The following podcast contains explicit language.

From New York City, this is Lexicon Valley,

a podcast about language. I'm John McWhorter.

What are we going to do today?

Well, a lot of you seem to have enjoyed

this show that I did about a word that I'll just

describe as being spelled F-U-C-K.

Along those lines, I thought we might look at a few other

bad words and some of the things that they can teach us.

Because a lot of the bad words have stories to tell us

that are both educational and entertaining.

I never cease to be amazed at the delights that you find

in just looking up the etymology of some of the words

that many of us use more than we might like to admit.

You know what? One of those words is that has an

interesting etymology, darn, of all things, not damn,

but darn, the word that we use when we want to avoid,

saying, damn.

And it's not the same word as darn as in-darning socks.

It has a completely different story that does not get

talked about enough.

It's an interesting story in that it shows you all sorts of

...