Free Holy Sh*t: A Brief History of Swearing by Melissa Mohr

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
    I would like to thank Katie Boyle for her tremendous enthusiasm and all her work on my behalf. I would like to thank Tim Bent for his enthusiasm too, as well as his careful editing and his thoroughly useful suggestions of ways to improve this book. It seems to me that being an agent or an editor requires a certain amount of faith—I thank them both for putting theirs in me.
    Many people read drafts of this book or answered questions I had, and I thank them: J. N. Adams, Emily Allen-Hornblower, Marcia Blakenham, Dorothy Bray, Chloe Breyer, George Brown, Cressida Cowell, Edwin Craun, Mary Custic, Ben Faccini, Emily Faccini, Andrea Heberlein, Michal Ben-Josef Hirsch, Ron Hirsch, Ruth Mazo Karras, Simon Kirby, Diane Asadorian Masters, Tom Mohr, Monique Morgan, Stephen Orgel, Lawrence Poos, David Riggs, Carolyn Sale, Greg Scholl, and Linda Rabieh, who thought of the title.
    Finally, I would like to thank my children for getting their heads around the idea that Mommy was writing a book about “potty talk,” and my husband, who cheerfully read draft after draft.
    Writing this book—which spans more than four thousand years of history, give or take, and addresses everything from the Bible to poetry to legal cases to neuroscience—I very much felt the misgivings Samuel Johnson described when he set out the plan of his dictionary in 1747: “I cannot hope, in the warmest moments, to preserveso much caution through so long a work, as not often to sink into negligence, or to obtain so much knowledge of all its parts as not frequently to fail by ignorance. I expect that sometimes the desire of accuracy will urge me to superfluities, and sometimes the fear of prolixity betray me to omissions: that in the extent of such variety, I shall be often bewildered; and in the mazes of such intricacy, be frequently entangled: that in one part refinement will be subtilized beyond exactness, and evidence dilated in another beyond perspicuity. Yet I do not despair of approbation from those who, knowing the uncertainty of conjecture, the scantiness of knowledge, the fallibility of memory, and the unsteadiness of attention, can compare the causes of error with the means of avoiding it, and the extent of art with the capacity of man; and whatever be the event of my endeavours, I shall not easily regret an attempt which has procured me the honour” of your attention, my dear reader.

HOLY SHIT

So I confess I thought: Martial, Epigrams , 1.90.

What is the flip side of cunnilingus? Parker, “The Teratogenic Grid,” 51–52.

The Bible contains several more instances of God appearing as just one of many gods. Yahweh participates in another divine council in Psalm 82: “God has taken his place in the divine council; in the midst of the gods he holds judgment”; or, in a more literal translation, “Elohim stands in the council of El; among the elohim he pronounces judgment.” Here, elohim is used as both a singular noun and a plural one—it stands for the one and only Yahweh, but also for the other gods on the council. And El is named outright as the chief god of the council, more evidence that the Elyon we saw earlier probably refers to El. In another song, Moses asks, “Who is like you, O Lord, among the gods?” (Ex. 15:11).

Christ also seems to single out fighting words as worthy of divine condemnation. In the Sermon on the Mount, he explains that in the past, murder was outlawed, but that he would forbid anger itself, as well as insulting words that express anger: “if you are angry with a brother or sister, you will be liable to judgment; and if you insult [say raca to] a brother or sister, you will be liable to the council; and if you say ‘You fool,’ you will be liable to the hell of fire” (Matt. 5:21–22). This passage is notoriously difficult to interpret, however. Raca is an Aramaic word that apparently means “empty-headed” or “fool,” and scholars are not sure how that term compares with the Greek for