--Michelle of Jacksonville, Florida
With that said, let's begin. There are numerous different angles one could take in tackling this question. I, personally, want to take the road less travelled and explain why profanities came about to begin with. I choose this path, because I know all profanities have their own personal origin and I also know that that would take a lot of time to research and would make for a really boring, long-drawn-out piece of crap work. So, I'll just talk about human nature and the necessity for profanities, instead.
It should first be understood that everyone has said a profanity, regardless of whether it's a known and commonly used profanity or just a personal "curse" one mutters under his or her breath. You cannot escape the fact that you have said something that could resemble a profanity. I am not, in any way, shape or form, saying that this is a necessarily bad thing. We, being humans, need profanities to release feelings that other words just don't seem to suffice in conquering.
More commonly known profanities generally lead a very interesting life. While I haven't done extensive research, I know the history of a few of the "bigger" words. From what I've seen, most of the time profane words start harmless enough, describing a crime or a condition. This word, however, begins to circulate around the "common folk" and they begin to twist it around to more apparent needs, like describing that miserably distracting and vulgar neighbor who stole someone's butter last week. Thus, a word goes from a harmless description to a widely used "profanity".
The reason such a process is readily available and so easily carried out has to do entirely with the fact that we are an angry and disgruntled lot of people. Whether it be weekly, monthly, or just once a year, each and every one of us finds ourself in such a position that we just need a release. Because of that, a loose tongue is easily adapted to adjust to such feelings. There's a comfort in profanity, because it works on satisfying your anger and, if used "correctly", taking someone else down.
I mentioned before that just because a word isn't widely known as being profane doesn't mean it's, in special use, not profane anyhow. Dictionary.com (that great site) defines profane as "marked by contempt or irreverence for what is sacred." Therefore, even the word "toodler" could be a profanity. If someone so blatantly blasted God, calling him a "toodler" for what he's done, then yes, that word is profane. I have no idea what "toodler" means, but that's besides the point.
And now to really answer the question, "What is the origin of profanties?" One day, a young caveman was moving a large rock from one end of the cave to the other when his brother neatly tripped him, causing the young caveman to fall face first into the rock he was carrying. Angered from the frustation of having to move such a large rock, the annoyance of being tripped by his brother, and the pain his face felt from the rock, the caveman stood up and shouted out his problems, "WHAT THE FUCK, DOUCHE BAG?!"
