The old saying just isn’t true. Being called a prude, a slut or a bitch can hurt a great deal. So how did these words take on so much power? We’ve done a bit of research and think the results are very interesting.

Don’t be such a prude!
In pre-revolutionary France, "prode femmes" were proud, wise, virtuous women. This term was used respectfully and it was flattering to be so labelled. By the time "prude" showed up in the English language in the early eighteenth century, however, there was nothing kind about it.
Women, it turned out, could be too wise, too proper-for men's liking, at least, especially if it meant they weren't interested in sex.
"Prude" has been used ever since-not just in English but German and French too-against people perceived as uptight, usually women with proper manners or conservative ideas about sex (although now men are called "prudes" too).
Modern-day "prudes" also come in the form of government officials or activists campaigning against premarital sex, pornography, prostitution or homosexuality.

You bitch!
Have you ever wondered why we use the word ‘bitch’ to describe a not-very-nice woman? After all, most of us like dogs, and female dogs are much calmer and easier to get on with than their testosterone laden mates.
The answer is that when someone calls a woman a bitch, the message is that she is straying from the quiet, obedient, "feminine" ideal. She is uppity-and needs to be controlled - like a naughty (female) dog.
First used to describe lady dogs in 1000 AD, "bitch" was applied to humans about 400 years later. The term has endured the test of time and is still a big favourite for putting a woman in her place. The modern twist is applying it to men. A male bitch is seen as "womanish": weak, whiny and submissive (and more than likely gay).

She’s a slut
People usually use the word "slut" to put down a woman for being sexually promiscuous-whether she is or not. It's sometimes used to taunt females who have been raped, and to embarrass girls who go through puberty before their peers. Women who don’t keep their homes and families as neat as a new pin are sometimes referred to as sluts. There is no such equivalent for slovenly dirty men that we can think of.
"Slut" is a great example of the double standard that encourages boys to get as much oat-sowing under their belts as possible, while girls are supposed to be virginal and "good." Usually, when you call a guy sexually promiscuous, he's flattered.

Don’t bother – she’s a dyke
The word “dyke" is a label given to female homosexuals. The other meaning (a low flood-prevention wall) is spelled ‘dike’. Some believe the words are connected and that men compared women who were not interested in having sex with them with hard stone walls. Who knows?
On the other hand, Boudicca, a Celtic warrior queen in Britain in the first century AD, could have inspired "dyke." Or the 19th century black women who dug ditches in the American south and were known as "bulldikes" (or even the black male laborers of that time called "bull dicks" by white plantation owners).
It's all mostly a game of guessing. Lesbians by any name were mentioned very little in print until about 1920, so it's hard to say when the word "dyke" entered spoken English.
When it did become used, it meant-and still often means-a particularly "butch" lesbian: with stereotypically "masculine" clothes and appearance.
In the sixties, activists fighting discrimination against gay people got their first mainstream notice. And after that, the word "dyke" acquired, for some lesbians, a sense of pride.
Like lots of names people call each other, the word changes a lot with context. Shouted at someone on the street, it's mean - and is meant to make a girl or woman think she is not being friendly enough to men. As a less-bookish-sounding alternative to "lesbian," it's mostly just descriptive, but with a slightly rowdy we're-here, get-used-to-it edge.

You stuck up snob!
Snobs look down on you because they seem to think they're better or cleverer; maybe their parents are rich or maybe they know a lot about something. But the term actually originated as a putdown for social climbers, people aspiring to look down at somebody else.
"Snob" is believed to be an abbreviation for sine nobelitate, Latin for "no aristocratic title." In early 19th century England, a new "middle" class entered the social scene-and began sending children to university. The universities, until then were for aristocrats only, and they weren't too keen on accommodating the new-rich and so, according to legend, set them apart by inscribing "s.nob" next to their names.
Meanwhile, an English writer named William Makepeace Thackeray used "snob" so often in an 1840 series of articles satirising the English obsession with social status that he is officially credited with originating the word. Whatever the source, the term quickly reached general usage to describe anyone who had succeeded in climbing the social ladder-usually by copying the manners of the upper classes and seeking out their company.
At some point in the 20th century, snobbishness became a characteristic of the upper classes themselves. And the word gradually became associated with the superior life that money can sometimes buy. Nowadays, calling oneself a snob can simply mean that you recognise "quality"-and are proud of it.

Light me a fag, will you?
"Faggot" is the classic anti-gay slur. Most people think it's a funny coincidence that the word also happens to mean "bundle of sticks." But there may be an ancient and awful connection between the two definitions: During the Spanish Inquisition in the 15th century, homosexual prisoners were forced to collect wood for the Inquisition's witch-burning fires-and their own bodies were then used to fuel the pyres when the flames died out.
The word's journey from Latin to Modern English is hard to trace; along the way "faggot" was, among other things, a reprimand for boys who were "sissies" and a putdown for women.
By the early 20th century, the term (by then usually shortened to "fag") had made it into American prison slang in reference to men who dressed in women's clothes. (And into British English to mean "cigarette"-possibly because cigarettes were considered effeminate by cigar- and pipe-smokers.)
"Fag" is still a direct insult when spoken with hostile intent to a homosexual man. But it has also morphed into a more generalized insult; to the point where children and sometimes adults use it to refer to someone they find wimpy, not "manly" or just plain not good enough.