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Something You Should Know
How to Avoid Life's Biggest Regrets & The Meaning of Swear Words – SYSK Choice
00:50:11
How to avoid life's biggest regrets, the surprising history of swearing, and burger secrets from a grill master.
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- [00:02]
Mike Carruthers
I'm not giving up. I am selling the building.
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The final season of FX is the Bear.
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Jess Zafaras
The restaurant is flooded.
- [00:13]
Mike Carruthers
Everything's either gonna be okay.
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No.
- [00:16]
Co-host or Interviewer
Stop. Or not. We are outgunned and we are outmanned. But we have each other.
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FX's the Bear the final season, all episodes now streaming on Disney.
- [00:31]
Mike Carruthers
Today on something you should know. Simple instructions on making the perfect burger from the guy who wrote the bible on it. Then how to lead a life of no regrets, using purpose, intention and anticipation.
- [00:45]
Jody Wellman
Studies show that we derive more joy from anticipating the trip than we actually experience when we're on the trip. That's why this is the low hanging fruit to me. Organize your life so that you have identified stuff that might light you up.
- [01:01]
Mike Carruthers
Also, total myths about your health that a lot of people still believe. And the story of vulgarity and how swearing and profanity have become more acceptable.
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Jess Zafaras
I think it has to do with the relaxation of obscenity and profanity laws. In fact, you know George Carlin's seven words you can't say on tv? Half of those are words that we barely consider to be that vulgar anymore.
- [01:25]
Mike Carruthers
All this today on something you should know. If you and I were to meet on the street, which would be lovely, there's an excellent chance that the clothes I would be wearing would be from Quince. And if you asked, I'd be happy to tell you about them. You know how when you discover a brand and suddenly you keep talking about it to people? Well, that's become me with Quince. Originally, months ago, I ordered a few things for myself. Their pants and some polos, cashmere sweaters. And right then I knew. I mean, the quality was so much better than I expected. What I like is their stuff feels elevated without feeling fussy. Their linen shirts and pants are great this time of year. Light, breathable, comfortable. But you still look put together. I just ordered some jeans recently too, and they've immediately gone into regular rotation. And then you see the prices and it almost doesn't make sense because Quints cuts out the middleman and works directly with ethical factories. So you're paying for quality, not some big giant markup. Honestly, I recommend Quince to people all the time. And I'm recommending it to you. Elevate your summer wardrobe. Go to quince.comsysk for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns now available in Canada too. That's Q-U-I-N-C-E.com sysk for free shipping and 365 day returns quince.comsysk something you should KNOW Fascinating intel, the world's top experts and practical advice you can use in your life today. Something YOU should Know with Mike Carruthers. Hi, welcome to SOMETHING YOU SHOULD know. Now that summer is in full swing and barbecue grills are blazing everywhere, I thought we'd start this episode with some advice on cooking the perfect burger. And this advice comes from Steve Raichlen, author of. Well, he's author of the Barbecue Bible,
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Co-host or Interviewer
so he would know.
- [03:36]
Mike Carruthers
First of all, if you want the perfect burger, avoid packaged meat labeled hamburger or ground beef, which is usually scraps
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Co-host or Interviewer
and trimmings and you know, who knows what else.
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Mike Carruthers
It's better to buy top quality meat with at least 15% fat, like ground sirloin. Also, shape your burgers with a light hand. The less you touch the meat, the better. Too much handling can actually bruise the meat. Burgers tend to puff up in the center when they cook, so make an indentation in the center so when it puffs up, it puffs up flat. Avoid the urge to press down on the meat while it's cooking. It squeezes out all of the juices right into the fire. Just cook the burger once per side and avoid excess flipping. And here's a great chef secret from Steve Tuck in a half a tablespoon of herbed butter into the center of the burger before you grill it. It'll add about 50 calories to your hamburger, but you'll probably say it's worth it. And that is something you should know. We've all heard a million times that life is short.
- [04:49]
Co-host or Interviewer
You should make every day count, make every minute count.
- [04:52]
Mike Carruthers
That you should lead a meaningful and purposeful life. And on and on and on. I'm sure you've heard it before, but what does it mean to lead a purposeful and meaningful life? How do you do that? Well, you're about to find out as you listen to my guest, Jody Wellman. She's a former corporate executive turned executive coach who has a master's in applied positive psychology from the University of Pennsylvania, and she's author of a book called you Only Die how to make it to the End with no Regrets. Hi Jody, welcome. It's a pleasure to have you on something you should know.
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Jody Wellman
Oh, thanks, Mike. I'm excited to be here.
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Mike Carruthers
So let's start. I mean, you have a wake up
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Co-host or Interviewer
call that you want people to hear,
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Mike Carruthers
so let's start with that.
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Jody Wellman
Yes, I'm happy to announce something that we all technically know that we're all going to die. But I do want us to wake the F up to that fact so that we can live with more urgency and intention before we do in fact, end up dying, unfortunately.
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Mike Carruthers
So you suspect most of us don't
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Co-host or Interviewer
wake up, that we're on autopilot kind of thing, Is that right?
