The use of "bloody" as an intensifier used to be considered highly offensive in England, as the fuss made over it in Shaw's _Pygmalion_ shows. (It is less offensive now, as shown by its use on mainstream British TV programmes such as EastEnders.) Eric Partridge, in _Words, Words, Words_ (Methuen, 1933), lists the following suggested origins: 1. From an alleged Irish word _bloidhe_, meaning "rather". This was proposed by Charles Mackay in the 19th century, but is highly implausible: even if the word exists, it would presumably have been pronounced /bli:/ since the early Modern Irish period. The closest I could find to it in an Irish dictionary was _bluire_= "a bit, some". 2. "by our Lady" (an invocation of the Virgin Mary). There *was* an interjection "byrlady", attested since 1570 and frequently used by Shakespeare, which *did* mean "by our Lady". But this was an interjection, not an adverb, although a citation from Jonathan Swift ("it grows by'r Lady cold") shows a possible intermediate use. The transition from "byrlady" to "bloody" is phonetically implausible. 3. "S'blood", an ancient oath shortened from "God's blood". The Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology says this is "probably" the origin, but the OED says "there is no ground for the notion". The etymologies in the OED are largely untouched since the first edition; the ODEE is generally more up to date. 4. blood with reference either to menstruation or to "the bloody flux", an old term for dysentery. "Ingenious, but [...] much too restricted", says Partridge. 5. "blood", an aristocratic young roisterer. The OED plumped for this one, because its earliest citations of "bloody" as an intensifier were in the phrase "bloody drunk", which it conjectured meant "as drunk as a blood" (cf. "as drunk as a lord"). But the earlier citation found by Weekley (see below) makes this less plausible, and "bloody drunk" would be an unusual lexicalization of "as drunk as a blood". 6. blood's being something vivid or distressing. Partridge himself plumps for this one. Ernest Weekley, in _Words Ancient and Modern_ (Murray, 1926), finds analogous uses of French _sanglant_, German _blutig_, and Dutch _bloedig_. He gives one citation that antedates those in the OED ("A man cruelly eloquent and bluddily learned", John Marston, 1606 -- but "bluddily" may be a descriptive adverb rather than an intensifier here), and two ("It was bloody hot walking to-day", Swift, 1711; "bloody passionate", Samuel Richardson, 1742) that show that "up to about 1750 it was inoffensive". He attributes the dropping of "-ly" from "bloodily" to "an instinct which tends to drop _-ly_ from a word already ending in _-y_", as seen in "very", "pretty", and "jolly". A Merriam-Webster etymologist (in e-mail to me) chose 6, possibly influenced by 3, considering the analogy of German _blutig_ the strongest argument, and added: "'Bloody' in 19th-century England -- like 'fucking' and other so-called intensifiers -- functioned principally as a marker of speech register signaling group or class membership. In a society in which speech register was strongly associated with economic class, and class distinctions were extraordinarily significant, it is not too hard to see why 'bloody' became so taboo for Victorians. I'm not sure any other explanation need be sought. The taboo on 'bloody' as well as a lot of other constraints in Britain declined in force with the social upheavals initiated by World War I."
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