This one’s for everyone whose Christmas has been ruined by the goddamn corona virus. Lalochezia is the emotional relief you get from shouting out a big old dirty swear. So go on, I won’t tell anyone. Better? Good. Scientific studies have shown that swearing relieves stress, dulls pain and can actually make you physically stronger – there’s more about that in this article.
The word lalochezia itself has an interesting etymology. It’s got Greek roots and the first part, ‘lalo-’, means ‘speech’. The second part means ‘to defecate’. Yup. Other words which share the same roots include glossolalia, which is incomprehensible speech in an imaginary language (from someone who’s in a trance for example), and dyschezia, which means to poop with difficulty. So that’s nice.
Ironically, this word of the week is all about swearing, but doesn’t actually have any swearing in it (unlike 99.9 per cent of my other posts). So let’s end with a Merry shitty Christmas, and a happy fucking new year.