Why is the word "Holy" used before swear words?

People usually use the word "Holy" before "Shit", "Crap" or any other bad words to express their feelings, like surprise, anger, etc. Is there any reason why the word "Holy" is used with these bad words?

I think the words "shit", "crap", etc are considered as bad words while "Holy" is considered as spiritual or something related to God (usually used to mention something related with God), Right? So is it used with the bad words to neutralize the bad words?

Here is the link to another question related with the same subject that came into my mind after reading all the answers and comments here. How the phrase 'Holy s***' is formed?

Please help me find an answer for that question.

Solution 1:

Holy is often used with bad words as an intensifier:

• (Informal) Used as an intensive: raised holy hell over the mischief their children did.

(The Free Dictionary)

The following interesting comment explains its usage:

• Things holy were once referred to Medieval times in oaths and blaspheming, such as "s'blood" (god's blood) etc. Many cultures worst swear-words are formed by pairing something holy with something profane. Pairing these realms is culturally an expletive, is shocking, an unnatural pairing. "Holy shit" is an extension of this.

(www.quora.com)

Solution 2:

Three of the most central origins of curse words are excrement, sexual acts (or organs), and blasphemies (sacred words used inappropriately). Although blasphemies are now considered mild in most contexts, in more religious times, they were considered much more shocking than they are now.

As expressions lose their shock value, they need to be intensified to maintain their value as curses. Thus, an expression that combines a blasphemy with excrement or sexual acts is particularly shocking, so the adjective "Holy" is added to intensify the "wrongness" of the curse. It's also an echo of a time in which the term "Holy __" would have been taken literally as blasphemously referring to an actual attribute of God.

Solution 3:

This use of "Holy" with swear words is a case of euphemism. It was once considered more offensive to say "Holy Christ" when there was no actual intention to call on the name of Christ. Hence, lesser forms were used, such as "Holy hell/crap/shit."

Euphemism has been used as long as we can tell to allow someone to say something that is otherwise offensive. When Christianity was more popular and taken more seriously, any uttering of God, Jesus, etc outside of the context of prayer or other religious ritual, was offensive. There was even a time when referring to God's wounds or God's body was also offensive. The word Holy seems to have found its way into cursing phrases all the same.

There is an innate desire to "curse" under certain circumstances, such as when you stub your toe, or drop your dinner, or get a terrible fright when someone jumps at you, to which you might yell, "Holy shit!" In this context, calling out to God is actually appropriate. You are terrified and you immediately have images of your safety in mind, which leads to prayers of all kinds. Yelling "Oh, God," in earnest is appropriate. But sometimes the earnestness is lost, even among the believers. They don't necessarily want to call out to God at this moment, but the exclamation still comes, though skewed. Why this innate desire exists remains unknown, but it surely does, and there is a wealth of studies on its affect on the psyche. One thing that is known is that the more taboo the curse the more effect it has.

The innate desire to curse and the religious bindings on certain phrases or words make for prime choices for when a cursing situation does arise. That's why there is an urge to yell out "Holy, Christ" when something startles you rather than "Mahatma Ghandi!" Born from that, we get all sorts of curses involving religious words. In decades past, your could only say such a thing in private company (somewhat today too), so less offensive terms were coined, such as "Holy Hell/Crap/Shit" et al. Any derivative of Holy something comes from this originally extremely religious phrase "Holy Christ" or "Holy God".