‘But words are words. I never did hear / That the bruised heart was pierced through the ear’ William Shakespeare, Othello, (1:2, 218–19) Penguin Classics, New Ed edition, 2005
‘Not one of them would sit down,’ Captain James Cook, James Cook: The Journals, Penguin Classics, 2003
‘I would hear things’ Timothy Jay, BBC, Fry’s Planet Word, 2011
‘It’s like using the horn on your car’ ibid.
‘As soon as kids can speak, they’re using swear words’ Professor Timothy Jay, Cursing in America, John Benjamins, Philadelphia, 1992
‘Cathartic swearing comes from a primal rage circuit’ Steven Pinker, The Stuff of Thought, Allen Lane, 2007
‘I had noises’ Jess Thom, Fry’s Planet Word, BBC 2011
‘It’s going all the time biscuit’ ibid.
‘I was speaking to my dad on the phone’ ibid.
‘Absolutely. I think lots of people misunderstand Tourette’s’ ibid.
‘The response is not only emotional but involuntary’ Steven Pinker, Why We Curse: What the F***? New Republic magazine, August 2007
‘One of mankind’s greatest-ever living language centres’ Peter Silverton, Filthy English: The How, Why, When and What of Everyday Swearing, Portobello Books, 2009
‘In my mind I’d say that’ Les Duhigg, Fry’s Planet Word, BBC 2011
‘I was always apologizing for him’ Marion Duhigg, Fry’s Planet Word, BBC 2011
‘We had a chap in the stroke group’ ibid.
‘It’s like being born again’ Les Duhigg, Fry’s Planet Word, BBC 2011
‘Richard: So, Stephen, when you put your hand in the water …
‘Stephen: That is cold actually … ’ Dr Richard Stephens, Brian Blessed and Stephen Fry, Fry’s Planet Word, BBC 2011
‘Please could you take this note, ram it up his hairy inbox and pin it to his fucking prostrate’ Armando Ianucci, The Thick of It: The Rise of the Nutters, BBC 2007
‘There was that world which lived off a twenty-four-hour news cycle’ Armando Ianucci, Fry’s Planet Word, BBC 2011
‘The last thing I want is every programme’ ibid.
‘Euphemism is such a pervasive human phenomenon’ Joseph Williams, quoted in Ralph Keyes, Euphemania: Our Love Affair With Euphemisms, Little Brown, 2010
‘This Earl of Oxford making his low obeisance’ John Aubrey, Brief Lives, Penguin, new edition, 1972
‘Not a man swears but pays his twelve pence’ Oliver Cromwell, quoted in An Anatomy of Swearing, Ashley Montague, University of Pensylvannia Press, March 2001
‘I’d like breast’ Winston Churchill, Virginia, 1929, quoted by Celia Sandys, Chasing Churchill: Travels With Winston Churchill, Harper Collins, new edition, 2004
‘We had an auxiliary who was Portuguese’ Julia Saunders, Fry’s Planet Word, BBC 2011
‘Ah, isn’t that nice’ Harry Carpenter at the 1977 Oxford–Cambridge boat race
‘It hangs like flax on a distaff’ William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night, 1:3,16, Penguin Classics, new edition, 2005
‘They don’t pay their sixpences’ Marie Lloyd, quoted in The New York Telegraph, 14 November 1897
‘… significant moment in English history’ T. S. Eliot, Selected Essays, Faber and Faber, London, 1941
‘When roses are red’ Max Miller quoted in John M. East, Max Miller: The Cheeky Chappie, Robson Books Ltd, new edition, 1998
‘I know exactly what you are saying’ ibid.
‘Programmes must at all cost be kept free of crudities’ The Little Green Book, BBC 1949
‘In Hackney Wick there lives a lass’ Barry Took and Marty Feldman, ‘Rambling Syd Rumpo’, Round The Horne, BBC Radio
‘Mrs Slocombe: Before we go any further, Mr Rumbold’ David Croft and Jeremy Lloyd, Are You Being Served?: ‘Our Figures Are Slipping’, series 1, episode 3, BBC 1973
‘The twittering of the birds all day, the bumblebees at play’ Ronnie Barker, The Two Ronnies, BBC
‘I spend all day just crawling through the grass’ Peter Brewis, ‘The Two Ninnies’, Not The Nine O’Clock News, 1982
‘When, 20 years ago, Molly Sugden’ David Baddiel
She was pleased to see his tender won’ I’m Sorry, I Haven’t A Clue, BBC Radio 4
‘I know, for example, that the lovely Farad here’ Omid Djalili, Fry’s Planet Word, BBC 2011
‘My parents often had English people around’ ibid.
‘I just said thank you very much to Farad’ ibid.
‘My wife, who’s British, said’ Omid Djalili, Fry’s Planet Word, BBC 2011
‘To be called a bald, fat fart to your face’ ibid.
