Swearing why people do it

We do not know exactly how children learn swear words, although this learning is an inevitable part of language learning, and it begins early in life. This etiquette determines the difference between amusing and insulting and needs to be studied further.

Through interview data, we know that young adults report to have learned these words from parents, peers, and siblings, not from mass media. Is it important to attempt to censor children from language they already know?

While psychological scientists themselves do not establish language standards, they can provide scientific data about what is normal to inform this debate. It is true that we are exposed to more forms of swearing since the inception of satellite radio, cable television, and the Internet, but that does not mean the average person is swearing more frequently.

In our recent frequency count, a greater proportion of our data comes from women the reduction of a once large gender difference. We interpret this finding as reflecting a greater proportion of women in public e. Our forthcoming research also indicates that the most frequently recorded taboo words have remained fairly stable over the past 30 years.

The Anglo-Saxon words we say are hundreds of years old, and most of the historically offensive sexual references are still at the top of the offensiveness list; they have not been dislodged by modern slang. Frequency data must be periodically collected to answer questions about trends in swearing over time. When this question arises, we also frequently fail to acknowledge the impact of recently-enacted laws that penalize offensive language, such as sexual harassment and discrimination laws.

Workplace surveillance of telephone and email conversations also curbs our use of taboo language. We can answer this question by saying that all competent English speakers learn how to swear in English.

Swearing generally draws from a pool of 10 expressions and occurs at a rate of about 0. However, it is not informative to think of how an average person swears: Contextual, personality, and even physiological variables are critical for predicting how swearing will occur. While swearing crosses socioeconomic statuses and age ranges and persists across the lifespan, it is more common among adolescents and more frequent among men.

Swearing is positively correlated with extraversion and is a defining feature of a Type A personality. It is negatively correlated with conscientiousness, agreeableness, sexual anxiety, and religiosity.

These relationships are complicated by the range of meanings within the diverse group of taboo words. Some religious people might eschew profanities religious terms , but they may have fewer reservations about offensive sexual terms that the sexually anxious would avoid. We have yet to systematically study swearing with respect to variables such as impulsivity or psychiatric conditions, e. These may be fruitful avenues along which to investigate the neural basis of emotion and self-control.

Taboo words occupy a unique place in language because once learned, their use is heavily context driven.

While we have descriptive data about frequency and self reports about offensiveness and other linguistic variables, these data tend to come from samples that overrepresent young, White, middle-class Americans. A much wider and more diverse sample is needed to better characterize the use of taboo language to more accurately answer all of the questions here. There are some new swear words in the younger generation. My father, a tee-totling christian could swear louder and longer than anyone I knew… without using a swear-word.

We knew he was swearing, he knew he was swearing. If you were really that learned and sophisticated, you would not need to use those words in public sometimes with a tongue-in-cheek attitude. Many today would like less pollution of dirty language and anger—because there is always an element of anger in these words, even if it is hidden. It only gives fuel to more smut. That is not objective at all. Where is this hidden element of anger you assert is always there? The article shows that it substitutes aggression among other positive effects.

How can you conclude that it hides anger if the evidence shows it substitutes violence and reduces stress? I think you are steering a little bit away from measurable evidence here on this. I do agree though with many people not needing to swear, but that could be from so many other reasons. Perhaps they have other methods and habits of stress management?

Maybe the group of friends they are with also happen to swear less? Maybe the geographical area swears less? Who knows. There are so many other clearly measurable bad things than to waste time with that. Profanity is the diction of the indolent, unburdening the perpetrator of lexical exertion. The syntactic versatility of the curse is boundless, conveniently obeying regular rules of inflection.

Like a furtive vandal, the obscenity nestles effortlessly anywhere into any sentence, destroying its nuance. Hardly a brain cell need be inducted to create an offending phrase. Rather than expend energy selecting the precise noun, verb, or adjective that accurately embodies intent, the debauchee resorts to the makeshift swear. Swearing ruins language and stains those engaging in it with the mark of sloth and doltishness. For this research, I think it is important to understand, not only the meaning of the word, but also the sound of it.

The shape and movement words bring into our minds can affect the way we feel about it. Many people can easily become desensitized to the words, whereas others might cringe to them the same way they cringe to certain undesirable sounds. It would be an interesting study to see the effects of different sounds on the brain and its relation to language.

Nice point about the sounds…tone, texture, rhythm, etc. I been thinking bout this for a long-a time…. It would be interesting to study whether people who are more sensitive to sound are also more negatively effected by swear words. Has there ever been a study of honesty versus swearing?

I was recently told by an acquaintance that people who swear are more honest. People I know that curse like a Scottish Sailor on a drunken holiday are really stand up people that you can put your trust in. I think a lot of what you have said is true. I too think that a lot of people who have strong beliefs or ideas just say it as it is. People that swear often do not even realize that they swear as much as they do because they are true to themselves and just speaking the truth with no inhibitions.

