The history of human emotions | Tiffany Watt Smith

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4.1 • 11.9K Ratings

🗓️ 16 August 2019

⏱️ 14 minutes

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Summary

The words we use to describe our emotions affect how we feel, says historian Tiffany Watt Smith, and they've often changed (sometimes very dramatically) in response to new cultural expectations and ideas. Take nostalgia, for instance: first defined in 1688 as an illness and considered deadly, today it's seen as a much less serious affliction. In this fascinating talk about the history of emotions, learn more about how the language we use to describe how we feel continues to evolve -- and pick up some new words used in different cultures to capture those fleeting feelings in words.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	You're listening to a special archive presentation of TED Talks Daily.
0:05.6	This talk features cultural historian Tiffany Watt-Smith.
0:09.7	Recorded live at TED-At-Mirk, K-G-A, Darmstadt, Germany, 2017.
0:17.1	I would like to begin with a little experiment.
0:20.2	In a moment, I'm going to ask if you would close your eyes
0:23.0	and see if you can work out what emotions you're feeling right now.
0:27.8	Now, you're not going to tell anyone or anything.
0:30.1	The idea is to see how easy or perhaps hard you find it
0:34.3	to pinpoint exactly what you're feeling.
0:37.3	And I thought I'd give you 10 seconds to do this.
0:40.7	Okay?
0:41.9	Right.
0:43.0	Let's start.
0:52.6	Okay, that's it.
0:53.5	Time's up.
0:54.1	How did it go? You're probably feeling a little bit under pressure.
0:58.4	Maybe suspicious of the person next to you. Did they definitely have their eyes closed?
1:03.1	Perhaps you felt some strange, distant worry about that email you sent this morning
1:08.2	or excitement about something you've got planned for this evening?
1:11.9	Maybe you felt that exhilaration that comes
1:14.4	when we get together in big groups of people like this.
1:16.8	The Welsh call it, well, from the word for boat sales.
	...

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