Mimi Faatz 0:00

It's your favorite time of the week. It's Hello from the Van. A quick disclaimer before we begin today. As always, we strive to remain educational and family friendly at Hello from the Van. Parents, we will be discussing the linguistic history of the English language. That is all. No swears or actual bad words will be used in this episode. And with that, great googly moogly, let's get into it. We are going to start off today with a little survey. I'm going to ask you three questions and you can answer in a way that you feel best fits your family. Question number one. Have you ever repeated a word you've heard on TV or heard an adult say or read in a book? And then had a parent or an adult tell you it was a bad word, or had someone say, that's a word for adults. Kids shouldn't say that word. Well, I definitely have. Question number two. Have you ever had a parent say, well, they might say that word in their family, but we don't say it here. Same. Growing up, I had a friend whose family wouldn't say the word toilet. You had to say bathroom or water closet in their home. I remember asking, hey, where's the toilet? And promptly being given a stern talking to about how that wasn't an appropriate word and not to bring that type of language into their home. It was also the first time I had ever heard the word water closet, so I was doubly confused, and at that point still needed to use the toilet. I mean restroom, water closet, uh bathroom. And finally, the third question. Have you ever wondered why some people aren't bothered by quote, bad words? Well, we're going to talk about that today. And more specifically, what makes a bad word a bad word? Before we get into it, when I say bad word, I just mean a word with a negative connotation. These can be swear words, these can be words that are considered impolite to say, these can be words that your family simply doesn't say. Basically, when I say bad word, it's a general term for words with negative connotations. So here's the deal. English is a combination of many different languages all smooshed together. We've talked about this before. It's like a fruit salad, bits and pieces of different regions and time periods, all held together by word world domination. A lot of the English language can be viewed as relics or antiques of olden times. We call these holdover words. Let me give you some examples. When I was a kid, the phone was physically attached to your house. You would pick up the earpiece to answer the phone, and when you ended the call, you would literally have to hang the earpiece back up on the wall. It was like a hook, a receiver on it. This is where the term hang up the phone comes from. It was a literal action that you had to do. Now when someone calls and you hang up, you're just pressing a little button, right? And it's not even a physical button, it's a digital one. While we might not have to physically hang up the phone anymore, we still use the term. We've lost the original meaning of the word, but the phrase remains. Some words are like that in the English language. Again, we call these holdover words, or the technical term is verbal anachronisms, but you can just call them holdover words. Another quick example, when someone says, hey, roll up your car window. Well, you just push a button, right? But back in the day, again, you had to roll, you had to physically roll a handle to get your window to go up. Again, we've lost the direct meaning, but the phrase remains. Holdover words. But how do holdover words affect the negative words that we say? Well, language changes over time. As cultures change and time periods change, so does the way that we communicate. Some of our bad words are holdover words from different time periods. And some of our bad words are relatively new. In the 1800s, they had their own set of socially unacceptable words. Let me give you a rather silly example. In the 1800s, one of the worst things that you could call someone was a ninkam poop. The fastest way to get into a fight would be to call someone a right nin poop. If you called someone that today, they'd probably laugh at you, but back then, ooh, those were fighting words. They had great insults in the 1800s. I think my favorite is snolly goster. It means a low moral or unprincipled person. It was a great insult among politicians in the mid-1850s. It's like calling someone dishonest today, but a great way to say it. He's a wicked, immoral snolly goster. Like, come on, that's brilliant. Anyway, let me give you another example. Have you ever heard the song Yankee Doodle? Yankee Doodle went to town riding on a pony, put a feather in his cap and called it macaroni. So, macaroni back then was their version of slang, and it meant something that was very entertaining or cool or fire or lit, as the youngins say. Or to coin a newer phrase, Sigma, I think is what the young kids are saying these days. Macaroni was Yankee Doodle's version of Sigma. Again, language is fluid. As humanity changes, so do the ways that we communicate. And with the silly words like macaroni and ninpoop and snollygoster, there's other words that come along. The interesting thing is that what's considered a bad word for one culture in one time period can be seen as fully acceptable for a different country or a different time period. Even one that speaks the same language. Think for example about the ways that things are described in England versus the United States versus Australia. They are very different, but they're all speaking English. So, with all of these different cultures of the world speaking