‘You couldn’t operate on a yacht’ Matt Allen, Fry’s Planet Word, BBC 2011
‘It strikes everyone as an extreme case’ A. P. Rossiter, Our Living Language, Longman’s Green & Co., 1953
‘But do not give it to a lawyer’s clerk to write’ Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote, Vintage Classics, new edition, 2007
‘Upon any such default’ Security Agreement, Harbour Equity Partners, LLC, November 2010
‘The physical progressing of building cases’ Sir Ernest Gowers, The Complete Plain Words, Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1955
‘It may be said that no harm is done’ ibid.
‘good and useful …’ Sir Ernest Gowers, The Complete Plain Words, Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1955
‘is the verbal sleight of hand’ David Lehman, Sign of the Times: Destruction and Fall of Paul De Man, Andre Deutsch Ltd, 1991
‘Proactive, self-starting facilitator required’ quoted by Christopher Howse, ‘At the end of the day, you’ve given 110 per cent’, Telegraph, 14 June 2007
‘Using language as a way of obscuring the truth’ Ian Hislop, Fry’s Planet Word, BBC 2011
‘It starts in management consultancies’ ibid.
‘What amuses me is the same management’ ibid.
‘Doublespeak is a language which pretends to communicate’ William Lutz, The New Doublespeak, Harper Collins, 1996
‘unlawful and arbitrary deprivation of life’ US State Department annual report, 1984
‘Nazism permeated the flesh and blood of the people’ Victor Klamperer, Lingua Tertii Imperii (The Language of the Third Reich), Continuum International Publishing Group, 2006
‘the barbed wire was not facing the West’ Gunter Böhnke, Fry’s Planet Word, BBC 2011
‘My mother lost her purse’ ibid.
‘Every joke is a tiny revolution’ George Orwell, ‘Funny But Not Vulgar’ and Other Selected Essays and Journalism, The Folio Society, 1998
‘Erich Honecker arrives at his office early one morning’ Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, The Lives of Others, Buena Vista Pictures, 2006
‘We’re in a no-win, damned if you do and damned if you don’t scenario’ Peter Jackson, quoted in ‘Jackson Talks Dam Busters: Controversial decision looms for WWII remake’, IGN website, 6 September 2006
‘David Howard should not have quit’ Julian Bond quoted in Donald Demarco, ‘Acting Niggardly’, Social Justice Review 91, No. 3–4, March–April 2000
‘I’d go to school on the Monday’ Stephen K. Amos, Fry’s Planet Word, BBC 2011
‘When people say political correctness has gone mad’ ibid.
‘special vocabulary of tramps or thieves’ 1756, Online Etymology Dictionary, etymonline.com
‘the dirtiest dregs of the wandering beggars’ Alexander Gil as quoted by Henry Hitchens in The Language Wars: A History of Proper English, John Murray, February 2011
‘that poisonous and most stinking ulcer of our state’ Alexander Gil, Logonomia Anglica, Scolar Press, reissue of 1621 edition, February 1969
‘the continual corruption of our English tongue’ Jonathan Swift, Tatler, No. 230, September 1710
‘the choice of certain words’ ibid.
‘an epithet which in the English vulgar language’ Francis Grose, A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, 1785, University of Michigan Library, April 2009
‘The
freedom of thought and speech’ ibid.
‘I have never seen a man of more original observation’ Robert Burns, in a letter to Mrs Dunlop from Ellisland on 17 July 1789, as quoted by Jennifer Orr, BBC website, Robert Burns
‘low habits, general improvidence …’ John Camden Hotton, A Dictionary of Slang, Cant and Vulgar Words, Taylor and Greening, 1860
‘I likes a top o’ reeb’ Henry Mayhew, ‘London Labour and the London Poor’, The Morning Chronicle, 1851
‘the wandering tribes of London’; ‘There exists in London a singular tribe of men’ John Camden Hotton, A Dictionary Of Modern Slang, Cant, And Vulgar Words, Taylor and Greening, 1860
‘harristocrats of the streets’ ibid.
‘A citizen of London, being in the country’ Francis Grose, A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, 1785, University of Michigan Library, April 2009
‘one born within the sound of Bow bell, that is in the City of London’ John Minsheu, Ductor in Linguas (Guide into the Tongues) and Vocabularium Hispanicolatinum (A Most Copious Spanish Dictionary) (1617), Scholars Facsimilies & Reprint, May 1999
‘Yankee Doodle came to London, just to ride the ponies’ George M. Cohen, ‘Yankee Doodle Dandy’, 1942
‘pulling someone’s pants up sharply to wedge them between the buttocks’ Jonathan E. Lighter, Historical Dictionary of American Slang, Vol. 2: H–O, Random House Reference, 1997
‘Oh, it’s the tourists … I’m not Listerine but they get on my goat’ Stephen Fry, Fry’s Planet Word, BBC 2011
‘Well, we’re losing it, aren’t we?’ London Cab Driver, Fry’s Planet Word, BBC 2011
‘A Cockney has got a cheerful way about him’ ibid.
