Swearing has come a long way from ‘bejabbers’ and ‘crinkum-crankum’. They’re just two of Susie Dent’s favourite old-fashioned profanities, in this week’s top ten.
The word ‘lalochezia’ may be a recent invention but it fills a definite gap. Its literal meaning is far from wholesome, as it is based on the Greek words lalia, meaning ‘speech’, and chezia’, ‘defecation’. In other words, this is the dumping of your verbal shit by having a good swear. And the benefits that follow are real: growing evidence is pointing to the benefits of profanity for the relief of stress, frustration, anxiety, and pain.
Sometimes, however, full-frontal expletives are both unsuitable and undesirable. Swearing to the rooftops in your own company is one thing, but turning the air blue in company requires careful handling. In these situations, a sprinkling of historical profanities might be preferable. The following selection is unlikely to cause distress and might even render the cause of your swearing a lot more bearable.
bejabbers
This is one of dozens of ‘minced oaths’ from the Middle Ages, when the real taboo was religious blasphemy and taking the Lord’s name in vain. Gorblimey for ‘God blind me’, ‘Gadzooks’ for ‘God’s hooks’ (nails of the cross), and ‘crikey’ for Christ are all recognizable figleaves. ‘Bejabbers’ is a simple sidestep for ‘By Jesus’, but it sounds far more satisfying.
‘sard’
Both ‘sard’ and ‘swive’ were once synonyms for the F-bomb, and ‘swive’ is even making a comeback in some quarters as a joking alternative. Sard is less well-known, and while it may not sound as direct as our usual choices, ‘sarding hell’ might work as a modern twist on an old tale (no pun intended).
crinkum-crankum
Today’s biggest taboo, the so-called C word, was once freely used as a straightforward anatomical description. Today, it is considered the biggest offender of the lot. In the 17th century, a woman’s genitals were occasionally known as her ‘crinkum-crankum’. Not quite so forceful a word, perhaps, but definitely politer.
coillons
Geoffrey Chaucer’s work, and indeed much of medieval literature, was famously obscene. One word he introduces us to is ‘coillons’, a 14th-century word for ‘testicles’. It appears in The Pardoner’s Tale in the memorable line ‘I wolde that I hadde thy coillons in myn hand’. That sentence aside, it might make a useful alternative to ‘bollocks’.
podex
Should you wish to nail someone objectionable with a single word, chances are this one would make them none the wiser. You, on the other hand, will know that it represents the Latin for ‘arse-hole’.
pygmalion
In 1914, George Bernard Shaw famously made the heroine of his play Pygmalion, Eliza Doolittle, exclaim ‘Walk! Not bloody likely!’. On opening night, the line was met with stunned silence followed by hysterical laughter that lasted over a minute. ‘Bloody’ was suddenly the catchword of the moment. But far from everyone liked it, supposing it to be a corruption of ‘God’s blood’ or ‘by our Lady’ and to be therefore blasphemous. As a result, ‘pygmalion’ itself became a swear word for a time.
arseropes
Surely one of the best candidates for an exclamation that carries an edge of offensiveness without going the full hog. When ‘arseropes’ first appeared, the word was far from rude; in fact our first record of it comes from 14th-century translation of the Bible. Our arseropes are our intestines, simple as that. But said out loud, with a judicious touch of defiance, and we can surely put it to excellent use.
Read More: Susie Dent’s Top 10s: Ten words to make you sigh
‘turd in your teeth!’
Should you wish to insult someone in the 1600s, you would probably turn to such epithets as ‘whore’, ‘knave’, ‘cuckold’, or ‘harlot’. Should you wish curses to rain down on them, you could do worse than lob a ‘turd in your teeth!’ at them. This malevolent wish might still cause some offence, but it is worth noting that it was first recorded in a glossary written by an Oxford don.
…and a couple of old stand-ins for profanities to make you smile.
unmentionables
It’s hard to believe, but Victorians considered the word ‘trousers’ unsayable in polite company, perhaps because they housed the unthinkable. A historical thesaurus offers a host of words that were used to avoid the T word, including ‘round-me-houses’, ‘sit-upons’, and ‘inexpressibles’.
benders
Even before trousers got a look-in, some people were offended by the idea of ‘legs’. The US writer Henry Wadsworth Longfellow decided that ‘benders’ was far more acceptable a term. Indeed, some British writers accused their American counterparts of hysterical euphemism, not least in their replacement of the terms ‘ballcock’ and ‘stopcock’ with ‘faucet’
