REVIEW: A History Of Swear Words, Series 1 Episode Four 'D***K'

 REVIEW: A History Of Swear Words, Series 1 Episode Four 'D***K'

Possibly the most entertaining thing about this episode is seeing just how awkward the vox pops are when they are made to talk about this most embarrassing of swear words. These interviewees really look like they'd rather be anywhere else other than sitting in front of a green screen, and talking about something so taboo!

There's some strange generalisations here, like London Hughes claiming that only white people are being called d**k as a shortened name for 'Richard', and that you'll never meet a black person given that nickname. I'm not sure how true that is, as I really don't believe that the name 'Richard' or its rude shortened form is exclusive to a particular skin colour. This series could do without sweeping statements like this. I did laugh at 'D**k Swett' winning a U.S. election for their congress though. It's the kind of unfortunately rude name that you could imagine popping up in a question on The Chase, with the sole primary purpose of making Bradley Walsh burst into a fit of giggles. As you would expect from an episode concerning this most infamous of swear words, the popular dessert item known as the 'spotted dick' is referred to, and I would really expect no less. It's such an obvious reference to make that it is always going to come up in shows covering this subject matter. Also very funny to hear about the Saturday Night Live skit which won an Emmy, and yet the presenters of this awards ceremony were not even allowed to state the name of the sketch, as it featured the word 'd**k' in its title. It's one of those facts that sounds so inconsequential at face value, but in actuality raises a lot of interesting questions about censorship and the limitations it provides. If you cannot call something by its name because of the taboo nature, then by what title do you refer to it by? What are the workarounds in this sort of scenario? Of course these words have to be censored in order to protect children who would otherwise pick these phrases up, but it can occasionally limit discussion. Overall this was not as interesting an episode as the previous entries in this series. The factual content appeared somewhat more restrained, and Nicolas Cage's eccentricities not as pronounced as before. I was hoping for a deeper dive like the previous episodes, but this seemed a somewhat more muted affair.

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What are your thoughts on A History Of Swear Words' fourth episode? Let me know in the comments.