“Benedicite! What eyleth the man, so synfully to swere?” said Chaucer’s Parson in The Canterbury Tales

Dan Michel, in his 14th-century self-help manual Ayenbite of Inwyt, warned: “Hi hise clepieþ ydele wordes ac hi ne byeþ. Ac hi byeþ of grat cost and harmuolle and perilous.” (I’m not certain that I follow, but regardless, imagine if your parents had chastised you in such a manner when you were a kid! My response would have been: “The value of your words is primarily philological, Dad.”)

During the 1960 obscenity trial over Lady Chatterley’s Lover, prosecutor Mervyn Griffiths-Jones reportedly said, “Would you want your wife or servants to read this book?” Had I seen the chart he had presented to the court — see below — my answer would have been “Yes,” giving away the fact that I cheated and read the final chapter of Ulysses without finishing the rest of the book, apparently missing “cunty” in the process.