- [06:00]
Jody Wellman
You said the words. That's exactly it. It's all too easy to just go about our day, go about our routine, and then all of a sudden another week went by and wait, what happened? What month is it? And we take life for granted, right? It's just part of the human condition. So I do want us to wake up and start savoring it rather than squandering it.
- [06:15]
Co-host or Interviewer
But I think everybody does what you just described. I mean, I can't imagine anybody who doesn't at least have one point in their life where they just kind of just get through the day and. And maybe that's even a good thing. Like you can't always be on.
- [06:32]
Jody Wellman
Yeah, yeah, I agree with you completely. So I would love right out of the gates to dispel this notion that this is about, you know, because I talk about living an astonishingly alive life and that sounds pretty darn grandiose. And I don't want to not have people live a grandiose life if you want that. But for most of us, it's this tuning in to what makes you feel alive. And it doesn't have to be, you know, balls to the wall full on. I mean, that's exhausting. So we just need to define for ourselves what would make you feel alive, what would make you feel, if you got to the end, like you wouldn't regret things you didn't do. Because I agree it's not a hundred miles an hour every day. But it's about saying, wait, maybe I do need to just snap out of this routine and start living with a little more intention. So I think it's all in the right dosing.
- [07:17]
Co-host or Interviewer
And so give me an example of what's. What would that look like? Because if you don't do it, it's hard to understand what living with intention means. It means doing what on a minute to minute, hour to hour basis, differently than what I'm doing now.
- [07:33]
Jody Wellman
Well, I'm going to back it up a sec because I do think that even understanding this notion of living with intention, because it does seem obscure, like, wait, what do I do? I think the starting point is to do the good old fashioned count how many Mondays you have left. Like, this is a language I speak and I Do it intentionally to rankle a little bit. Like, for example, I have 1,814 Mondays left on average. I want people to do that mortality math because that's the thing that helps us to come to terms with our unfortunate, you know, temporary nature. And when we do that, for many of us, it does that thing which is like that little eye opening of, oh, right, like my countdown timer is on. And what that tends to do. Just like people who've had, you know, near death experiences or brushes with death where they've emerged, phew, like they made it. They're living with more of a sense of appreciation for life and, like, on purpose than the rest of us. So that's the starting point, Mike, is. Is that awareness, like, right, I am a ticking time bomb of a life over here. And so in light of that, how do I want to be just a little more mindful about how I spend my time? And that tends to crystallize a little bit about what our priorities are, what our interests are, and helps us to just get out of that kind of highly functioning zombie zone. So I just wanted to go back to that starting point philosophically, you know.
- [08:48]
Co-host or Interviewer
Yeah, yeah. Well, I wonder too. Maybe, you know, maybe you've looked at this, like when you talk to people who are kind of, who only have a few more Mondays left, what do they regret? What is it that they tend to wish they had done differently?
- [09:05]
Jody Wellman
I love this question so much. This is the exact area I study is around the notion not just of temporal scarcity, which is recognizing, because we're temporary, life's more rare, but the science of regrets. And there are two types of regrets. One is the regret about the stupid stuff we did and wished we hadn't. Those are called regrets of commission. And funny enough, they don't really matter as much near the end, especially because they kind of soften with time. The regrets I am deeply, gravely, dare I say, concerned about are the regrets about the paths we didn't take, the things we didn't do. And those are recalled regrets of omission. And they tend to. To grab us, especially near the end, that sort of wistful sense of, oh, man, like, what if I did go back to school? Or what if I did change my career because I always wanted to study veterinarian science? Or what if I did ask him out? Or what if I did go and I, like, I never got to go and visit the Mediterranean coast or, you know, fill in the blanks. There's no shortage of things. And those are the opportunities we Have Mike, that I get just quite honestly, like, all worked up about over here, because I call them pregrats. If you can identify those things now that you might have feelings about if your deathbed came tonight. Well, we have this great opportunity, like, we're not dying tonight, you know, for a vast majority of us. And we get to say holy. Like, I get to take a step forward. Like, if that Mediterranean visit like is would really make my life. Like, that would make my life feel complete. I could plan that and book the ticket, or I could go and I could go and apply to go back to school. Even if it's not easy. Especially if it's not easy. So that's this refining of our priorities that I'm talking about. When we're aware that life's short, get on with our goals.
- [10:53]
Mike Carruthers
So I remember hearing that one of the things that people, towards the end
- [10:57]
Co-host or Interviewer
of their lives regret is they worried too much. And this ties into what you're saying, because people don't do the things they think they should do or want to do because they're worried about what will happen if they do. It'll cost too much money. It'll. It'll. Something else will happen. Worry gets wrapped up in this.
