Something You Should Know - How to Avoid Life's Biggest Regrets & The Meaning of Swear Words – SYSK Choice

Episode Date: June 27, 2026

A great burger looks simple—but barbecue experts know there is a surprising amount of science and technique behind getting it just right. From choosing the meat to handling the patties to what happens on the grill, a few small mistakes can mean the difference between a memorable burger and a disappointing one. Source: Steve Raichlen, author of The Barbecue Bible (https://amzn.to/4bgBEcM) Life has a way of speeding up. One day you're making plans for someday, and before you know it, months or years have gone by. That's why so many people eventually find themselves wondering: Did I spend my time on the things that really mattered? According to Jodi Wellman, avoiding regret isn't about quitting your job, moving to a tropical island, or making dramatic life changes. Instead, it comes from being intentional about how you spend your days and paying attention to the experiences, relationships, and opportunities that give life meaning. In this conversation, she shares a refreshing perspective on how to stop living on autopilot, make the most of the time you have, and create a life you'll look back on with satisfaction rather than regret. Jodi is a former corporate executive, executive coach, and author of You Only Die Once: How to Make It to the End with No Regrets (https://amzn.to/3KUdQ3Z). Learn more at https://fourthousandmondays.com/ Swear words are among the most powerful words in any language. They can shock, offend, amuse, bond people together, relieve pain, and communicate emotion in ways ordinary words often can't. But where do these words come from? Why are some words considered offensive while others are perfectly acceptable? And why does every generation seem to have a different idea about what language is inappropriate? Writer and language expert Jess Zafarris takes us on a fascinating journey through the history of profanity, insults, taboo language, and the darker corners of English vocabulary. She is author of Words from Hell: Unearthing the Darkest Secrets of English Etymology (https://amzn.to/4cafvyc). Grandma's health advice was often well-intentioned—but not always correct. Some of the most common health "facts" people still repeat today have been thoroughly debunked by modern science. Yet these myths continue to survive because they sound so believable. https://www.webmd.com/balance/ss/slideshow-10-health-myths-debunked PLEASE SUPPORT OUR SPONSORS POCKET HOSE: For a limited time, when you purchase a new Pocket Hose Ballistic, you'll get a FREE 360 degree rotating pocket pivot and a FREE thumb drive nozzle! Just text SYSK to 64000 AIR DOCTOR: Head to ⁠⁠https://AirDoctorPro.com⁠⁠ and use promo code SYSK to get $250 off select AirDoctor air purifiers, including the 3500, 4000, and 5500 models. Plus, you’ll receive a free 3year warranty!  RULA: Thousands of people are already using Rula to get affordable, high-quality therapy that’s actually covered by insurance. Visit ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://Rula.com/sysk⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ to get started. QUINCE: Elevate your summer wardrobe. Go to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://Quince.com/sysk⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. Now available in Canada, too! SHOPIFY: It's time to turn those "what ifs" into CHA CHING with Shopify Today! Sign up for your $1 per month trail and start selling today at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://Shopify.com/sysk⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In Toronto, every arrival is a statement, and nothing says it better than this. Cadillac Optic was the number one selling luxury EV in Canada for 2025. Find your rhythm across a seamless 33-inch display and an immersive 19-speaker AKG surround audio system. This city demands agility, and Optic delivers with precision to make every drive extraordinary. Let's take the Cadillac. Find out more at Cadillac Canada.ca. Luxury sales claim based on S&P Global Mobility Canadian New Vehicle Total Registrations for calendar year 2025 for the Cadillac definition of luxury. 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. 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. 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. 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. All this today on Something You Should Know. I am one of Mochanui On July 10th Maui you will board my boat And restore the heart of Tefiti And here we go The journey begins

See her light up the night The ocean chose you Let's go save the world I got your back chosen one Disney's Moana Boat's Nick His name is Hay Hey His name is Yum when he goes in my tum-tum

In theaters July 10th 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 Rakelin, author of, well, he's author of

of the Barbecue Bible, so he would know. First of all, if you want the perfect burger, avoid packaged meat labeled hamburger or ground beef, which is usually scraps and trimmings and, you know, who knows what else. 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's 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, you should make every day count, make every minute count, 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? 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 Once, 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. Oh, thanks, Mike. I'm excited to be here. So let's start. I mean, you have a wake-up call that you want people to hear. So let's start with that. 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. So you suspect most of us don't wake up that we're on autopilot kind of thing. Is that right? 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 what, 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. 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 maybe that's even a good thing. Like you can't always be on. 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 in 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 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 100 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. 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. 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, fief, 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 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. Yeah, yeah. Well, I wonder to, maybe you know, maybe you've looked at this.

Like when you talk to people who are kind of, who won't. only have a few more Mondays left. What do they regret? What is it that they tend to wish they had done differently? 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, it 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 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, 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. So I remember hearing that one of the things that people towards the end 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. Something else will happen. Worry gets wrapped up in this. 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 going to put up the boundary word, the B word. I'm going to 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, and Ginny. 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 taken 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 like, imagine you came home from the hospital. You know, 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 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

talk about this stuff all, you know, selfishly because, like, I need to override my, my tendencies of fear and worry as well. But short of the, the big emergency hospital visit, which I know will wake up almost anybody into a different way of thinking. But back to what we were talking about before, 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 all platitudes and you can do it. Sure you can. But like what? 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 I was telling you about in psychology, which is that awareness that when you see something as rare and limited time only, it does tend to heighten its value or its perceived value. 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 Once, How to Make It to the End with No Regress. This episode is brought to you by L'Oreal Group. Beauty is a powerful force that moves us. That's why L'Oreal Group has built a business that is inclusive at its heart with 100% of its brands championing diversity.

