WE ALL THINK we’re so great with our fancy internet slang and our memes and viral videos, but did you know people in the 18th century had one up on us?

‘Feels’ is a popular internet term these days to convey intense feeling, but author Karen Healy discovered it being used in a letter dating from 1782.

The letter is included in a biography of Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, who wrote to her mother complaining of the ‘feels’:

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…she was beset by ‘feels’ which made her cry constantly and prevented her from sleeping.

…I am mended now and not so uncomfortable, the feels [are] abated and am not near so nervous.

The feels she describes are not far off from our feels, described by Urban Dictionary thus: “A wave of emotions that sometimes cannot be adequately explained.”

Y’know, like the feels you get watching Sherlock or seeing a cute animal video or looking at this comic.

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Pandawhale Pandawhale

via Boing Boing

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