McWhorter, John. 2021. Nine Nasty Words, English in the Gutter: Then, Now, and Forever. Avery Books.
John McWhorter teaches linguistics at Columbia. He also writes a column on language issues, broadly conceived, for the New York Times, and appears as a frequent guest on the Glenn Show podcast with economist Glenn Loury. Befitting his many accomplishments, he has a fine website.
I have read three of his books. The first was his book on black English, which I blogged about several years ago and quite liked. The second was his Woke Racism book, which I did not blog about and liked the least of the three.
The present book, as its title subtly suggests, concerns the etymology of nine English naughty words, a set that includes words related to religion, such as hell and damn, words related to bodily functions, and racial and other slurs. McWhorter makes the case (drawn from the literature) that the naughtiest of naughty words have evolved over time through the three categories.
The book delights in both substance and style. The histories of several of the naughty words exhibit wild twists and turns. Along with the summarizing (in most cases) the current consensus among linguists on these histories, McWhorter also elegantly dismisses various myths, such as one false origin story involving the instruction "ship high in transit." He demonstrates an amazing knowledge of pop culture references as well, ranging from obscure Broadway musicals of the past to episodes of the Jeffersons. And the wordplay ... ah the wordplay. So much fun. So many puns.
My only complaint, which I suspect most readers in his target audience of people who buy small books displayed at the check-out counter of their independent bookstore would not share, is that I would have liked more talk about how linguists came to believe the various etymologies he recounts. I did appreciate the books discussion of how hard it is to trace down the usage history of some of the words because back in the day people did not write them down, at least not in the sorts of ways that would survive to the present day.
In short, recommended. I liked it well enough that I bought a fourth McWhorter book when I finished this one.
Addendum: Fixed McWhorter's affiliation from Brown (that's Loury) to Columbia.
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