Warning...words of an adult nature

Have you ever wondered why a word is deemed bad? What is a bad word? One that is inappropriate from the mouths of babes? Also known as "four letter words"...though love has four letters too. I have often wondered how certain words get deemed inappropriate. The following are familiar words as defined by dictionary.com:

damn

   [dam]  Show IPA

verb (used with object)

1.

to declare (something) to be bad, unfit, invalid, or illegal.

2.

to condemn as a failure: to damn a play.

3.

to bring condemnation upon; ruin.

4.

to doom to eternal punishment or condemn to hell.

5.

to swear at or curse, using the word “damn”: Damn thetorpedoes! Full speed ahead!

shit

   [shit]  Show IPA noun, verb, shit or shat,shit·ting, interjection Vulgar .

noun

1.

excrement; feces.

2.

an act of defecating; evacuation.

bitch

   [bich]  Show IPA

noun

1.

a female dog: The bitch won first place in the sporting dogscategory.

2.

a female of canines generally.

3.

Slang .

a.

a malicious, unpleasant, selfish person, especially awoman.

b.

a lewd woman.

c.

Disparaging and Offensive . any woman.

4.

Slang . a person who performs demeaning tasks for another;servant: Tom is so her bitch; she just ordered him to gofetch her some pizza—and he went without a word.

5.

Slang . a convict who is in a homosexual relationship and/ordominant relationship willingly or unwillingly in the prisonsetting: The new inmate was immediately forced to be thebitch of the prison's top dog.

fuck

   [fuhk]  Show IPA Vulgar .

verb (used with object)

to have sexual intercourse with.

If you read the definitions there isn't anything offensive. So who decided? It's like the swastika. A symbol that was used around the world for 3000 years, usually a symbol of life or good luck. That is, until Hitler adopted the symbol for the Nazi party. Now the symbol represents hate and death to most people. 


So what makes something bad?




 Perception.