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Talk15 min

The history of human emotions

Tiffany Watt Smith · TED

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About

The words we use to describe our emotions affect how we feel, says historian Tiffany Watt Smith, and they've often changed (sometimes very dramatically) in response to new cultural expectations and ideas. Take nostalgia, for instance: first defined in 1688 as an illness and considered deadly, today it's seen as a much less serious affliction. In this fascinating talk about the history of emotions, learn more about how the language we use to describe how we feel continues to evolve -- and pick up some new words used in different cultures to capture those fleeting feelings in words.

The talk

  1. The history of human emotions 15 min · TED's player

Credits and licence

Institution
TED
Department
TED@Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany
Speaker
Tiffany Watt Smith
Year
2017
Level
For everyone
Language
English
Subjects
Society and politics, History, Languages and linguistics
Source
TED
Licence
CC BY-NC-ND 4.0, as TED states it. Non-commercial use only, and no changed versions. TED's terms
Attribution
TED Talks are licensed by TED under Creative Commons BY-NC-ND 4.0 International and are shown here in TED's own player, as TED's usage policy asks.
Who can watch
TED gives no rating. Invisible Network shows it to Teens profiles and older, judged from what the source says about it. How courses are placed