For the John Templeton Foundation, I wrote about the evolution of gossip from a term of endearment to a pivotal social mechanism.
Gossip arrived in the English language through natural childbirth. With a title combining the roots for God and sibling, a gossip was a child’s baptismal sponsor, often one of the women from a community who would gather to assist a mother in childbirth and, incidentally, share pertinent news. Gossip became a verb via Shakespeare, still in the sponsoring sense (“petty, fond adoptious christendoms / That blinking Cupid gossips”), before drifting towards its current meaning. Etymologies aside, gossip in its present sense seems to have always been with us, and despite various moral and cultural concerns with its negative aspects, it can be argued gossiping is part of what makes us human.
In 1996, evolutionary psychologist and primatologist Robin Dunbar famously argued that human language itself may have evolved for the purposes of gossip — and that the latter evolved as a more efficient way to practice the social grooming that is common among primates. You can only pick fleas off one individual at a time, but dishing juicy hearsay can cement bonds with multiple listeners simultaneously. Gossip doesn’t just strengthen social bonds; it also helps communities share useful information and form shared opinions that are helpful for joint endeavors.