- [11:21]
Jody Wellman
It does. Yeah. You're highlighting something that I can refer to specifically what I said earlier. The people who've had brushes with death. It's so striking to me. People that have emerged from maybe a cancer diagnosis, like, maybe they're in remission or they've come home from the hospital, they're out of their coma. Whatever their scenario is. There's this beautiful falling away of the bullcrap because they have this notion, like, I saw the light. Like, I know now that if I've got X number of Mondays left, that I'm going to want to focus on these things because they matter. And I don't care as much about what other people think about me. I don't care. I'm gonna. I'm gonna put up the boundary word, the B word. I'm gonna. I'm gonna say, like, no, I would love to join your committee. Maybe some other year. Or, I can't make it to the barbecue this weekend, Aunt Ginny, and. And not feel badly about it because there's this whole shifted perspective of, like, my life is freaking precious. Do I want to go to an obligatory barbecue? I mean, maybe sometimes you have to for social graces. There's always that, you know, there's going to be a give and take in life, damn it. But for the most Part, I like to go through a thought exercise and I do this with workshops I do with groups and teams and. And like, imagine you came home from the hospital, you know, you. You made it out alive. And does that stupid email matter to you anymore? Does worrying about what people might think if you change your career does the worry. But. Oh, will the kids adjust if we move to Portland? Yeah, they'll figure it out. You know, like. Like in pursuit of a life worth living. I think that, like, it does take a really conscious override of those worries because you're not alone, Mike. I mean, I have them too. I. I talk about this stuff all, you know, selfishly because, like, I need to override my, My tendencies for. Of fear and worry as well.
- [13:12]
Co-host or Interviewer
But short of the, the big emergency hospital visit, which I'm. I know will wake up almost anybody into a different way of thinking. But back to what we were talking about before. If, if you don't do what you're talking about, if you live your life in this kind of autopilot habit thing, what is it you do differently? Day to day, minute to minute? Because if you've never done it, you don't know what to do. It's. It's all platitudes and you can do it. Sure you can. But, but, but, like, what?
- [13:44]
Jody Wellman
Yeah, so the first thing, like I said, was counting your Mondays. Most people haven't done that. Most people have a notion of how many years they have left, but it's too vague. So when you count Mondays, it makes it granular and it activates that science that you about in psychology, which is that awareness that when you see something as rare in limited time only, it does tend to heighten its value or its perceived value.
- [14:04]
Mike Carruthers
We're talking about leading a meaningful and purposeful life and the reasons for doing so. And my guest is Jody Wellman, author of the book you only die, how to make it to the end with no regrets. You know something that is oddly difficult, Finding a therapist, not the idea of therapy. I think most of us agree that's a good thing. We've all had times when talking to someone could have really helped. But actually finding a therapist who's available, who's taking new patients, who takes your insurance, and is someone you'd really like to talk to. Yeah, that's a little trickier. And that's where Rula comes in. Rula is a healthcare company that makes it a lot easier to connect with licensed therapists and, and mental health professionals who actually take your insurance. You see, they work with over 100 insurance plans and the average copay for a Rula patient is about $15 a session, sometimes less depending on your benefits, which makes therapy a lot more realistic for people who've thought about it but never quite pulled the trigger. And Rula doesn't just match you with whoever's next on the list, they actually help you find therapists based on your goals and preferences and and what you're going through right now. Plus, many appointments are available as soon as tomorrow. Thousands of people are already using Rula to get affordable, high quality therapy that is covered by Insurance. Visit rula.comsysk to get started and after you sign up, you'll be asked how you heard about them. So please support our show and let them know we sent you. That's r u l a.comSYSK because mental health care should work with you, not
- [15:53]
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- [17:20]
Mike Carruthers
so Jody, how do you do the math? What is the math on figuring out how many Mondays you have left?
- [17:26]
Jody Wellman
Well, for for a cheat sheet I have a calculator on my website on the resources page for those of us that don't want to do math and that's at 4000mondays.com on the resources. But if you want to do it Right. Right now it is. 78 years is the average life expectancy for men minus your age, and then multiply that by 52. If you identify as female, start with 83 as your life expectancy minus your age times 52. And if you don't identify with either, average it out at 80 years minus your age times 52. So if you do the math, for many people, it does this. Oh, okay, that's uncomfortable. And it's appropriately so. You know, some people when I work with, you know, younger groups, they're like, I've got more than 2,000. I got more than half. I'm good to go. But for most of us, it does tend to do this. All right.
- [18:13]
Jess Zafaras
Yeah, right.
- [18:13]
Jody Wellman
There is a. There is, you know, the sand hourglass that has been flipped over. So that awareness is key. It takes a consistent reminder. So I'm a fan of having little visuals around you. You can't see where I am, but my place is littered with all the pictures of the skulls. And I've got, you know, bracelet I wear with a little skeleton on it. I've got images, I've got reminders, I've quotes that are pretty clear. So seeing it as vivid imagery can be important for visual folks. I also recommend talking about it. So we don't want to talk about death, because it is a freaking downer. I'm other than us talking about this right now, which is all about life, but I. I'm a fan of, like, get your friends together or have a dinner party or talk to your family. And. And you don't need to start with a dour stuff that's advanced. What if you just started by really talking about, okay, what is on your bucket list? What's the stuff that you would love to do before you go? And then, rather than just talking about it in a grandiose notion, which admittedly, according to some psychological research, sometimes just fantasizing about a dream takes the wind out of our sails. And we just feel good enough to dream about it, but we don't do anything about it. And that, to me, is just the kiss of death. So I say, talk to your friends, talk to your family, talk to whoever will listen. But, like, what do you want to do? Here's what I want to do. And then hold each other a little bit accountable to be like, well, wait a minute. You said you wanted to learn Italian. Like, what would that actually look like? Do you need to download the app? And, like, do you want to. I don't know. If you do that, then I'll do. I'll register for that online course I was thinking of taking. We can both kind of hold each other accountable. So it's the coming back consistently to this concept called memento mori, which is the old Latin phrase, an ancient practice of remembering we must die. And it's just that consistent reminder. We have to keep reminding ourselves. I have to keep reminding myself. And I do this for a living.