‘As feely ommes, we would zhoosh our riah’ Peter Burton, Parallel Lives, Gay Men’s Press, 1985
‘Hello. Is there anybody there?’ Barry Took and Marty Feldman, ‘Julian and Sandy’, Round the Horne, BBC Radio
‘Omes and palones of the jury’ Barry Took and Marty Feldman, ‘Bona Law’, Round the Horne, BBC Radio
‘a miracle of dexterity at the cottage upright’ Barry Took and Marty Feldman, ‘Julian and Sandy: Bona Performers’, Round the Horne, BBC Radio
‘In the beginning, Gloria created the heaven and the earth’ The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, King James Bible into Polari in 2003, as quoted by Christopher Bryant, Paul Baker: How Bona to Vada Your Dolly Old Eek, Polari Magazine, 3 December 2008
‘A lot of English people see Australians as a recessive gene’ Kathy Lette, Fry’s Planet Word, BBC 2011
‘This is accounted for by the number of individuals’ Peter Cunningham, Two Years in New South Wales, Henry Colburn, 1827
‘Pommy is supposed to be short for pomegranate’ D. H. Lawrence, Kangaroo, Penguin Classics, new edition, 1986
‘I think it’s something to do with our Irish heritage’ Kathy Lette, Fry’s Planet Word, BBC 2011
‘We shorten everything’ ibid.
‘I’ve met six British prime ministers’ Stephen Fry, Fry’s Planet Word, BBC 2011
‘having a black belt in tongue-fu’ Kathy Lette, Fry’s Planet Word, BBC 2011
‘gutless spivs’ Australian Prime Minister Paul Keating, quoted by Nick Stace in ‘Taking Insults to a New Level’, My Telegraph, September 2010
‘brain-damaged’; ‘mangy maggot’; ‘the little dessicated coconut’ Australian Prime Minister Paul Keating, quoted by Patrick Carlyon in ‘Ex-PM Paul Keating the heckler we had to have’, Herald Sun, 3 November 2009
‘like being savaged by a dead sheep’ Denis Healey on Sir Geoffrey Howe, Hansard, 14 June 1978, col. 1027
‘into the mysteries of Australian colloquial speech’ Barry Humphries ‘The Adventures of Barry McKenzie’, Private Eye, c.1960
‘Barry is hugely observant’ John Clarke, Fry’s Planet Word, BBC 2011
‘relied on indecency for its humour’ Australian Department of Customs and Excise, quoted in The Mythical Australian: Barry Humphries, Gough Whitlam and ‘new nationalism’, Anne Pender, The Australian Journal of Politics and History, March 2005
‘It’s very seldom that someone like Barry Humphries comes along’ John Clarke, Fry’s Planet Word, BBC 2011
‘The American influence is huge’ Kathy Lette, Fry’s Planet Word, BBC 2011
‘the practice of spending the night on other people’s couches’ Vicki Estes, ‘Seen the dictionary lately? OMG!’ Topeka Journal, 10 April 2011
‘a boring or socially inept person’; ‘the wives and girlfriends’ ‘Oxford English Dictionary: other new words and definitions’, Telegraph, 24 March 2011
‘Wag is notable’ Graeme Diamond, editor of Oxford English Dictionary
‘a protuberance of flesh’ Dave Masters, ‘OMG in the OED? LOL!’, Sun, 24 March 2011
‘has apparently taken over from Shakespeare’ Mark Liberman, Homeric Objects of Desire, 2005
‘D’oh … expressing frustrations’ Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford University Press, 2001
‘The Canadian election was so meh’ Collins English Dictionary, ninth edition, Collins, 4 June 2007
‘widespread unselfconscious usage’ Graeme Diamond, quoted in ‘Meh– the word that’s sweeping the internet’, Michael Hann, Guardian, 5 March 2007
‘He’s embiggened that role with his cromulent performance’ The Simpsons: Lisa the Iconoclast, season seven, episode 16, David X Cohen, Fox, 1996
‘there is a competing effect’ Riccardo Argurio, Matteo Bertolini, Sebastián Franco, Shamit Kachru, Gauge/gravity duality and meta-stable dynamical supersymmetry breaking, the Institute of Physics Publishing, 2007
‘O hart tht sorz’ Eileen Bridge, runner-up in the T - Mobile txt laureate competition, quoted in David Crystal, ‘2b or not 2b’, Guardian, 5 July 2008
‘Verona was de turf of de feuding Montagues and de Capulet families’ Martin Baum, To Be Or Not To Be, Innit, Bright Pen, 2008
‘John’s girlfriend is really pretty’ ‘Say what? A parents’ guide to UK teenage slang’, BBC News school report, 11 March 2010
‘John’s chick is proper buff’ Phoenix High School, Shepherd’s Bush, West London, ‘Say what? A parents’ guide to UK teenage slang’, BBC News school report, 11 March 2010
‘Jonny’s bird is proper fit’ Holy Family Catholic Church, Keighley, West Yorkshire, ‘Say what? A parents’ guide to UK teenage slang’, BBC News school report, 11 March 2010
‘John’s missus is flat out bangin’’ Bishopston Comprehensive School, Swansea, Wales, ‘Say what? A parents’ guide to UK teenage slang’, BBC News school report, 11 March 2010
‘Berkeley is one of the most diverse places you’ll ever be’ Connor, Fry’s Planet Word, BBC 2011
‘It can change in one day’ Berkeley High Students, Fry’s Planet Word, BBC 2011
‘The word rap was used in the black community’ H. Samy Alim, Fry’s Planet Word, BBC 2011
‘It’s metaphors’ Kenard ‘K2’ Karter, Fry’s Planet Word, BBC 2011
‘The MCing or rapping is a verbal art form’ H. Samy Alim, Fry’s Planet Word, BBC 2011
‘You step up into the cipher’ ibid.
