th century, and interestingly Jonathan Swift
Jonathan Swift
Jonathan Swift was an Irish satirist, essayist, political pamphleteer , poet and cleric who became Dean of St...
about 100 years later writes both "it grows by'r Lady cold" and "it was bloody hot walking to-day"
http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/s/s97s/letter24.html suggesting that a transition from one to the other could have been under way.
Others regard this explanation as dubious. Eric Partridge
Eric Partridge
Eric Honeywood Partridge was a New Zealand/British lexicographer of the English language, particularly of its slang. His writing career was interrupted only by his service in the Army Education Corps and the RAF correspondence department during World War II...
, in Words, Words, Words (Methuen, 1933), describes this as "phonetically implausible". Geoffrey Hughes
Geoffrey Hughes
Geoffrey Hughes, DL is an English actor.As well as a wide range of TV and film appearances, Hughes is best known for a series of supporting roles in popular UK television dramas...
in Swearing: A social history of foul language, oaths and profanity in English (Blackwell, 1991), points out that "by my lady" is not an adjective whereas "bloody" is, and suggests that the slang use of the term started with "bloody drunk" meaning "fired up and ready for a fight".
Another theory is that the offensive use of the word arose during the Wars of the Roses
Wars of the Roses
The Wars of the Roses were a series of dynastic civil wars for the throne of England fought between supporters of two rival branches of the royal House of Plantagenet: the houses of Lancaster and York...
when Royalty and nobility or those "of the blood" (meaning blue-blooded descendants of Charlemagne) wrought death and the most bloody destruction on England. Elizabeth I is also supposed to have used it when referring to her elder sister, Mary, due to her persecution of Protestants.
Another thought is that it simply comes from a reference to blood, a view that Eric Partridge
Eric Partridge
Eric Honeywood Partridge was a New Zealand/British lexicographer of the English language, particularly of its slang. His writing career was interrupted only by his service in the Army Education Corps and the RAF correspondence department during World War II...
prefers. However, this overlooks the considerable strength of social and religious pressure in past centuries to avoid profanity. This resulted in the appearance or minced-oath
Minced oath
A minced oath is an expression based on a profanity or a taboo term that has been altered to reduce the objectionable characteristics.Many languages have such expressions...
appropriation of words that in some cases appear to bear little relation to their source: "Crikey" for "Christ
Christ
Christ is the English term for the Greek meaning "the anointed one". It is a translation of the Hebrew , usually transliterated into English as Messiah or Mashiach...
"; "Gee" for "Jesus
Jesus
Jesus of Nazareth , commonly referred to as Jesus Christ or simply as Jesus or Christ, is the central figure of Christianity...
"; "Heck" for "Hell
Hell
In many religious traditions, a hell is a place of suffering and punishment in the afterlife. Religions with a linear divine history often depict hells as endless. Religions with a cyclic history often depict a hell as an intermediary period between incarnations...
"; "Gosh" for "God
God
God is the English name given to a singular being in theistic and deistic religions who is either the sole deity in monotheism, or a single deity in polytheism....
"; "dash", "dang" or "darn" for "damn". These, too, might be considered implausible etymologies if looked at only from the point of view of phonetics. Given the context in which it is used, as well as the evidence of Swift's writing, the possibility that "bloody" is also a minced oath
Minced oath
A minced oath is an expression based on a profanity or a taboo term that has been altered to reduce the objectionable characteristics.Many languages have such expressions...
(or more precisely, a slang usage of an otherwise legitimate word masquerading as a minced oath) cannot be lightly dismissed. The suggestion that it originated as a reference to Jesus "bleeding" on the cross is compelling for its shock value, callousness and sacrilegious intent, just as the Irish, and those of the diaspora, will exclaim "suffering Jesus" in response to something shocking.
It has also been surmised that "bloody" is related to the Dutch bloote, "in the adverbial sense of entire, complete, pure, naked, that we have transformed into bloody, in the consequently absurd phrases of bloody good, bloody bad, bloody thief, bloody angry, &c, where it simply implies completely, entirely, purely, very, truly, and has no relation to either blood or murder, except by corruption of the word."
Usage
Although in the 17th century the word appeared to be relatively innocuous, after about 1750 the word assumed more profane connotations in the UKUnited Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
and British Empire
British Empire
The British Empire comprised the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom. It originated with the overseas colonies and trading posts established by England in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. At its height, it was the...
