My son loves Vsauce videos, which is why I’ve been exposed to some very interesting facts and trivia over the last couple of years. The ten-minute video belowis about words, swear words to be precise. Who says them, their origins, and why they’re used. I’ve been studying swearing quite a bit over the past few months because my latest hero, Thaddeus Sanborn in An Inescapable Attraction, is a bit of a bad boy, a gambler, smoker, drinker, and definitely, a swearer.
Well, guess what? They used most of the same swear words in the 1880s as we do today, though less frequently. Men didn’t use them in public, unless extremely ill-mannered, and women didn’t use them at all if anyone was in hearing distance.
This video, as most Vsauce videos, comes at the topic of swearing from every angle: class issues, Germanic vs. French/Latin language, reasons for swearing, five types of swearing, history of and future of swearing. Watch and listen. Perhaps the next time you swear, at least you’ll have a better awareness of why you’re letting fly that particular expletive.