I wasn’t aware one could simply trademark a complex gendered emotion, but then again, there are apparently no rules for those with obscene wealth. On Monday, TMZ reported that Taylor Swift, fresh off the start of the European leg of the Eras Tour, has trademarked the section of the concert dedicated to her most recent album The Tortured Poets Department.

When Swift kicked off her Paris show — with beau Travis Kelce and buddies Gigi Hadid and Bradley Cooper in tow — fans were delighted to find she’d added seven songs to the setlist, along with a slew of new costume changes and visuals. At one point during the evening, she referred to the TTPD additions as “Female Rage: The Musical,” and in an Instagram post from Sunday, doubled down on the phrase. “This post is dedicated to the new Tortured Poets section of the Eras Tour (aka Female Rage The Musical!) and everyone who made these memories so magical,” she wrote. Now, we must agonize over whether or not we will be forced to watch a real production of Female Rage: The Musical on Broadway someday.

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According to documents obtained by TMZ, Swift reportedly filed a trademark application last week under her company TAS Rights Management. While we don’t have specifics just yet, it seems Swift’s team plans on using the phrase in musical recordings, video recordings, and potential merchandise. The outlet noted, however, that Etsy sellers have already plastered Female Rage: The Musical onto t-shirts, mouse pads, and tumblers, so the filing might have been a preventative measure to protect Taylor’s profits.

Given that the idea of “female rage” is often invoked by women striving for radical racial or gender equality, it’s a strange choice of verbiage for someone who’s been altogether politically bland as a vanilla wafer. But I get it! Getting out of toxic situationships with scrawny alt indie rockers is a rage-inducing experience, too, I guess.

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My friend Ander Opmeer, who lives near Rotterdam, happened to see a bag for sale in the train station and, knowing I like strong language, bought it for me:

It says, in the colours of Rotterdam, SJOUW ME DE TERING. That’s a turn of phrase particular to Rotterdam; it translates idiomatically to something like “Fuck, this is heavy” or “Working my ass off.” But that’s not what it means literally.

To find out what it means literally, you have to translate it word by word, because if you just drop it into Google Translate you’ll get “Screw me,” which, again, is not literal. My Dutch is a bit uneven, and I at first thought it literally meant “Show me tuberculosis.” But no. I made two mistakes. 

First, sjouw doesn’t mean ‘show’ – the Dutch cognate for show would be schouw (pronounced like “skhow”), though that’s not the usual word now. The English cognate of sjouw is actually shove, but sjouw means ‘lug’ or ‘schlep’.

Second, the me is reflexive: it means ‘myself’. Or you could say it’s the benefactive me – like “I’m gonna fix me a drink” or, I guess, “I’m gonna schlep me some T.B.” As in “I’m going to lug something so heavy I get tuberculosis.” (Perhaps it would be better to call it the malefactive in that case.)

Because, yes, de tering means ‘tuberculosis’ – well, literally it means ‘the consumption’, but specifically in the same way as consumption in English meant ‘tuberculosis’ back when it was a thing people regularly got (tering is from teren meaning ‘use up’ or ‘survive by subsistence’; it’s cognate with English tear as in ‘rip’ and comes from a sense meaning ‘destroy’; we – and the Dutch – called tuberculosis “consumption” because it consumed a person rather like a fire consumes a log). So “sjouw me de tering” is ‘schlep[ping] myself to consumption’ – but not ‘to being all used up’; specifically ‘to tuberculosis’.

This matters because Dutch people use diseases for swearwords. Yes, that’s why “sjouw me de tering” means “fuck, this is heavy” and not just “working myself sick.” If you want someone to fuck off, to eat shit and die, or whatever, you can say “Krijg de tering!” – literally “Catch consumption!” And that is rude. The very use of tering is vulgar. (In modern Dutch, if you want to talk about the actual disease, you will most likely say tuberculose.)

There are other diseases used for the sake of rudeness too. Ander directed my attention to a great article by Cindy Toussaint, “Schelden met ziektes, hoe doe je dat nou eigenlijk?” (“Swearing with diseases – how do you actually do that?”). Toussaint runs through common ways to swear with diseases. Along with the ever-popular “Krijg de tering!” and “Krijg de kolere!” (“Catch cholera!”), there are constructions that parallel phrases like “I don’t know shit about it” or “Corrupt as fuck” or “Well, fuck!” where in Dutch you use certain diseases as the swearwords. The kind of expression that “Sjouw me de tering” belongs to is where the disease is expressing the effect a certain situation has on the speaker. So where we might say in English “I’m working my balls off” or “I’m working my ass off,” in Dutch you can say “I’m working myself T.B.” or “I’m working myself cholera.” 

