This is a guest post by Gary Thoms and E. Jamieson. Gary Thoms is from Glasgow, and is an Assistant Professor at New York University. E Jamieson is a Scot from outside the central belt, and is a postdoc at the…
This is a guest post by Michael Adams, Professor of English at Indiana University Bloomington, past president of the Dictionary Society of North America, and author of several books on language. Michael previously wrote here about Donald Trump’s swearing, and…
“Hang him, mechanical salt-butter rogue!” Falstaff colorfully denounces Master Ford as a working-class peon in The Merry Wives of Windsor (2.2.246). Shakespeare packs this gender and class comedy with pranks, pratfalls, and, yes, profanity. But no swearing is quite as…
Following on my initial observations on the phonology of cusswords, and connecting to Iva’s recent post on cooters and hooters, I’d like to spend some time looking at some phonaesthetic clusters in words relating to private parts and emissions.
December, 1988. London (or perhaps Tooting). A 20-year-old dancer, lean, attractive – my girlfriend at the time – abruptly says, in a throaty growl, “Do you know what your cunting daughter did?” Surprised, I laugh. “What did you say?!” But…