- [20:00]
Co-host or Interviewer
So here's something that it seems like to me there are two kinds of people in the world. There are people who can do what you do or do what you're talking about. And then, because I know people who. I don't know how they find the time to do all this stuff because life gets in the way. You've got a job, you've got kids, you've got to pay the bills, you've got to go to this place, you've got this obligation. Who has time for this bucket list stuff? I'm thinking a lot of people are thinking that listening to you.
- [20:32]
Jody Wellman
Yeah, thanks for bringing it up. I don't think we do. So I think there are a couple of facets that I'm so glad you're asking this question because this is the stuff that stops us from living, to be quite honest. It's that sort of dismissive. Well, I don't have time, so it's all or nothing thinking that we do really well. We vastly underestimate the value that even the tiniest, smallest things in our day can do to make us feel more alive. So this is not necessarily about taking a big course or booking the big trip or making a big life change. I've used those as examples so far because they can resonate with people. Usually it's about stuff like I get everybody, take out a piece of paper or a spreadsheet or, I don't know, back of the pizza box, and write down 30 things that bring you joy, that just make you happy, that make you feel a little bit alive. And here's the caveat. They've gotta be things that are kind of accessible to you in your life now. So you can't say going to see the northern lights like that is. That's a bucket list item. Another important list. Not this one, but write out this list. And I am just so jumping for joy when I'm in a workshop or keynote with a group. And I'll get people to contribute. And for most people, it's the sweet and simple, cheap and cheerful things, right? Like, oh, it's when I'm walking my dog after a long Day just by the lake. Or it's if I just get to sit outside at lunch, you know, I'm, I'm, I've only got 20 minutes. But I just love the idea about reading just a chapter in my book, just chipping away at it, you know, or it's wow, when I actually make the time, put my phone aside for a hot sec and get on the floor and do a couple Lego moves with my kid, even if it's just 10 minutes. And so these are things that are completely accessible to us. And we, we make choices at any given interval of time about how we're going to spend that time. I squander a lot of my time watching Netflix at night. I love watching T. So part of it is joy, but part of it, I also know I let it go too far. And if I stop and get honest with myself, which is this is like in real life right now, real time, me planning a better night tonight, okay, it's not going to be tuning into whatever the show I'm watching is, which is not even that enjoyable. It's just like an unwinding in the day. What might make me feel actually a little better tonight is if I go sit outside and I pour a cocktail and I'll take the husband out with me and we'll just sit, even if it's for 30 minutes and be like, hey, let's talk about the day. Like that's a 30 minute choice. That's not going to blow up my entire day or week. Right. But it's a conscious choice and we underestimate the impact that has on our well being and our perceived life satisfaction.
- [22:58]
Co-host or Interviewer
When people do these things. Is it the doing or the appreciating of the doing? Because you may already be sitting, playing Legos with your kid or sitting with your husband, but if you don't like stop and think, I'm really enjoying this, is that where the benefit comes?
- [23:15]
Jody Wellman
Oh yeah. You're so. I love your questions because you're so smart. It's both. For many people, it's the doing of it because they're not doing it right. So it's just like, I'm a zombie, I come home and make dinner and then I go to the couch and I'm missing the chance to do those things. So for some people it is the action. For many of us, we are walking around our day. It's the proverbial gratitude exercise scenario.
- [23:35]
Jess Zafaras
Right?
- [23:35]
Jody Wellman
Which, I mean, gratitude in the field of positive psychology has been so exhaustively and fantastically researched. And you could be walking really quickly, like just running into the backyard to go and turn off the faucet and running back in. And you miss the fact that, wait a sec, there's a new bud on the tree and oh, wow, it's beautiful. Or like, if I stop and smell it, like, wow, this is. This is a really kind of cool, precious little moment. And it's 14 seconds. And so that's something that, for those people who are in the practice of doing maybe a gratitude journal, which I only recommend, like, for doing it a couple of weeks at a time, every. Every little quarter, maybe just to get tuned in. So it is the attunement, Mike. It is that, ha, you know what? I'm being present. I love this. Or I love the taste of this, this paella, the saffron. Wow. Like, rather than scarfing it back, you know, which is what we tend to do is just getting from one meal to the next, or one, you know, stopping, looking around the room at your team at work and being like, I'm so grateful I get to work with these clowns, you know, or whatever that. So that is absolutely part of it. And that is part of this conscious living with intention that again, people, I work with, groups of people who have got, you know, in remission from cancer illness, and they're just so savoring the experiences of, you know, interacting with friends that they formerly took for granted. They're sipping their coffee and they're tasting it right down to the last sip because they know they're grateful to be alive. We just lost sight of that. That's it.
