Words Unravelled with RobWords and Jess Zafarris Why so many terms for 'doing it'? | SEX & LOVE
Feb 18, 2026
They trace dozens of historic and modern sexual terms, from bawdy medieval slang to Victorian euphemisms. They unpack playful phrases like "shaking of the sheets" and Mole Pratley’s jig. They compare how English handles love versus sex, survey oral‑sex and genital slang, and dig into etymologies including Polari, German metaphors, and surprising roots like fornix and fascinum.
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English Has One Love Word But Many Sex Words
- English has one main word for love while it contains a large variety of euphemisms and precise terms for sex.
- Rob Watts and Jess Zafarris trace 'love' to Germanic roots and show sexual vocabulary proliferates through euphemism and borrowing.
Period Euphemisms Like The Shaking Of The Sheets
- Historical English used colourful euphemisms for sex like 'the shaking of the sheets' and 'hot cockles' documented in 17th–18th century sources.
- Rob reads period quotes (e.g., a 1687 citation) and references Francis Grose's Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue for phrases like Mole Pratley's jig.
Sex As An Act Is A Modern Sense
- The modern sense of 'sex' as the act of intercourse is relatively recent, appearing around the 1800s.
- Before that, 'sex' primarily denoted category or nature of genitalia rather than the activity itself.
