My 7 year old just reached for a piece of pizza fresh out of the oven and exclaimed, in the same tone as an adult swearing…
“English *folklore*, that’s hot!”
I choked laughing ENGLISH FOLKLORE AS A SWEAR? WHO ARE YOU?!?
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Jeroen Baert
in reply to Catherynne M. Valente • • •TobyBartels
Unknown parent • • •In Fleas Flies and Friars, the Middle English / Latin poem famous for having the first recorded use of ‘fuck’, the cuss words are censored by using the next letter in the alphabet (so ‘gxdd’ instead of ‘fucc’). It's also one of the earliest uses of ‘swive’, which is similarly censored. (And so is the onomatopoeia ‘snick snack’ for some reason.)
mcc
in reply to Catherynne M. Valente • • •Cat
in reply to Catherynne M. Valente • • •cc: @stronglang
wandering.shop/@Catvalente/115…
Bonus: I HAD to boost but I captured the status at 69 boosts
Catherynne M. Valente
2025-11-26 19:12:21
Strong Language
in reply to Cat • • •TobyBartels
Unknown parent • • •@CppGuy
According to Wikipedia, it was published in an academic book in 1841, which gives Carroll plenty of time to read it before he publishes Through the Looking Glass in 1871. Although since ‘tokl tobl’ also works as onomatopoeia, it might have taken a while for people to think of applying the substitution cipher to it; I don't know what the 1841 book says about it.
It's conceivable, since the phrase was in use in the 15th century, that it was continually in use through the 19th century, but if so then it wasn't in print. (The OED dates ‘snick-snack’ to 1925 and ‘snicker-snack’ to 1871, with Carroll. Note that the OED doesn't seem to consider Flees Flies and Friars, which is more than half in Latin, to be an English source; it dates ‘fuck’ only to 1513.)