It makes sense that when the Saxon barons were demoted by the
French-speaking Normans that the language of the former feudal rulers would
demoted along with the lords themselves.  Law French replaced Anglish as the
language of the courts.  I think it was the poet Robert Graves in his
handbook on writing, The Reader Over Your Shoulder, who stated that the bulk
of Romance vocabulary imported into English came from the French of the
Normans during their initial 2-3 centuries of occupation.

On the history of languages--vocabulary, grammar, and scripts--there is a
encyclopedic new work.  See Nicholas Ostler, Empires of the Word:  A
Language History of the World (Harper-Collins, NY, 2005, paperback 2006)

Harold S. Forsythe
----- Original Message -----
From: "Bruce Terrell" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Saturday, January 06, 2007 11:42 AM
Subject: Re: origin of the eff-word


>I can't recall the source but I recall reading something about the
>relegation of Anglo Saxon
> words for bodily functions, etc. to profanity while the Latin-
> based words became preferred.  I'm not sure what the instigation was,
> possibly w/the rise of
> the church in Rome during the Dark Ages.  It made sense
> and seems worth further research.
>
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