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Look up bloody in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. Use of the adjective bloody as a profane intensifier predates the 18th century. Its ultimate origin is unclear, and several hypotheses have been suggested. The word “blood” in Dutch and German is used as part of minced oaths, in abbreviation of expressions referring to “God’s blood”, i. A popularly reported theory suggested euphemistic derivation from the phrase by Our Lady. The Oxford English Dictionary prefers the theory that it arose from aristocratic rowdies known as “bloods”, hence “bloody drunk” means “drunk as a blood”. Until at least the early 18th century, the word was used innocuously.

After about 1750 the word assumed more profane connotations. 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! Pygmalion” itself as a pseudo-oath, as in “Not Pygmalion likely”. Bloody has always been a very common part of Australian speech and has not been considered profane there for some time. The word was dubbed “the Australian adjective” by The Bulletin on 18 August 1894.

The word as an expletive is seldom used in the United States of America. In the US the term is usually used when the intention is to mimic an Englishman. The term bloody as an intensifier is now overall fairly rare in Canada. It is more commonly spoken in the Atlantic provinces, particularly Newfoundland.

In Singapore, the word bloody is commonly used as a mild expletive in Singapore’s colloquial English. The word “bloody” also managed to spread up 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. The term is frequently used among South Africans in their colloquial English and it is an intensifier. It is used in both explicit and non-explicit ways. The term is also frequently used as a mild expletive or an intensifier in India.

Publications such as newspapers, police reports, and so on may print b__y instead of the full profanity. Use of bloody as an adverbial or generic intensifier is to be distinguished from its fixed use in the expressions “bloody murder” and “bloody hell”. In “bloody murder”, it has the original sense of an adjective used literally. In Canada, the ad was also affected as well and it created a lot of controversy within the term “bloody hell”.

According to the Adweek article that was posted on March 22, 2006, the U. So where the bloody hell are you? The longer “bloody hell-hounds” appears to have been at least printable in early 19th century Britain. Bloody hell’s flames” as well as “bloody hell” is reported as a profanity supposedly used by Catholics against Protestants in 1845. Sterfania Biscetti, “The diachronic development of bloody: a case study in historical pragmatics”. English Historical Linguistics 2006 Volume 2: Lexical and semantic change. The Journal to Stella, by Jonathan Swift : Letter 24″.