- [24:57]
Mike Carruthers
Something you talk about that I've always believed in is this idea of anticipation
- [25:02]
Co-host or Interviewer
that we get a lot of joy
- [25:05]
Mike Carruthers
anticipating something as much as doing something,
- [25:09]
Co-host or Interviewer
going on a trip or going to
- [25:10]
Mike Carruthers
visit someone or, or anything that the anticipation of going is really powerful.
- [25:18]
Jody Wellman
Studies show that we derive more joy from anticipating the trip than we actually experience when we're on the trip. So that's why this is the low hanging fruit. To me, it's like, organize your life so that you have identified stuff that might light you up. And it could be just as simple as, like, oh, we're going to order the Thai food on Thursday. And I'm so excited because I'm going to order rice dish number 12, like, whatever it is that helps us to feel like we get through our days just with a little bit more excitement, with a little bit more like, wow, life's getting lived. Or like this, this is just a small thing, because that really is, again, the Collection of things that can add up to feeling like life was well lived.
- [25:58]
Co-host or Interviewer
One of the things that I found out a long time ago about anticipation, because I so agree with you and have experienced that, that it's the looking forward to as much as, or sometimes more than the actual experience, but that, you know, I used to go travel back when I was younger and to go visit my parents and I used to surprise them sometimes. And then when my dad was sick, I would go back and I remember talking to this person and he said, don't surprise him. Give him as much notice as you can when you know you're going. Because the anticipation that he will have that you're coming to visit is so much better than the surprise.
- [26:46]
Jody Wellman
Yes. Oh, it's such a great point. Yeah. Yeah, I love that. And back to the notion of including people in plan so that they have things to look forward to. There's this, you know, efficiency of, of a life well lived where if you can combine forces as best as possible to double down. So, for example, say you know that you're going to go visit your parents, if this was, was true back then, and you know that they loved going to a certain kind of like a baseball game. It's like combining that together. Or if you're trying to get fit, feel a little bit healthier. And you also want to spend time with a friend that you don't really get to make time for anymore. It's like, what if you guys signed up for the Thursday night aerial yoga class? Which, God, that scares me. But you could combine that. And then on the, you know, and then maybe, you know, on the way home sometimes you could go and grab a bite at a new restauran. So it adds more novelty into your life because we haven't even cracked that puppy open yet, Mike. But like, novelty is one of the keys to the good life, you know, shaking things up a little bit.
- [27:48]
Mike Carruthers
Well, my hope was, and I think we accomplished this, is to get people to think about how they live their life. And is it all it could be? And what does it take to make it all it could be? Jodi Wellman has been my guest. She is author of the book, you Only Die, how to make it to the End with no Regrets. And if you enjoy the conversation and would like to read the book, there is a link to it in the show notes. Thank you for coming and sharing this. This was really enlightening and fun and I really enjoyed talking to you.
- [28:20]
Jody Wellman
Oh, thank you so much. What a great conversation. You're a Great question asker 4th of
- [28:25]
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- [28:55]
Jody Wellman
So good, so good, so good.
- [28:57]
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- [29:25]
Mike Carruthers
While we do not swear on this podcast, it will come as no surprise to you that I know all the swear words. Or I think I do. I imagine most people do. And I find them interesting in that swear words don't change a lot. You know, the classics are the classics. And I wonder who and what determines that A word is a bad word, a swear word. Also, why does it seem that today swearing is more acceptable, or at least tolerated than it has been in the past? We've looked at swearing in the past, but this is a different take on a topic that we all face and hear almost daily. And here to discuss vulgarity is Jess Zafaras. She is a writer and journalist and author of the book Words from Unearthing the Darkest Secrets of English Etymology. Hi Jess, welcome to something you should know.
- [30:19]
Jess Zafaras
Thanks so much Mike. I'm excited to be here.
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Mike Carruthers
So first of all, is there anything special about English, or does every language on the planet have vulgar, naughty, colorful swear words?
- [30:32]
Jess Zafaras
Virtually every language in existence has some form of swear word. It's a means of expressing emotions. It can be even it can come down to relieving pain or frustration. They say that screaming reduces your pain and having a word that you can go to express that also helps. There are class dynamics. It can help you communicate more authentically with an in group or express that you're not in a situation to be serious, or that you don't take yourself too seriously. It can form a great insult, it can exclude others, and it can intensify or emphasize anything you want to say.
- [31:16]
Mike Carruthers
So I get that a lot of
- [31:19]
Co-host or Interviewer
lewd vulgar words have to do with bodily functions and sex and all that.
- [31:24]
Mike Carruthers
But who decides?
