About

Sweeping the Special Chimney is a euphemism for sex coined by Carol Midgley of British publication The Times. After publishing the phrase in an article, it was mocked online.

Origin

On August 29th, 2018, The Times^[1] published an article suggesting that couples' sex lives were suffering because of television. In the article, the author, Carol Midgley, used the phrase "sweeping the special chimney" to describe sex. The phrase was used in The Times tweet of the article (shown below).

The Times of London @thetimes Follow) "It's TV that kills your sex life: people who own TV sets are 6 per cent less likely in any given week to "sweep the special chimney" thetimes.co.uk/article/carol- 7:56 AM - 29 Aug 2018

Spread

The tweet was immediately mocked online for the strangeness of the euphemism. Users expressed their disgust at the term; for example, user Ankaman616 gained 20 retweets and 170 likes expressing his displeasure (shown below, left). User @katemond said that the term would confuse future historians, gaining over 30 retweets and 190 likes (shown below, right).

Carl Anka Follow @Ankaman616 "Sweep the special chimney". My heads gone. Sweep. Chimney. The special one. Like with a brush. In a chimney. Nah l'm finished. I'm joining a monastery. Never getting naked again. Sweep. The Special. Chimney. The Times of London@thetimes It's TV that kills your sex life": people who own TV sets are 6 per cent less likely in any given week to "sweep the special chimney" 8:08 AM-29 Aug 2018

Dr Kate Wiles @katemond Follow ) ﹀ Oh God, see what you've done? Because of you, in 150 years, pop- history content writers are unironically going to claim that we all used to actually say thiS. The Times of London@thetimes It's TV that kills your sex life": people who own TV sets are 6 per cent less likely in any given week to "sweep the special chimney" thetimes.co.uk/article/carol-... 8:46 AM-29 Aug 2018

Other users made jokes about the phrase with reaction images and GIFs. A popular strand involved using Dick Van Dyke's chimneysweep character from Mary Poppins_. User @JonYarker made a joke using a GIF of the character, gaining over 40 retweets and 1,200 likes (shown below, left).

Jon Yarker @Jon_Yarker Follow Replying to @thetimes Oi Oi GIF 8:07 AM-29 Aug 2018

Kate E. Jamieson @kateejamieson Follow Replying to @thetimes GIF 9:02 AM-29 Aug 2018

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References

^[1] The Times – I’ll tell you what’s wrong with midlife sex -- the telly

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Sweeping the Special Chimney

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