yudantaiteki wrote:

And it took the same path as other things like 己、お前、 and 貴様 in that it used to be polite but now is not.

What a sad case...

Either way, thank you all. (...except those who joked about my preferences regarding the word "L__d" and almost made me want to say...)

...though I think that I will tackle "ore" with a bit more research.