- [31:25]
Co-host or Interviewer
How does it get decided that this is really, this is taboo. This is a word you don't say
- [31:31]
Mike Carruthers
to your grandmother in English.
- [31:33]
Jess Zafaras
It comes down to class dynamics. You may be aware that during the Norman conquest of England in 1066, the English language was flooded with French words. And that's because the Norman ruling class established themselves in England as the ruling class, leaving Anglo Saxons who prior to that had spoken the Germanic derived Old English as a more working class. Many of the swear words that we use today are Germanic derived words. They're from Old English and they've existed since Old English. So words that like the F word, the C word and the SH word, these were simply in many cases the words for those actions or those body parts in Old English. So, you know, some of them were more vulgar than others. The F word has always been pretty vulgar because of the action it describes. But the SH word for defecation was simply the word for that action in Old English. It was spelled S, C, I, T, A N. And the other words that are more polite that we use for that term, those that are multisyllabic at least, like defecation, like feces, those words are lat and French derived. And it's because this prestige class that spoke French termed those more polite because of the power dynamics between Germanic language speakers and Romance language speakers.
- [33:07]
Mike Carruthers
It's always fascinated me that we all know these words and it isn't the word itself as much as the word plus the time and place you say
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Co-host or Interviewer
it, that you could say some really horrible words around some people and it's no big deal.
- [33:24]
Mike Carruthers
But your grandmother, your priest walks into the room and then all of a sudden you say those words and everyone is gasping and clutching their pearls as if this is some sort of horrible taboo when if those people weren't in the room, nobody would care. So I don't know why we stick to this rule of we must be outraged depending on who's in the room,
- [33:47]
Co-host or Interviewer
when even the people who are supposedly
- [33:50]
Mike Carruthers
outraged know the words too.
- [33:53]
Jess Zafaras
You know, that's a, that's an interesting point. They are, and you know, in many contexts they're almost casual or used for emphasis. In online spaces, it's 10. It tends to be perfectly acceptable to swear and to include vulgar language, whereas saying it out loud, perhaps because of the consonants of them or the plosives involved, perhaps they sound more emphatic maybe when you say them aloud. And I think it's also their association with anger and taboo topics and things we don't speak about in polite conversation that have perhaps made them alarming when brought up in otherwise normal conversation.
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Mike Carruthers
Yeah, that's the word alarming.
- [34:42]
Co-host or Interviewer
Like, we all know that you're not supposed to say that and you said it anyway, and shame on you. But, you know, but the outrage is fake. I mean, because we're not really outraged. It's nothing we haven't heard before. But we pretend it's so outrageous. But even that seems like it's diminishing. I mean, there's so much swearing, F word this. And it seems that it kind of loses its punch when every other word some people say is the F word or whatever.
- [35:18]
Jess Zafaras
I agree. I think it has to do with the relaxation, in part, at least with the relaxation of obscenity and profanity laws. There used to be a lot more control around the kinds of language you can include in popularly available literature. In fact, you know George Carlin's seven words you can't say on tv? Half of those are words that we barely consider to be that vulgar anymore. Some of them, of course, still are, but I think there are others that others would consider more serious. Also, the MPAA has relaxed its ratings around what can be said on television over time. I want to say that it was a big deal, and I'm not going to be able to call up the exact date, but it was. It was a big deal when PG13 movies could include, say, two instances of the F word.
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Mike Carruthers
Well, it doesn't it seem like, you know, the scale keeps sliding because, you know, go back to like the 40s or 50s and watch those movies. You couldn't swear at all. Then you could start to say hell or damn, and then you could slip in a little something else. And it just keeps getting. Movies keep getting more and more vulgar. And you wonder, like, where will it end? Will it just keep sliding? Will we just be able to say everything and anything? And then when that happens, it just seems like it all loses its punch because everybody's swearing all the time, so who cares?
- [36:46]
Jess Zafaras
I agree, and I think it's because we have the ability to connect with so many people nowadays that you can run into any type of language. There's the boundaries between the communities we speak with and what we're used to hearing have dissolved as we've been able to interact with each other in online spaces. We're no longer viewing simply curated television. We're seeing the stream of consciousness of all of our fellow humans at all times.
- [37:14]
Co-host or Interviewer
And do the individual words, specifically any of them that we can't say, but have interesting origins.
- [37:24]
Mike Carruthers
Worth discussing, of course.
- [37:27]
Jess Zafaras
Yeah, I would say so. A lot of these, like I said, come from Old English. What I've actually found is the more interesting element here is that there are many rumors and myths, incorrect origins, ascribed to these words. There is an impulse to make, for example, the SH word and the F word into acronyms. There was a rumor going around for a good long time and often repeated. You'll still see this around, that the F word is an acronym for fornication under consent of the king. Now, this is. This is nonsense. This word has been around since far longer than some of those words that made it up. It's been spelled differently. At the time when the F word was first recorded, the word king began with a C, and then consent, I believe, hadn't even entered English at that point in history. So it's nonsense. And then the other one that you hear about the SH word is that it's short for. Or that it's an acronym for Ship High in transit. And the notion is that those letters were stamped on boxes of manure that were being shipped across the ocean because they needed to be on a higher deck because they would either get too wet or they would explode or something. But that's also nonsense. It's been spelled differently throughout history, and it's dramatically older than acronyms. In general, acronyms were relatively uncommon until the 1850s because they're more of a product of. Of the business world and of trade and of technology.
