Why swear words are good

Or some thoughtless commuter forced you to slam the brakes on the drive to work. Some research suggests that it might be a better idea to simply let the filth fly. Studies have shown that swearing relieves stress, dulls the sensation of pain, fosters camaraderie among peers and is linked with traits like verbal fluency, openness and honesty. And the effects of cursing are physical as well as mental. A study in Psychology of Sport and Exercise found that letting out a few choice words during a workout can actually make you stronger.

In the study, participants who cursed aloud while gripping a hand vise were able to squeeze harder and longer. Timothy Jay, professor emeritus of psychology at the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts, thinks that humans partly developed taboo language as an emotional release valve.

The team tasked 67 undergraduate volunteers with plunging their hands in ice-cold water for as long as they could handle it while repeating a swear word of their choice.

Then, they did the experiment again — but this time, the students said a neutral, non-taboo word. The research team found that volunteers were able to keep their hands submerged in the frigid water for longer while repeating the swear word.

They suggest that swearing triggers negative emotions that serve as an alarm bell, alerting someone to danger and sparking an innate defense mechanism. Beyond swearing's impacts on the body and mind, research has shown that cursing can influence our social dynamics, too. Historians of the English language describe how women were equally praised for their command of exceedingly expressive insults and swearing, right up to the point in when a book by Richard Allestree was published titled The Ladies Calling.

Today we are horribly still in the same place on men versus women swearing. They swear just as much as men. And that judgement can have serious implications. Whereas men who swear about conditions like testicular cancer tend to bond more closely with other men using the same vocabulary.

The idea that swearing is a legitimate means of expressing a negative emotion is much more circumscribed for women. Out in the wild, chimps are inveterate users of their excrement to mark their territory or show their annoyance. So the first thing you do, if you want to teach a primate sign language, is potty train them. That means, just like human children at a similar age, that they end up with a taboo around excrement.

Washoe was a female chimpanzee that was originally adopted by R. 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. Contact us at letters time.

By Emma Byrne. TIME Ideas hosts the world's leading voices, providing commentary on events in news, society, and culture. We welcome outside contributions. Opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of TIME editors. Related Stories.

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