/ 19 September 2018

Menstruation by any other name: The more than 5000 ways we say ‘period’

Is menstruation a conversational taboo in your culture? Studies show you might have fewer ways to say "period".
Is menstruation a conversational taboo in your culture? Studies show you might have fewer ways to say "period". (Lina Rigney Tho?rnblom, Flickr)

Shark Week. Usenyangeni. Taking time off. People who menstruate — and those who don’t — have come up with a plethora of ways to, well, say someone’s on their period.

More than 5 000 euphemisms exist for menstruation in 190 different countries, period app  Clue found in a 2015 survey. As part of the study, the period-tracking programme asked app users a series of questions about how open they felt about discussing menstruation. About 90 000 people responded to the survey. 

#PeriodTalk.