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Co-host or Interviewer
There are English swear words in England. Well, I don't know if they're swear words, but like, you know, they say bloody this and bloody that, and we don't. We never have said that here. And you wonder that even within a language, there are words that.
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Mike Carruthers
Well, just like, I guess, regular words
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Co-host or Interviewer
that mean different things and have different meanings. Even though it's still English, it's not English.
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Jess Zafaras
Bloody is a great example of a British swear word that just doesn't show up that much in English. And that's an obscenity that has religious origins. We have plenty of religious oaths in American English, too. The concept of taking the Lord's name in vain or things along those lines. But what I do think is interesting is the way we mince those oaths together into softer language that we no longer really think about the origins of. I suppose it's uncommon these days, but you've probably heard of the term gadzooks, which is a contraction of the term God's hooks. And it literally refers to the nails that secured Christ to the cross. And we run into words like that. The other one, in the vein of like Yosemite Sam, is what in tarnation? Tarnation is from an earlier oath, tarnal. Like you pay a tarnal high price for something. This is a contraction of buy the eternal. So that's an interesting one, too.
- [40:36]
Co-host or Interviewer
What about words that, you know, don't quite rise to the level of obscenity, but still are pretty slangy, and I can't think of any, but I'm hoping you can. But words that aren't in the top 10, but still, you know, get tossed around and you wonder where they might have come from. And maybe, like, you know, people will say crap instead of the S word. And crap is not a lovely word, but it's not quite as bad.
- [41:06]
Jess Zafaras
Right? It's a mincing of other words for that. That one is funny, too. It has an interesting false etymology. It's often said to be a shortening of the name Thomas Crapper, who was a. He was a sanitation worker and inventor who patented a couple of plumbing parts in, I believe, the late 1800s, early 1900s. And it's true that the word crap did emerge around that time, but its origin is probably, and almost certainly not associated with his name. More that it's an invention of plosive origin. You know, it has the satisfying consonants that we use.
- [41:45]
Mike Carruthers
So talk about the word bastard, which used to be a swear word. I don't think it is anymore, which is why I just said it.
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Co-host or Interviewer
I think it's considered pretty tame and
- [41:56]
Mike Carruthers
okay to use, but.
- [41:58]
Co-host or Interviewer
Well, go ahead.
- [41:59]
Jess Zafaras
It's probably a lot gentler than it used to be. And it also has a more generic meaning. The ending you'll find shows up in other words as well. The ending ard, or art, is a French ending used to intensify. Intensify words. You could say it means very or too much. So say a drunkard is someone who drinks too much. A braggart is someone who brags too much. A dullard is someone who's very dull. It's not always a pejorative. It's also found in the word wizard, which is someone who's very wise. But the word bastard is from the old French feaste bast, meaning pack, saddle, son. Saddles and horse blankets doubled as beds during travel. So a feast abast was a son or a child that a implying that a man conceived that child while he was traveling away from home with a woman who wasn't his Wife or, you know, whom he had to travel to visit. So I think that's kind of a funny one. Insults across the board, I'd say, can be pretty mild. We get words like chump, which implies someone who's blockheaded like a block of wood. There are words like dork, which showed up in school culture probably as a mincing of a vulgar word for a male body part, also starting with a date. Words like dweeb and nerd have shown up in college culture with vague origins, sometimes fanciful, sometimes imitative. And then words like geek are infused with some interesting history, like that one in particular described performers who ate or bit off pieces of live animals. And the term was cemented in pop culture by the novel and film Nightmare Alley. So we get a little bit from college culture, we get a little bit from pop culture, and they all come together as words that we can use for a variety of insults and purposes.
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Mike Carruthers
Since you study this history, are there
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Co-host or Interviewer
any swear words that have died out that were real popular century or two ago and now nobody says them or. Or not?
- [44:10]
Jess Zafaras
I would say the majority of those are probably in the same vein as those religious oaths. Another one is zounds, which you'll see in Shakespeare, not all that naughty, but certainly not the most polite term. And it was short for by God's wounds. And then there was also the term E Gadd, which is probably a twisting of my God.
- [44:37]
Co-host or Interviewer
Then there's that thing people do where they want to imply or express the bad word, but they say, oh, shoot. And they all have. There's all different kind of benign words that people throw in there. And it sort of works in the sense that you get it. You get that somebody's upset or that something happened, or they just hit themselves with a hammer or whatever without actually
- [45:03]
Mike Carruthers
having to say the bad word.