‘From a language perspective’ Kenard ‘K2’ Karter, Fry’s Planet Word, BBC 2011
‘And that is what some people view as cultural theft’ H. Samy Alim, Fry’s Planet Word, BBC 2011
‘My president, your country is dead’ El General, ‘Rais Le Bled’ (President, Your People) quoted in Vivienne Walt, ‘El Général and the Rap Anthem of the Mideast Revolution’, Time, 5 February 2011
‘The revolution is a social movement’ Balti as quoted by Neil Curry in ‘Tunisia’s rappers provide a soundtrack to a revolution’, CNN World, 2 March 2011
‘Egypt, Algeria, Libya, Morocco, all must be liberated’ El General, An Ode to Arab Revolution, as quoted in Hip-hop for revolution by Clark Boyd, PRI’s The World, 8 February 2011
Chapter 4
‘Without words, without writing and without books, there would be no history’ Herman Hesse
&nbs
p; ‘Writing put agreements, laws, commandments on record’ H. G. Wells, A Short History of the World, Penguin Classics, 2006
‘For example, initially there would be a sign’ Irving Finkel, Fry’s Planet Word, BBC 2011
‘They were afraid of disease and impotence’ ibid.
‘Let us ask ourselves, positively, flatly’ René Etiemble as quoted in Writing: The Story of Alphabets and Scripts by Georges Jean, Harry N. Abrams, March 1992
‘Ventris was able to see’ John Chadwick, The Decipherment of Linear B, Cambridge University Press, 1958
‘He who first shortened the labor of copyists’ Thomas Carlyle, Sartor Resartus, Oxford Paperbacks, June 2008
‘for there is so great diversity in English’ Geoffrey Chaucer, Troilus and Criseyde, Penguin Classics, 2004
‘There is an ebb and flow of all conditions of men’ Alain-René Lesage, La Valise Trouvée, Imprimerie Nationale, 30 October 2002
‘Diderot knew English’ Kate Tunstall, Fry’s Planet Word, BBC 2011
‘We know he had these dinners’ ibid.
‘An encyclopedia’ Denis Diderot, Encyclopedia: the complete illustrations, 1762–1777, New York: Harry N. Abrams; 1st edition, 1978
‘It has been compared to the impious Babel’ C.A. Sainte-Beuve, Portraits of the Eighteenth Century: Historic and Literary, Part II, translated by Katharine P. Wormeley, G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1905, pp. 89–128
‘This is the proportion …’ Samuel Johnson, quoted in James Boswell, The Life of Samuel Johnson, abridged edition, Penguin Classics 31 May 1979
‘Wherever I turned my view’ Samuel Johnson (1755), Preface to the English Dictionary, paras 1–50, Dr Johnson’s Dictionary, Penguin Classics, 2005
‘… to refine our language to grammatical purity’ Samuel Johnson, The Rambler, No. 208, 14 March 1752
‘To make dictionaries is dull work’; ‘lexicographer’ Samuel Johnson, Dr Johnson’s Dictionary, Penguin Classics, 2005
‘I have protracted my work’ Samuel Johnson (1755), Preface to the English Dictionary, Dr Johnson’s Dictionary, Penguin Classics, 2005
‘Dotard’; ‘embryo’; ‘envy’; ‘eavesdropper’; ‘or jogger’; ‘oats’; ‘excise’ Samuel Johnson, Dr Johnson’s Dictionary, Penguin Classics, 2005
‘a wretched etymologist’ Thomas Macaulay, quoted by Jesse Sheidlower in Defining Moment, Bookforum, October 2005
Planet Word Page 36