With 25,000 professional opportunities for people under 30 worldwide and 54% of leading positions held by women, diversity is a strength that helps L'Oreal Group create the best beauty products for all people. Visit L'Oreal.com to learn more. So Jody, how do you do the math? What is the math on figuring out how many Mondays you have left? Well, 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 4,000 Mondays.com on the resources.

But if you want to do it 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've got more than half. I'm good to go. But for most of us, it does tend to do this. All right. Yeah, right. 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 got 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'm a fan of like, get your friends together or have a dinner party or talk to your family. 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 sales 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 about like, what do you 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, 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, a called memento Marie, which is the old Latin phrase and 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. 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 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. Yeah. Thanks for bringing it up. I don't think we do.

So I think there are a couple of facets that, and 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.

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 got to 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'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 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 TV. And 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 on this 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. but 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. 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? 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, I 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, right? Which, I mean, gratitude in the field of positive psychology has been so exhaustively and fantastically researched. 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 second, there's a new butt on the tree. And oh, wow, it's beautiful. Or like, if I stop and smell it, like, wow, 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 weeks at a time every

little quarter maybe, just to get tuned in. So it is the attunement, Mike. It is that, huh, 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 scurfing it back, you know, what we tend to do is just getting from one meal to the next or one, you know, stopping. Looking at around. 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, you know, in remission from cancer or illnesses, 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. Something you talk about that I've always believed in is this idea of anticipation that we get a lot of joy anticipating something as much as doing something, going on a trip or going to visit someone or anything, that the anticipation of going is really powerful. 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? 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 to go visit my parents, and I used to surprise them sometimes.

And then when my dad was sick, and 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. Yes. Oh, it's such a great point. Yeah. Yeah, I love that.

And back to the notion of including people in plans so that they have things to look forward to, there's this efficiency 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. This 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 maybe, you know, on the way home sometimes, you could go and grab a bite at a new restaurant. 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. 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. Jody Wellman has been my guest. She is author of the book You Only Die Once, 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. I really enjoyed talking to you. Oh, thank you so much. What a great conversation. You're great question, asker. Risa knows a thing or two about great combinations.

Chocolate and peanut butter, obviously, but there's more than one way to Reese's. From indulgent Reese's big cups with caramel to crunchy Reese's pieces and Reese's miniatures, there's a delicious Reese's for every mood. It's the same combo you love, just with more ways to enjoy it. So, whether you're snacking, sharing, or just treating your. yourself, nothing else is Reese's. 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 of the classics. And I wonder, like, 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 Zaffaris. She is a writer and journalist and author of the book Words from Hell, unearthing the darkest secrets of English etymology. Hi, Jess. Welcome to something you should know. Thanks so much, Mike. I'm excited to be here. So first of all, is there anything special about English or does every language on the planet have vulgar, naughty, colorful swear words?

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 like relieving pain or frustration. They say that like screaming reduces your pain and end having a word that you can go to to 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. So I get that a lot of lewd, vulgar words have to do with bodily functions and sex and all that. But who decides? How does it get decided that this is really, this is taboo? This is a word you don't say to your grandmother. In English, 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 S-H-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 act.

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 Latin 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. 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 it. That you could say some really horrible words around some people and it's no big deal.

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, when even the people who are supposedly outraged know the words too. You know, 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 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. Yeah, that's

the word alarming. Like, you're, 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, but the outrage is fake. I mean, because it, we're not really outrage.

It's nothing we haven't heard before, but we pretend it's so outrageous. But, but even that is, it 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. 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, Carlins 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 a big deal when PG-13 movies could include, say, two instances of the F-word. Well, 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? 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. And do the individual words, specifically any of them that we can't say,

but have interesting origins worth discussing? Of course, yeah. I would say, so a lot of these, like I said, 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 S-H-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 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, it's nonsense. And 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 the

business world and of trade and of technology. 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 never have said that here. And you wonder that even within a language, there are words that, well, just like, I guess, regular words that mean different things and have different meanings, even though it's still English, it's not English.

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. You know, we have plenty of religious oaths in American English to the concept of like 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 gadzukes, 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 tarnel, like you pay a tarnel high price for something. It's a contraction of by the eternal. So that's an interesting one too. 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. 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. 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. I think it's considered pretty tame and okay to use. But, well, go ahead. 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, A-R-D or A-R-T, is a French ending used to intensify words. You can say it means very or too much. So say a drunker is someone who drinks too much, a bragger is someone who brags too much, a duller to 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 feast abast, meaning hack saddle son.

Saddles in horse blankets doubled as beds during travel. So a feastabast 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 D. Words like dweeb and, uh, 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. Since you study this history, are there any, like, swear words that have died out that were like real popular century or two ago and now nobody says them or not? 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.GAD, which is probably a twisting of my God. Then there's, you know, that thing people do where they want to imply or express the word, the bad word, but they say, you know, oh, shoot. And 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 having to say the bad word.

These are other examples of minced oaths. It can be as simple as shortening Jesus to G. Or it could be, say, great scum. which is probably a mince oath of great god. And then in front 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 S-H 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. Is there any sense that vulgarity is 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.

can't be vulgar if people aren't shocked anymore. 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. They're, 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. I'd like you to talk a little bit about the N-word, because it represents that kind of word where some people can say it, but most people cannot,

And so why is that? 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 any 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, it 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. Well, I guess it's just the random nature of language. But to listen to the stories you tell of where

words come from and how people use them or don't use them or are allowed to use them. It all comes from 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 Zaffaris. She is author of the book Words from Hell, 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. Awesome. Thank you so much for your time, 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 said, 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 today to Something You Should Know.

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