- [45:06]
Jess Zafaras
These are other examples of minced oaths. It can be as simple as shortening Jesus to G. Or it could be, say Great Scott, which is probably a minced oath of Great God. And then in French you have Sacre bleu, which is. It means holy blue. But the original term is Sacre Dieu. Then you've got words like Jack Squat, which is a mincing of Jack, the other kind of sh. Word we've been talking about. And Jack often appears in personifications like Jack of All Trades, Jack o' Lantern, Jack Frost. And that's because for many years it was a generic all purpose male name, in the same way that we use Average Joe or Guy today. So Jack would appear as something small or common, Much like these terms describing a common person or, you know, to say something was basic or less lower quality, something jacked up or messed up.
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Mike Carruthers
Is there any sense that vulgarity is
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Co-host or Interviewer
kind of on the way out just because it's become so acceptable in so many circles that it just is, you know, it can't be vulgar if people aren't shocked anymore?
- [46:19]
Jess Zafaras
I think the type of vulgarity that we see that people still avoid or try to avoid tends to come in the form of slurs these days. And I think that that is fair because when you use your average swear word, the four letter words we often think of, they're not used to hurt anyone. Well, they can be used to hurt people, but they're not targeted necessarily or specifically at anyone. You can yell the F word at absolutely anything, including the universe. You can throw it in as a word for emphasis. It can mean almost anything these days, whereas slurs are still very targeted and they're used to marginalize and harm people.
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Mike Carruthers
I'd like you to talk a little
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Co-host or Interviewer
bit about the N word because it
- [47:08]
Mike Carruthers
represents that kind of word where some people can say it but most people cannot. And so why is that?
- [47:18]
Jess Zafaras
I think it comes down to respect and in groups. So for a little while, I have a relatively active community on TikTok and I was tagged into a series of videos where indigenous Australian people were saying that they didn't like the use of the word Aboriginal to describe them. Their argument was that the prefix ab sounds negative because it's in words like abnormal. It's not always negative. It's also in the word abound. It means off or away from. So it can be used to make a word sound negative, but it can also be used to mean any type of motion away from something or anything, action off of something. So when I was tagged into this, I did make a video saying, you know, it's not inherently negative, but it is a pretty Eurocentric term. The term Aboriginal first described people who dispersed across Europe from Rome. So it is a Eurocentric term. And also, really the kicker here is that because I'm not Aboriginal, because I am not an indigenous Australian person, I don't get to decide whether that word hurts someone else. If someone says that they don't like to be called by a certain name, if they prefer different pronouns and other people continue to use them, it's a decision on the part of the speaker to continue using a term that the other person has already told them feels disrespectful. It all comes down to in groups. If someone who is an indigenous Australian prefers that term, then they are more than welcome to, and it's up to them to decide whether that's a hurtful or hateful term.
- [48:59]
Mike Carruthers
Well, I guess it's just the random nature of language, but to listen to the stories you tell of where words
- [49:06]
Co-host or Interviewer
come from and how people use them or don't use them or are allowed to use them, it all comes from
- [49:12]
Mike Carruthers
so many different places and seems somewhat random and yet it all comes together to, you know, make our language I've been speaking with Jess Zafaris. She is author of the book Words From Unearthing the Darkest Secrets of English Etymology and there's a link to her book in the show notes. What a great history lesson. Thanks Jess.
- [49:33]
Jess Zafaras
Awesome. Thank you so much for your time.
- [49:34]
Mike Carruthers
Mike. There are some myths around health that have been around a long time and people still believe them even though they're not true. Here are a couple of them that are worth noting. That you're supposed to drink eight glasses of water a day, and research shows that people who drink water when they're thirsty usually get enough to stay healthy. And hydrated water, rich foods like soup, fruits, vegetables, and drinks like juice, tea and coffee all contribute to your daily fluid intake. You should eat Breakfast in Order to Lose weight It does seem that eating breakfast can help some people lose weight in the sense that it can stave off hunger and it might prevent random eating later in the day. But skipping breakfast may help other people shed pounds. A study at Cornell University found that people who don't eat breakfast don't tend to overeat at lunch and dinner, and they ended up eating 400 fewer calories per day by skipping breakfast. Sugar makes kids hyper Sugar isn't good for kids, but research shows that sugar won't cause them to act out or hurt their schoolwork or make them unable to focus. Many parents believe that there is a link between sugar and the way kids act, so they expect their kids to behave badly after eating sugary foods, so they're sort of primed to notice when it does happen. Being cold will give you a cold. No matter what your grandmother says, spending too much time in cold air cannot make you sick. One study found that healthy men who spent several hours in temperatures just above freezing actually had an increase in healthy virus fighting activity in their immune system. The fact is, you're more likely to get sick indoors, where germs are more easily passed around. And that is something you should know. You know that every podcast platform I think pretty much. Everyone I've seen has a Share button has a very easy way for you to share a podcast with someone else. That button would make it very easy for you to share this podcast with someone you know, whether it's Apple, Podcasts, Spotify, or any of the others. We work very hard to put this podcast together and we would really appreciate you helping to spread the word. Our producers are Jeffrey Havison and Jennifer Brennan. Our Executive producer is Ken Williams. I'm Mike Carruthers. Thanks for listening. Something you should know.
- [52:11]
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