What could be more timely, more fitting, more historic, and more folkloric* than a post about disease-curses? They’re very much a thing in Dutch—where kanker (cancer) is just about the worst thing you could wish upon an enemy—and in Yiddish, where you might say about someone you despise, “He should have Pharaoh’s plagues and Job’s scabies.”
I write about those curses and many others in my latest post for Strong Language, the sweary blog about all kinds of swearing. Take a break from coronavirus coverage and those maddening Rose Garden briefings to learn a thing or two about imprecations with some real bite.
__
* Thank you, Car Guys.
