Let’s turn the air blue, girls – we should be free to curse at will

Women’s body parts have long been appropriated for the purpose of cursing, so it’s only right that we reclaim them with profane gusto

One era’s foul-mouthed insult is another’s evocatively named topological feature, which is why, if you find yourself driving past a clefted hill in rural Lincolnshire, you might be delighted to know that it was once referred to as “Cuntewellewang”, not that far from “Scamcunt Grene”.

I gleaned these and many other utterly diverting facts from Jenni Nuttall’s Mother Tongue: The Surprising History of Women’s Words, in which she minutely details the shifts of language and meaning over the centuries through the lens of women’s experiences.