Damn Jamaicans can curse in all manner of ways
and it nearly always has either a menstrual or homosexual overtone.
I remember reading somewhere that a culture's cursing it tied
into what it is the most hung up about. In the US it is sex
and religion, but other cultures are entirely different.
Another thing to keep in mind,
curses are highly culture specific. "Shag" in Britain is a playful way of saying you want to sleep with someone; here, it's that funny word Austin Powers uses. Sure, Americans know what it means, but "Fancy a shag?" doesn't have the same impact as "Hey baby, wanna f**k?" does to an American audience and probably never will. On the other hand, The Chronicles of Narnia was the first children's book I ever saw use 'ass' (as in "he was a silly ass) in an off-handed and casual way, something no American children's book would do, then or now. Or, to put it in fantasy terms, a race of people who's religion doesn't have the concept of eternal damnation aren't going to damn people to hell. (This is one of the things that make being an agnostic suck, religious people have all the really *good* swear words. Nothing like a good, solid, "DAMNIT!" when you're really pissed at someone....)
Or look at a word like 'bastard.' It's not that long ago, at least in the US, that calling someone a bastard was a real insult; illegitimacy was considered shameful and wrong. That's changed now, again, in the US. Two of my cousins were born out of wedlock and, while their births may not have been met with glowing approval by the respecitive grandparents, neither of the children or their mothers have been ostracized by the family or the community. In a society where inheritance is determined by something other than birth, bastardy and illegitimacy may not even be concepts.
Early 70s? They sure were strange, but without the vicious undertext.