I am not saying that everyone should talk like this, but maybe they are just expressing their true self. We are all different and are unique in our own skin. We all need to be true to ourselves. I agree with your point of view. They swear more than they think they do. I make no such judgement either way myself, being probably inappropriately objective on the matter.

In fact they form a vital part of the language. It is possible to talk trash with or without swearing, and possible to be kind or compassionate or to be angry and disrespectful with or without swearing. Some vulnerable people are indeed in a worse position because of their vulnerability and thus not able to voice their feelings therefore would not be using swearing and might also avoid much else as well perhaps with certain people.

Their lack of swearing, indeed lack of conversation, might mean they are vulnerable rather than their ability to speak from the heart demonstrating a lack of vulnerability. So you mentioned you do not know where children learn swear words?? Are you serious? At home for most of them. The others learn from kids when they get to school. Did you not have kids and learn this?

Research may show that the person swearing is more trustworthy, but I would like to see the study on intelligence in those who swear a blue streak.

Speaking for myself, I lose a great deal of respect for a person that uses that type of language when there are so many other words that would work much better. Personally, I find it less trustworthy, also. I found this article in a Google search. I was trying to find the supposed study showing how people who swear tend to be more trust worthy.

I do see where some truth would come from it. Simply because people who tend to swear also tend not to care about what others think about them so therefore they have less of reason to tell white lies. Having incited such violence personally, using utterances primarily constructed with swear words, and having witnessed the same in close proximity on more occasions than I am proud to admit, it strikes me as though the research may have had biases that tainted the results.

Swearing at Disney world be expected to result in fewer negative outcomes than f-bombs tossed strategically at a bar, a ballgame, or family reunion. For as long as I remember, I have considered that folks who use swearwords had not developed sufficient vocabulary to say what they had in mind.

This was an article clearly describing explorations into the social mechanics of the use of profanity and it consequences, with what was obviously an exhortation for more investigation into the phenomenon, not liberal propaganda note how this word is spelled correctly.

All that, without a single profanity. Terrific article. But they can be useful, too. When researchers observed how people dealt with the pain of submerging their hands in icy water, they found that people could withstand more discomfort if they repeated a swear word, rather than a non-swear word.

Scientists have also found that unlike most sounds we utter, cussing can happen in both voluntary and involuntary ways. That has clinical and research implications, says Bergen, and it may tell us something about why we came to communicate as we do.

It also suggests that these emotionally charged words can become so deeply ingrained in us that uttering them toes the line of being a physical act rather than a symbolic one, more like a sneeze than a sentence. Those strong feelings drive some people to try to stamp profanity out. Bergen dedicates a whole chapter in his book to taking down a flawed study that suggested profanity harms children. What he found is that people with larger vocabularies can actually generate more swear words than people with smaller ones.

If you think your child is ready for this, you can ask your child what they think the word means. Or you could explain that the word is racist, sexist or disrespectful of particular groups of people. If you want your children to avoid swearing, you and the other adults in your home need to avoid it too. Here are more ideas to encourage respectful speaking and reduce swearing in your family:. If your child asks you why somebody is using a swear word, you could talk about how people in different families have different rules.

Some children will keep pushing swearing boundaries after being told not to. If you find yourself in this situation, you could try the following strategies:. If swearing is one of several inappropriate behaviours that your child shows, you might consider seeking help from a child health professional like a psychologist or school counsellor. Children pick up swear words from many sources, outside and inside the home and through the media.

Not all children learn swearing from their parents. Allen Gardner and Beatrix T. Gardner in the s. Later, she was taken on by a researcher in Washington State called Roger Fouts.

Washoe was the matriarch to three younger chimps: Loulis, Tatu, and Dar. By the time they brought in Loulis, the youngest, the humans had stopped teaching them language, so they looked to see if the chimps would transmit language through the generations, which they did. When Washoe and the other chimps were really angry, they would smack their knuckles on the underside of their chins, so you could hear this chimp-teeth-clacking sound.

What had happened is that they had internalized that taboo, they had a sign associated with that taboo, so all of a sudden that language was incredibly powerful and was being thrown about, just like real excrement is thrown about by wild chimpanzees.

The example that most people will be familiar with in English-speaking countries is blasphemy. There are still parts of the U. In some communities, where that usage is reclaimed, they are saying that if I use it, it immunizes me against its negative effects. That is an example of a word that has fallen out of general conversation and literature into the realm of the unsayable.

The great thing about the copulatory and excretory swearing is that they are common to the entire human race. As our taboos change, that core of language that has the ability to surprise, shock or stun the emotional side of the brain will change, too.

Simon Worrall curates Book Talk. Follow him on Twitter or at simonworrallauthor. All rights reserved. Share Tweet Email. Read This Next Wild parakeets have taken a liking to London.

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