Well Mick Duncan and Rob Reed give us two very different pieces on swearing, my only cat to throw among the pigeons is to point out that many of our swear words are only crudities because they were considered so by the Norman opressors and were originaly perfectly good Anglo-Saxon words which became profanities (better, crudities) when substituted for their more 'proper' counterparts by those who considered themselves culturally superior.
This late in history is probably too late to address the injustice of this directly. Instead when you are talking about some delicate matter (usually involving the lower half of the body or its functions), don't substitute Anglo-Saxon, instead try a language of the oppressors, e.g. Greek or Latin or Babylonian? (Unfortunately Americans use English (sort of) so are not a suitable source for such.)
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