. Various substitutions were devised to convey the essence of the oath, but with less offence; these included "bleeding", "bleaking", "cruddy", "smuddy", "blinking", "blooming", "bally", and "ruddy".
On the opening night of George Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw was an Irish playwright and a co-founder of the London School of Economics. Although his first profitable writing was music and literary criticism, in which capacity he wrote many highly articulate pieces of journalism, his main talent was for drama, and he wrote more than 60...
's comedy Pygmalion
Pygmalion (play)
Pygmalion: A Romance in Five Acts is a play by Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw. Professor of phonetics Henry Higgins makes a bet that he can train a bedraggled Cockney flower girl, Eliza Doolittle, to pass for a duchess at an ambassador's garden party by teaching her to assume a veneer of...
in 1914, Mrs Patrick Campbell
Mrs Patrick Campbell
Mrs Patrick Campbell was a British stage actress.-Early life and marriages:Campbell was born Beatrice Stella Tanner in Kensington, London, to John Tanner and Maria Luigia Giovanna, daughter of Count Angelo Romanini...
, in the role of Eliza Doolittle, created a sensation with the line "Walk! Not bloody likely!" and this led to a fad for using "Pygmalion" itself as a pseudo-oath, as in "Not Pygmalion likely".
The use of bloody in adult UK broadcasting aroused controversy in the 1960s & 1970s but is now unremarkable (for comparison, in the Harry Potter
Harry Potter
Harry Potter is a series of seven fantasy novels written by the British author J. K. Rowling. The books chronicle the adventures of the adolescent wizard Harry Potter and his best friends Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger, all of whom are students at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry...
movies, which are geared towards children, the character Ron says "bloody hell" many times in all the movies).
Usage outside of the UK
Bloody has always been a very common part of Australian speechAustralian English
Australian English is the name given to the group of dialects spoken in Australia that form a major variety of the English language....
and has not been considered profane there for some time. The word was dubbed "the Australian adjective" by The Bulletin
The Bulletin
The Bulletin was an Australian weekly magazine that was published in Sydney from 1880 until January 2008. It was influential in Australian culture and politics from about 1890 until World War I, the period when it was identified with the "Bulletin school" of Australian literature. Its influence...
on 18 August 1894. One Australian performer, Kevin Bloody Wilson
Kevin Bloody Wilson
Kevin Bloody Wilson is a comedy singer/songwriter who uses his heavy Australian accent/style with great success...
, has even made it his middle name. Also in Australia, the word "bloody" is frequently used as a verbal hyphen, or 'infix', correctly called Tmesis
Tmesis
Tmesis is a linguistic phenomenon in which a word or set phrase is separated into two parts, with other words occurring between them.-Verbs:...
as in "fanbloodytastic". In the 1940s an Australian divorce court judge held that "the word bloody is so common in modern parlance that it is not regarded as swearing". Meanwhile, Neville Chamberlain
Neville Chamberlain
Arthur Neville Chamberlain FRS was a British Conservative politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from May 1937 to May 1940. Chamberlain is best known for his appeasement foreign policy, and in particular for his signing of the Munich Agreement in 1938, conceding the...
's government was fining Britons for using the word in public. The use of "bloody" as an intensifier used to be considered highly offensive in India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
.
The word as an expletive is seldom used in the USA. However, in Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
, it is more common in English-speaking provinces, especially among older Canadians and Commonwealth immigrants. In the USA the term is usually used when the intention is to mimic an Englishman, though there are some who have adopted it from the British as an everyday term. The term however can sometimes be seen in an American movie or TV episode. For example, in Episode One, Series One of 1987 TV series "Tour of Duty
Tour of duty
In the Navy, a tour of duty is a period of time spent performing operational duties at sea, including combat, performing patrol or fleet duties, or assigned to service in a foreign country....
", an American infantry officer whose outpost is under attack, is seen screaming down the phone, "where the bloody hell are you?", attempting to get air support for a napalm attack. The term "scream bloody murder" (meaning to loudly object to something) is also in common use, without any connection with the British usage.
There is also "Bloody hell
Hell
In many religious traditions, a hell is a place of suffering and punishment in the afterlife. Religions with a linear divine history often depict hells as endless. Religions with a cyclic history often depict a hell as an intermediary period between incarnations...
", often pronounced "Bloody 'ell," which can mean "Damn it," or be used as a general expression of surprise or as a general intensifier. It is talked about in a limerick
Limerick (poetry)
A limerick is a kind of a witty, humorous, or nonsense poem, especially one in five-line or meter with a strict rhyme scheme , which is sometimes obscene with humorous intent. The form can be found in England as of the early years of the 18th century...
about the letter H (aitch)-
Letter aitch, in some tongues, you can tell,
Is pronounced not at all, or not well.