You can’t use just any disease for this, though. You can say “Ik verveel me de tyfus” (literally “I am bored typhus,” where we would say “I’m bored to death” or “I’m so fucking bored”), but no one says “Ik verveel me de diabetes.” Toussaint notes that the diseases you can use are ones like consumption, typhoid, cholera, and pleurisy: “Wat deze ziektes wel met elkaar gemeen hebben is dat ze vrijwel nooit meer voorkomen en door sommige mensen misschien niet eens meer als ziekte worden herkend” (What these diseases do have in common is that they almost never occur anymore and some people may no longer even recognize them as a disease). The exception is kanker, ‘cancer’, which you can definitely also use for expletives.

So, for instance, you can construct a sentence like this one, from a 99-word short story contest from Schrijven Magazine: “Ik sjouw me de tering hier en altijd vind je wel wat te kankeren” – literally “I lug myself consumption here and you always find something to cancer”; Google Translate renders it “I’m working my butt off here and you can always find something to complain about” – though I think “I’m working my ass off here and you always find some shit to get on my dick about” might convey the tone better.

None of which answers the question of why the Dutch use disease names to swear – how the practice started and how they acquired the kind of taboo force to be effective. Fortunately, other people have wondered that too. Unfortunately, there’s not a whole lot more than speculation available. As linguist Nicoline van der Sijs told Yoran Custers for Vice Magazine, there hasn’t been a comparative systematic study into it, because studying swearwords and curses was itself taboo for a long time. But there are various opinions. Reinhold Aman, of Maledicta, held the view that it might have come via Yiddish. But Rob Tempelaars, of the Instituut voor de Nederlandse taal, pointed out to Custers that the Dutch disease-based curses appear to pre-date the Yiddish ones, and they’re not of exactly the same sort – the Yiddish ones use a lot of culture-specific references. Tempelaars suggested that it might instead be due to Calvinist influences; in the Calvinist line of thought, sickness tended to be seen as a sign of God’s displeasure.

So anyway, we’re not really sure. But it’s not a new thing; as Tempelaars says, it dates to at least the 17th century. And it’s so ingrained now, many of these words aren’t used literally much anymore – in fact, Google Translate often gives just idiomatic translations for them. As Judith Stegen wrote for EOS Wetenschap (and as Google Translate obligingly illustrates),

Wie denkt er nog aan de verschrikkingen van de cholera bij het roepen van ‘Krijg de klere’? Dat betekenisverlies blijkt ook wel uit het gebruik van ziektes als tussenwerpsel of uitroep, zoals ‘Kolere!’ bij verwondering, en hun functie als morfologische versterker. Zo kan een film ‘teringsaai’ zijn, heel erg saai dus. Die constructie is ook toepasbaar in een positieve context: ‘Dat nummer is teringmooi!’ En ja, zelfs kanker wordt op die manier gebruikt: ‘Je doet het kankergoed’ en ‘Dat was kankergaaf!’.

Translation: Who still thinks of the horrors of cholera when shouting “Krijg de klere”? [literally “Catch cholera”; Google Translate renders it as “Get the hell out of here”]. This loss of meaning is also evident from the use of diseases as an interjection or exclamation, such as “Kolere!” [“Cholera!”] in amazement, and their function as a morphological enhancer. For example, a film can be “teringsaai” [literally “consumptionboring”; Google translates it as “boring”], so very boring. That construction can also be used in a positive context: “That song is teringmooi!” [literally “consumptionbeautiful”; Google translates it as “damn beautiful”]. And yes, even cancer is used in that way: “Je doet het kankergoed” [literally “You’re doing it cancergood”; Google translates it as “You’re doing a really good job”] and “Dat was kankergaaf!” [literally “That was cancerwhole” – gaaf means literally ‘whole’ but idiomatically ‘cool’ or ‘awesome’; Google makes it “That was really cool”].

As the youths say, that’s sick. It’s kind of good to be able to express strong feelings without drawing on social prejudices related to sexuality, gender, religion, and so on. We can do that a bit in English – shit is a dirty word because shit is dirty – but the Dutch are all in for it.

And if sickness is your bag – or very pointedly not your bag – well, I have the bag. Ander lugged it all the way from Rotterdam for me. And you can get one, too, if you’re in Rotterdam – or even online.

ranger51-fire42:

The alphabetized files at my ranger station lead to some interesting mental pictures

Veruca Salt: Like Captain Ahab, you are defined by an all-absorbing monomaniacal obsession: to find comfortable shoes that aren’t hideous.

Pavement: You spent your twenties watching movies off the Criterion Collection to impress boys, and it actually worked, so now you’re stuck with plotless black-and-white subtitled movies forever.

