If only Tony Bourdain were alive to learn that all those nasty stories about fish were myths; he mentioned each of those tall tales at least once, whenever he was in or on a body of water, and he seemed to be genuinely worried about it!
Surprisingly, I hadn’t heard all of them. Stories about sharks, those three pesky fish, and the great empress were new to me. Surprisingly, as well, I hadn’t heard the debunking of the lisping king theory.
An alternate question about Thomas Crapper is whether his name brought about “crapper” as a nickname for a lavatory. Never knighted, Crapper was hired by Prince Bertie to install 30 lavatories in one of his houses in the 1880s, so he got some prominent national attention. The OED, however, records the first written example of crapper denoting a toilet facility in 1927, so a lot of time had passed. But crude slang words can remain unwritten for a long time. So there is no definitive answer.
One other thing that folks get wrong (especially authors and screenwriters of historical fiction and drama) about “fuck” is how commonly it might have been used in the olden days. Swive was the preferred word for the activity from Chaucer’s day into the 18th century, at least. And “fuck” as an interjection and “fuck you” as an expression of hostility or confrontation seem to have only started in the 20th century.
To be fair. The dark side of the moon historically meant the hidden or unknown side rather than permanently dark. In the same way that Africa in the 19th century was referred to as 'Darkest Africa ', not because the indigenous people stumbled about in permanent gloom, but Because it was unknown, or at least unknown to the European explorers.
If only Tony Bourdain were alive to learn that all those nasty stories about fish were myths; he mentioned each of those tall tales at least once, whenever he was in or on a body of water, and he seemed to be genuinely worried about it!
Surprisingly, I hadn’t heard all of them. Stories about sharks, those three pesky fish, and the great empress were new to me. Surprisingly, as well, I hadn’t heard the debunking of the lisping king theory.
An alternate question about Thomas Crapper is whether his name brought about “crapper” as a nickname for a lavatory. Never knighted, Crapper was hired by Prince Bertie to install 30 lavatories in one of his houses in the 1880s, so he got some prominent national attention. The OED, however, records the first written example of crapper denoting a toilet facility in 1927, so a lot of time had passed. But crude slang words can remain unwritten for a long time. So there is no definitive answer.
One other thing that folks get wrong (especially authors and screenwriters of historical fiction and drama) about “fuck” is how commonly it might have been used in the olden days. Swive was the preferred word for the activity from Chaucer’s day into the 18th century, at least. And “fuck” as an interjection and “fuck you” as an expression of hostility or confrontation seem to have only started in the 20th century.
All things I didn’t know I needed to know
One of my students called me “an endless fountain of completely useless knowledge,” and what could I say? She was right.
Thank you for the etymology of rude words!
We linguists love that kind of stuff.
To be fair. The dark side of the moon historically meant the hidden or unknown side rather than permanently dark. In the same way that Africa in the 19th century was referred to as 'Darkest Africa ', not because the indigenous people stumbled about in permanent gloom, but Because it was unknown, or at least unknown to the European explorers.