Today’s episode brought to you by my audio-book Global Wording – The Fascinating Story of the Evolution of English. Available in downloadable form from iTunes or Audible.com or as a CD from bookstores. For more information and a few samples, go to www.globalwording.com

David Beasley is an author and runs Davus Publishing. He starts of the audio portion of this episode by saying he’s very curious about the word curious.

The Oxford English Dictionary says that curious is:

“a word which has been used from time to time with many shades of meaning.”

They then go on to list 31 shades of meaning, most of which are obsolete or obscure.

You are no doubt familiar with the expression curiosity killed the cat.  This expression has been around for at least 400 years but the wording has changed over time and in part, the changing meaning of curiosity is reflected in the change of the proverb.

The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations claims curiosity killed the cat to be a pretty modern expression not showing up until the 20th century.

In fact, when the word curious first appeared in English this expression would have been nonsensical since curiosity would have more likely saved the cat.

That first appearance was due to French and the Norman Conquest and shows up first in the 1300s.

The Latin root curiosus could mean “inquisitive,” but more often meant “careful.”  So it is unlikely that being careful would kill the cat.

And yet our first citations for the expression also give a glimpse into the subtleties and evolution in meaning of the word care, since both Ben Johnson and William Shakespeare use the expression

as care will kill a cat

One of those 31 shades of meaning for curious jumped out at me.  Starting in the second half of the 1800s publishers and booksellers used the word curious as a kind of code-word for “erotic books.”

Both H. G. Wells and Aldus Huxley are cited as using the word in this way.  And curiouser and curiouser, Huxley’s citation refers to something called “the Purity League” producing curious books—meaning dirty books.

What, I wondered, was a group called the Purity League doing producing erotic literature?

Well, evidently the Purity League was just as much a euphemism in this regard as was the word curious.   The following is from biographies of John O’Hara, a member of the Purity League:

“[he had] an acute vernacular gift and a narrative frankness shocking in his day… he cut a wide swath through a Manhattan demimonde whose fierce friendships and bitter feuds—fueled by oceans of booze—were played out at such institutions as the Stork Club, “21,” and the Algonquin Round Table.”

“The Purity League [was an] ironic reference to their shared interest in girls and alcohol.”

Of the little I could learn about the Purity League I did come across one curious snippet:

“The Purity League would hang out at Hodgson’s…”