Smashing Pumpkins: You’ve disowned family members because they weren’t supportive enough of your career (i.e., they stopped buying the rash-inducing makeup and/or piss-scented essential oils from your MLM company).

Nirvana: You could never be one of those stereotypical soccer moms. (Your kids play lacrosse.)

Nine Inch Nails: You’re learning to pretend that gardening is an adequate replacement for the sexual adventures of your youth.

Eve 6: You go to PTA meetings just so you can whisper “critical race theory” into the microphone and then slip out the back door amid the pandemonium.

Jane’s Addiction: You suddenly realize you’ve saved a little money. You can’t decide if you should use it to fix your roof, your vision, your garage door, your feet, your skin, your wet basement, your dry vagina, your broken sidewalk, or your broken mental health. Before you choose, the dentist informs you that your kids need braces.

The Cardigans: In your quest to find comfortable shoes that aren’t hideous, you’ve convinced yourself that, with the right attitude, flats can be sexy. Unfortunately, your attitude is “desperately trying to make flats sexy.”

Neutral Milk Hotel: You vowed you’d never get a minivan. You got an SUV with a third row.

Mazzy Star: You have not yet admitted to yourself that succulents and macrame wall hangings are your generation’s Live Laugh Love decor.

Rage Against the Machine: You use the term “journey” to describe your training for a charity 5K, changes to your skincare routine, your evolving relationship with gluten, the fact that you occasionally take a yoga class, and your secretly failing marriage.

The Cranberries: Because you procrastinated so long on covering your grays, and now people think you’ve chosen to age gracefully, you’ve become a minor feminist icon.

Bikini Kill: You talk about your produce choices way too much, and now your friends’ secret nickname for you is “manic organic dream girl.”

Everclear: After hearing about the resurgence of lower back tattoos, you started an organization to educate young women on the dangers of the Tramp Stamp.

4 Non Blondes: You knit, and you’ve already given everyone you know a scarf. Time to retreat into decades of obscurity until people start having grandkids so you can make them baby blankets and regain some semblance of a purpose in life.

Pearl Jam: You’ve spent an inordinate amount of time on your town’s Facebook page complaining about how your favorite restaurant raised its credit card fees.

Blur: Just try to talk to you about TV without you explaining that the British Office was better than the American Office.

Garbage: You tell yourself you’re microdosing shrooms for creativity and productivity benefits, but in reality it’s the only way you can deal with the other moms at the playground.

Cake: Your entire identity is built around being Karen who is not a Karen.

Ben Folds Five: You know that no amount of glitter, hot glue, and parchment paper will fill the gaping pit of loneliness that is your middle-aged existence, but you’ll be damned if you aren’t going to at least try to craft your way out of this crippling depression.

No Doubt: You’ve finally given up on the quest to find comfortable, non-hideous shoes, but you still pretend your Birkenstocks are part of the “ironically ugly shoes” fashion trend.

Hansen: You’ve lost multiple friends because you say “don’t yuck my yum” too often.

Porno for Pyros: In a misguided attempt to bond, you showed your daughter a YouTube video of yourself flashing Perry Farrell at the original Lollapalooza. (“Look, honey, we have the same boobs!”)

Sixpence None the Richer: You love the Royal Family more than your own.

Hole: You don’t understand what the Bad Art Friend did wrong.

Harvey Danger: You can’t get through a single conversation without mentioning your junior year abroad in Paris.

Stone Temple Pilots: You put a HATE HAS NO HOME HERE sign in your front yard, and it’s not a lie, because technically hate is not the same thing as smoldering resentment, all-consuming envy, quiet hostility, and vindictive plotting to use subterfuge, fraud, or witchcraft to destroy the life of that stuck-up bitch in the charming Cape Cod across the street.

Letters to Cleo: You’re living a life less ordinary. (You have one kid or three kids instead of two kids.)

Dave Matthews Band: Your regular family is about to leave you because you won’t shut the fuck up about your Cross Fit family.

Radiohead: Every minor challenge of your life has been a warmup for this ongoing crisis: going through perimenopause while your kid is going through puberty.

SEE ALSO:

What Your Favorite ’90s Rock Band Says About the Type of Bored Suburban Dad You Are Today

First of all, if you’re my mom, please stop reading.

Okay, moving on! Like a lot of people, I have a complicated relationship with Mother’s Day.As a kid, I felt like we, my sisters and I, had to make up for whatever mistake in gifting my dad would inevitably make, leaving us forever scrambling for and failing at getting her the right thing. I mean, could a macaroni necklace really ever replace a lifetime’s worth of equal household labor from my dad? I don’t know, but we tried.

Then as we got older, we found ourselves endlessly schlepping from one overcrowded brunch spot to the next, year after year, secretly wondering if anyone, least of all our mother, was really enjoying it.

