There ought to be a room in every house to swear in. It’s dangerous to have to repress an emotion like that.
Mark Twain
There is a fascination for swear words, some attraction, a definite appeal to them. All around the world, whatever the place, whatever the culture, there are cussing words. Every culture has their own list of forbidden words. It seems inherent to the human condition. Cats yowl; humans swear. But guess what? Bad language can actually do you good.
** before going any further, let’s agree on what I’m talking about here: words used in an exclamatory fashion or language tic. I do not prone the usage of word utilise to insult someone or attack a person’s integrity ** Now that that’s out of the way, let’s proceed…
We grew up being told what we can and cannot say. We hear cussing all around us and we’re told it’s bad language or a grown-up words. If it’s so bad, why does it feel so good? Let’s take a simple example: you’re at home, going around doing some household stuff when you turn around and here it is. The corner of the coffee table gets you right in the knee cap. I’m pretty sure you know what I’m talking about. A strong sharp pain that makes you see a flash of light. And what do most people do? They swear. Usually pretty loudly. Well you can now swear in peace: research has shown that swearing increases your pain tolerance. For real. There is a catch though: you need to shout a word you think is bad, a word you don’t use very often, a special-case-only kind of word. It is not the swearword itself that help release the pain; it is the emotional potency you associate with that word that makes it such a soother.
Because that’s another thing about swearwords: they are cathartic, i.e. they help you let go of emotions, particularly negative ones. The utterance (the tone, the loudness) of a swearword can tell a lot about the state of a person, as well as the intensity of that emotional state. A same word (for instance the very commonly used f-word in the English language) can convey anger, fear, frustration, excitement, happiness, surprise, and many other ones. Profane words can have a very strong physiological effect on people: heart rate increases, pupils dilate, you’re in fight-or-flight mode. But more importantly, they help you express your emotions, to vent it out, to release what’s inside.
And as a consequence, it seems that cussing is linked to honesty. People that swear a lot could be more in touch with their feelings, being more honest to themselves… and to other? Few years ago, a study showed that people that use a lot of profanity and cussing language were less prone to lying and had a higher social integrity. Who would have thought? When you swear, you lose your social filter for a second, you don’t think about what you can or cannot say in public. You let it all out: the pain, the feelings. Hashtag no filter. You say what you think, when you’re thinking it. It’s a bit blunt, but it’s honest. Problem is, swearing is often frowned upon. Guess we need to find a way to work on the delivery: still say what we have to say… but in a nicer way.
Honestly though, what is so wrong with swearing? The problem is that humans love to put labels on everything. We define everything in terms of good, bad, allowed, forbidden, moral, immoral. A word is not bad per se; it is labelled as bad because of some puritan hypocrisy. When you think about it, what is a swear word? They are words associated to taboo-ridden domains, things it is “wrong” to talk about because we grew up learning to feel embarrassed about those topics: sex, bodily functions, religion, or ethnicity. Think of a cussing word, the first one that pops to mind, whatever language it is in. Chances are – you can associate it with one of those 4 categories. We live in the 21st century, and our vocabulary is still subjugated to a conforming way of thinking. Go world...
As an expatriate living in another language than my mother-tongue, this non-swearing policy can get really complicated. As mentioned above, swearing words are emotionally loaded… in their original language. First, there are some swearing words in one language that just do not translate as a cussing word in another language. Second, those words are not emotionally loaded the same way for us. And it's the emotional potency we attribute to words that makes them so thrilling to use. In another language, cussing words are just words we learnt were "bad". To us, they don't mean much. Which also means that when living in a different language, you can find yourself talking about things you would feel incredibly embarrassed to talk about in your mother tongue. The emotional distance we have to the words we use means we can talk about everything, with far less taboo and more openly. Those studies have been conducted with people learning another language as adults; I wonder if this is similar for people growing up in a bilingual environment. Do they swear more in one of the languages? Food for thoughts…
The “forbidden” is a social construct, and usually a really appealing one. The thrill to use swearing words is real… and it does you good. Letting out a cussing word now and then won’t make you a trooper, but it can help you deal with pain and all the stuff life throws at you. Next time you bump in that coffee table of yours, don’t hold back and let it out.
Further readings:
http://www.lalleedumonde.com/10-choses-bilinguisme-parler-plusieurs-langues-expatriation/?fbclid=IwAR2JBTLjQN3zm0Kj13rD546KvS1HRFeUZF6MfekLwAiL2HeQPGgg-AhpW9k
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