English, how did we end up with standardized bad words? You know, the ones that get bleeped on TV? Well, there's two parts for their development. The first is history. The words that get bleeped on TV are rooted in the class system of Germanic languages from hundreds of years ago. I'm not kidding. They are holdover words that are centuries old. And due to their age, that has helped them cross cultural and political boundaries. Basically, they were words that poor people used and thus were seen as lower class. Hundreds of years ago, classes weren't just divided by money. They were also divided by language. Poor people tended to speak Germanic languages, and the upper classes or rich people or nobility tended to speak Latin. So the upper class banned the use of certain Germanic words. The upper class nobility was so adamant about these words that we still view those holdover words as bad words. We see them as negative or unacceptable. In its simplest form, a bad word is a bad word because a lower class commoner used to say it as opposed to a king or a pope or nobility. But how did people today, all around the world, agree on these words from hundreds of years ago? Especially if a few of our swears weren't invented until, you know, a couple hundred years ago. That brings us to the second part of the modern language equation. The answer is Hollywood. With the advent of movies and television, these bad words became standardized. Those running movie media in Hollywood in the 1900s decided which words were acceptable, and those standards stuck. It was part of a movie standard called the Hayes Code. We still see its influence in movie rating systems today, where ratings are partially based on the number of bad words present in a movie. The more bad words, the more adult the rating. So yeah, you can thank Hollywood and the Hayes Code of the 1930s for truly solidifying which words society generally accepts as bad. So to sum it up, what makes a modern-day bad word? History and Hollywood. Of note here is a very important point. There is a function to profanity. You see, as beings, communication is a key part of our humanity. And sometimes you need a way to express urgency or anger or heightened emotion. Bad words provide what is called a catharsis. It's a way to release strong emotion that is quickly and effectively communicated. And because we have standardized words we use for this catharsis, it's quite effective. Here's the deal though. Which words are acceptable to use for catharsis in your home are decided by you and your family. Don't let Hollywood decide that for you. Let me give you a quick example. When I was in the third grade, the popular word on the playground was fudge, like chocolatey fudge that you eat. Using the word fudge as a childhood curse in the 80s and 90s was a very common practice. It had its origins in a book called Super Fudge by Judy Bloom. Well, I was out on the playground during recess one time, and I had recently read Superfudge and had adapted, oh fudge, as a key part of my expressions of dislike or disdain or frustration. Basically, I missed a goal playing soccer and I shouted out, ah, fudge, man! This led to an uproar amongst my peers. I distinctly remember at the end of recess, I walked in to be met by Mrs. Meekum. She was tall and blithe and kind and the best kind of teacher for a very clearly wayward child like myself. She said, Mimi, I've been told you said a bad word on the playground today. I said, What, fudge? Mrs. Meekum smiled. Um, yes, that would be the one. I suddenly started protesting. It's not a bad word. I swear it's not. Mrs. Meekb said. Well, some of the children here aren't comfortable with it the way that you are. I said, Well, they're wrong because my mom says all the bad words and she doesn't say that one. At this point, Mrs. Meekum was in fits of giggles. She bent down so that we were the same eye level and leaned in close with a whisper. I know that you know that. And I know that. But some of the other kids don't. So maybe we just keep this word to ourselves. Uh like a game. I agreed, and we moved on with the day. Basically, language is fluid, and yet at the same time, a bit sticky. It can be hard to figure out because each person has a different level of what is accepted speech or terminology. Each home has its own individualized culture, and with that comes determining what is acceptable and what is not. There is nothing wrong with having your own family culture of what is acceptable in your home and what is acceptable speech. The great thing about language being fluid is that you get to decide what you like and you tolerate. And the list is constantly changing. The word in my house growing up, dude, my mom hated the word dude. It was used to the equivalent of today's bro, and she did not like it. It was a banned word in my house growing up. If my mom even heard you mutter, uh dude, well, that was the end of your afternoon. You might have words like that in your home too. And I guess that's the point of today's episode. Language is fluid, culture and humanity are ever changing. And while we have standardized words that are commonly seen as unacceptable, there's so much more to it than that. That said, where do you go from here with your great knowledge of history and language and Hollywood and words? Well, that's up to you to decide. Basically, you do you, dude. And with that, I'm Mimi Fotz, and this has been another episode of Hello from the Van. Just a reminder that we have a visual podcast on YouTube under Hello from the Van, and all sources are now listed in the show notes.