When I became a mom, a not-so-small part of me thought this should let me off the hook a little, not from celebrating my mom OF COURSE, but at least from having to plan or do anything beyond the borders of my own couch? Because, you know, it’s my day too now. While it may be a nice change of pace for my mom to have her adult kids shower her with attention and gifts for a few hours and then return home to her clean, quiet house afterward, it’s exactly the opposite of that for me. Instead of spending the morning watching Dateline in peace, I’m left to coordinate brunch plans for everyone, including my three kids. Three kids I’ll have to beg to wear that nice shirt grandma got them for Christmas even though they don’t like it and it’s itchy, three kids to chauffeur to a restaurant that’s both expensive and overrated — and god forbid I let them watch something on my phone so I can eat in peace, too— then bring them back all sticky and hopped up on pancakes and orange juice to my messy house. Does that sound relaxing to you?

Because of all this extra work required of many of us on Mother’s Day, some moms are asking grandmas to just step aside entirely and leave the holiday to mothers with a little more skin in the game.

As one mom, Miranda Cornelius, puts it, this is really a holiday for “the moms of the young kids.” In her now viral TikTok video, Cornelius asks if it’s fair for all moms to get equal billing on the second Sunday of May or if we should just focus on the ones “in the trenches,” the moms still battling it out over sleep regressions, changing dirty diapers, and dealing with toddler tantrums. She’s not saying don’t buy your mom flowers or “give them gifts”; in fact, she makes a point of saying that “they don’t get left out” but does emphasize that they have “had their time.” She posted this “unpopular opinion” on April 27 and it already has nearly 150,000 likes.

The comments are predictably divided and inflamed, with some in agreement who say the day is “basically a day we celebrate my MIL” to others furious with the idea that motherhood has an expiry date. “Mother’s Day is for all moms,” says one commenter.

But Cornelius is far, far from alone in her opinion, this Reddit thread with over 350 comments says essentially the same thing, with the original poster complaining that our parents have had decades of Mother’s Days already and that celebrating both her mother-in-law and her own mom over the course of the holiday weekend leaves no time for her.

I get where these moms are coming from, having young kids can be overwhelming and exhausting, and it’s easy to imagine that in your sleep-deprived haze you’ve got it way worse than your own mom or mother-in-law whose days of wiping tiny butts are a distant memory. And because you’re going through it, you feel you should be able to dictate how the day is spent, which I can’t imagine anyone, least of all another mom, would begrudge someone with small kids.

If this holiday is supposed to be an active acknowledgement of the labor of motherhood, then who is more deserving of that than a sleep-deprived, covered-in-other-people’s-spit-up, hormonal-as-hell mom squarely in the thick of it? If she has to organize plans, buy a gift, and gussy up the family for other people, does that cancel out her own desires for the day? At the very least it doesn’t sound like a day off from mom-ing.

On the other hand, becoming a mother crystallized the immensity of what my own mother gave to me, of what she was up against, raising three kids. There’s so much more beauty in this day for me as a daughter because I’m a mother. It makes me want to celebrate her even more.

I sympathize with both moms like Miranda Cornelius who just want one day for themselves and with older moms who may otherwise feel forgotten or underappreciated. It’s obvious, given the righteous emotion on both sides of the argument, that a lot of people aren’t really getting what they want out of this holiday.

My own ideal version of the day involves spending time with my mom and my kids, then ghosting all of them to go do my own thing. They can get in some grandma time and I can do whatever I want to with no one touching me or asking me for a snack. What I’ve learned from the stress of this holiday as a kid is to be very clear about all of this with my husband. He knows what would help make this day relaxing for me, and he can take over figuring out the details. I’m not bailing on my mom, but it might mean renegotiating how we spend part of Mother’s Day. Which is not easy! No one wants to make their mom feel undesired or superfluous.

Ultimately, moms versus grandmas is like so many other imaginary conflicts between two groups of similar people on TikTok — see Gen-Zers versus millennials — a way of creating something out of nothing. Moms should not be beefing on Mother’s Day. You don’t stop being a mom just because your kids are older or even grown, if anything one measly day is the least we can do for a lifetime’s worth of service from our beautiful, loving mothers (just in case mine is reading). Trying to jam our expectations, both communicated and withheld into one day, expecting a few flowers to sum up the value of motherhood and adequately convey how much we mean to our loved ones? Well, therein lies the problem.

Besides, a multigenerational celebration allows one to indulge in a favorite pastime of mine, talking shit about the dads.

Speaking of which, it’s not lost on me that Father’s Day is infinitely less fraught, that we seem to have no trouble approaching that holiday in a straightforward way without arguing over which dads are more deserving of overpriced eggs and pancakes. Talk about that over your brunch this Sunday.

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