By the Brits it is rated
Their second-most hated,
Right after, of course, "bloody ell."
In March 2006 Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
's national tourism commission launched an advertising campaign
Advertising campaign
An advertising campaign is a series of advertisement messages that share a single idea and theme which make up an integrated marketing communication...
targeted at potential visitors in several English-speaking countries. The ad sparked a surprise controversy because of its ending (in which a cheerful, bikini-clad spokeswoman delivers the ad's call-to-action by saying "...so where the bloody hell are you?
So where the bloody hell are you?
So where the bloody hell are you? is a A$180 million advertising campaign launched in 2006 by Tourism Australia created by the Sydney office of the London advertising agency M&C Saatchi....
"). Initially, the Broadcast Advertising Clearance Centre
Broadcast Advertising Clearance Centre
The Broadcast Advertising Clearance Centre was an NGO which until December 31, 2007 pre-approved most British television advertising. The work of the BACC has been taken over by Clearcast Ltd....
(BACC) required that a modified version of the ad be shown in the United Kingdom, without the word "bloody". However, in May 2006, the Advertising Standards Authority
Advertising Standards Authority (United Kingdom)
The Advertising Standards Authority is the self-regulatory organisation of the advertising industry in the United Kingdom. The ASA is a non-statutory organisation and so cannot interpret or enforce legislation. However, its code of advertising practice broadly reflects legislation in many instances...
(ASA) ruled that the word "bloody" was not an inappropriate marketing tool and the original version of the ad was permitted to air.
In Singapore
Singapore
Singapore , officially the Republic of Singapore, is a Southeast Asian city-state off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, north of the equator. An island country made up of 63 islands, it is separated from Malaysia by the Straits of Johor to its north and from Indonesia's Riau Islands by the...
, the word bloody is commonly used as a mild expletive in Singapore's colloquial English
Singlish
Colloquial Singaporean English, also known as Singlish, is an English-based creole language spoken in Singapore.Singlish is commonly regarded with low prestige in Singapore. The Singaporean government and many Singaporeans alike heavily discourage the use of Singlish in favour of Standard English...
. The roots of this expletive derives from the influence and informal language British officers used during the dealing and training of soldiers in the Singapore Volunteer Corps
Singapore Volunteer Corps
The Singapore Volunteer Corps was a militia unit established in 1854 as the Singapore Volunteer Rifle Corps. The Corps underwent several reorganisations and was known by various names through its history...
and the early days of the Singapore Armed Forces
Singapore Armed Forces
The Singapore Armed Forces is the military arm of the Total Defence of the Republic of Singapore; as well as the military component of the Ministry of Defence. The SAF comprises three branches: the Singapore Army, the Republic of Singapore Air Force and the Republic of Singapore Navy...
.
When more Singaporeans were promoted officers within the Armed Forces, most new local officers applied similar training methods their former British officers had when they were cadets or trainees themselves. This includes some aspects of British Army lingo, like 'bloody (something)'.
When the newly-elected Singapore government implemented compulsory conscription, all 18 year old able bodied Singapore males had to undergo training within the Armed Forces. When National servicemen completed their service term, some brought the many expletives they picked up during their service into the civilian world and thus became a part of the common culture in the city state. The word 'bloody' also managed to spread to the north in neighbouring Malaysia, to where the influence of Singapore English has spread. The use of 'bloody' as a substitute for more explicit language increased with the popularity of British and Australian films and television shows aired on local television programmes.
The term 'bloody' in Singapore may not be considered explicit, but its usage is frowned upon in formal settings.
Euphemisms for bloody
Publications such as newspapers, police reports, and so on may print b__y instead of the full profanity. A spoken language equivalent is blankety or, less frequently, blanked or blanky; the spoken words are all variations of blank, which, as a verbal representation of a dashDash
A dash is one of several kinds of punctuation mark. Dashes appear similar to hyphens, but differ from them primarily in length, and serve different functions. The most common versions of the dash are the en dash and the em dash .-Common dashes:...
, is used as a euphemism
Euphemism
A euphemism is the substitution of a mild, inoffensive, relatively uncontroversial phrase for another more frank expression that might offend or otherwise suggest something unpleasant to the audience...
for a variety of bad words.