full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Kate Lister: An honest history of an ancient and "nasty" word

Unscramble the Blue Letters

This book here, "Harris's List," this is an almanac, it's a directory of sex workers in London at the time, who were selling sex. And it lists not only their address and their prices, but very, very intimate descriptions of what they do and their vulvas. But it doesn't use "cunt" very much. This one here, this is an iitrolaultsn, fabulous illustration from "Fanny Hill," what's often called the first pioanrhgropc novel, which was published in 1748 by John cnleald, who fulosmay boasted that he did it without wriintg any rude words at all. These texts tend to use expressions like "mossy grot," "cupid's coal hole," “Venus’s mound,” but we shy away from "cunt."

Open Cloze

This book here, "Harris's List," this is an almanac, it's a directory of sex workers in London at the time, who were selling sex. And it lists not only their address and their prices, but very, very intimate descriptions of what they do and their vulvas. But it doesn't use "cunt" very much. This one here, this is an ____________, fabulous illustration from "Fanny Hill," what's often called the first ____________ novel, which was published in 1748 by John _______, who ________ boasted that he did it without _______ any rude words at all. These texts tend to use expressions like "mossy grot," "cupid's coal hole," “Venus’s mound,” but we shy away from "cunt."

Solution

  1. cleland
  2. illustration
  3. famously
  4. writing
  5. pornographic

Original Text

This book here, "Harris's List," this is an almanac, it's a directory of sex workers in London at the time, who were selling sex. And it lists not only their address and their prices, but very, very intimate descriptions of what they do and their vulvas. But it doesn't use "cunt" very much. This one here, this is an illustration, fabulous illustration from "Fanny Hill," what's often called the first pornographic novel, which was published in 1748 by John Cleland, who famously boasted that he did it without writing any rude words at all. These texts tend to use expressions like "mossy grot," "cupid's coal hole," “Venus’s mound,” but we shy away from "cunt."

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations

ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
offensive word 3
offensive words 2
horrendously offensive 2
oxford english 2
gunoka cuntles 2
medieval culture 2
sexually liberated 2
cunt jokes 2

Important Words

  1. address
  2. almanac
  3. boasted
  4. book
  5. called
  6. cleland
  7. coal
  8. descriptions
  9. directory
  10. expressions
  11. fabulous
  12. famously
  13. grot
  14. hill
  15. hole
  16. illustration
  17. intimate
  18. john
  19. list
  20. lists
  21. london
  22. mound
  23. pornographic
  24. prices
  25. published
  26. rude
  27. selling
  28. sex
  29. shy
  30. tend
  31. texts
  32. time
  33. vulvas
  34. words
  35. workers
  36. writing