Photo by Paul Booth
You cherish your politeness, validity, eloquence, you cherish Le Mot Just Dictionaries suffer when composing words carefully but strongly to the editor. But my literate friend, you have the misfortune of living in the era of Twitter, Tumblr and more. Here, the preferred means of communication consists of ready-made imitation words and phrases, photos, videos and animated GIFs. World leaders exchange shaming like fifth graders. Some of them don’t know how to spell it. Respected scientists and journalists discuss anonymous strangers with cartoon avatars and work answers. Some of them are robots.
What shall we do?
I’ll accept that. Insert a properly placed blasphemy into the communique. Indulge in bawdiness and ribaldry. You may find that it’s not just that writers have been around for centuries, from Labelley to Shakespeare to Voltaire. Blasphemy is not separate from literary history, it has evolved smoothly. For example, TS Eliot knows how to go to Low Brow at their best and praises the first recorded use of the word “Bullshit.” As for another thing, epithet is used more frequently in the 24-hour online commentary?
Not long ago I warned that I had scribbled at Cicero’s about the first known use of versatile indecency in the 1528 Limit Memo. Officeis By a monk who curses his abbot. Not long after this discovery, Medievalists.netAnother scholar found the word in a poem in 1475. Flen Flyys. This was considered to be the earliest appearance of “f*ck” purely as sexual references until Kiel University’s medieval historian Paul Booth discovered an instance he was dating more than a century ago. However, not within or next to the literary work, this word appears in a set of 1310 English Court records. No, that’s clearly not a legal term.
The document relates to the case of a man named Roger Huckeby Senele. The name, which is used three times on the record, is probably not a joke made by the scribe, and although it is not a kind of strange nickname, I hope it is not an explanation of the crime. “It refers to an inexperienced coplanter, someone trying to have sex with their belly button.” Booth sayssays something obvious. “It’s a rather luxurious explanation for a dim person. This is how they have sex and they are so stupid.” Our medieval gentlemen also had other issues. He was called to court three times within a year before being declared an “outlaw.” IndependenceLoulla-Mae Eleftheriou-Smith I suggest doing it, but probably refers to exile.
For the word to have such a casually cheerful or insulting currency in the early 14th century, it must have come from even earlier. Certainly, “f*ck is a word of German origin,” Jesse Shaydrawer said. It is called the history of etymology f words, “It relates to several other Germanic words, including Dutch, German and Swedish, which have sexual meanings and meanings such as “strike” or “moving back and forth”” (of course). So, in other words, it’s just a word. But in this case it could have been a weapon as well, and the booth might have thought “it was done by a revengeful ex-girlfriend, perhaps by 14th century revenge porn.” The appearance of the word “Twerk” in 1820.
Note: Previous versions of this post were published on our site in 2017.
Related content:
Young TS Eliot writes “The Triumph of Bullsh*T” to give the English new expletive (1910)
Those who swear are more honest than those who don’t, find new university research
Stephen Pinker explains the Neuroscience of Oath (NSFW)
Language enthusiast Stephen Fry defends the art of “unnecessary” oath
Josh Jones He is a writer and musician based in Durham, North Carolina. Follow him in @jdmagness
Source: Open Culture – www.openculture.com
