157. Churlish

Kyle and Emily get a little impolite, discussing the meaning and origin of churlish—a word you might’ve heard before but has plenty to surprise you!

Our hosts travel all the way back to medieval times and beyond, looking at the earliest forms of not only churlish but also husband and wife, geriatrics and grain. They also sift through some archaic terms for peasants and earls alike. And it turns out that the terms in Skyrim weren’t so fantastical after all!

Kyle reveals a connection between this week’s word and King Charles. He also walks us through how to do the crime without doing the time under medieval law. (Hint: It involves being born a lord.) And Emily learns how the word churlish suffered a similar fate to the word villain, meaning “poor” one day and “rude” the next.