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
- cleland
- illustration
- famously
- writing
- 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
- address
- almanac
- boasted
- book
- called
- cleland
- coal
- descriptions
- directory
- expressions
- fabulous
- famously
- grot
- hill
- hole
- illustration
- intimate
- john
- list
- lists
- london
- mound
- pornographic
- prices
- published
- rude
- selling
- sex
- shy
- tend
- texts
- time
- vulvas
- words
- workers
- writing