Reading comics I’ve always wondered where the symbolic swear originated. It has a few nicknames, I quite like the term ‘Grawlix’ (coined by Mort Walker in 1980)
When the force of a swear word is too extreme (but some form of cuss must be used) symbolic stand-ins have long been used for lewdness. Suffice it to say, any emotional keyboard-striker can blurt out something that people perceive as a sub for swears. Whether it’s to diminish the force of swear, to get around censorship rules, or maybe just because symbols are @#$%ing cool to look at, people still use symbolic swearing today.
read more over at www.dictionary.com/