Swearing and Getting Angry

I was talking to my friend Jeff today about swearing. He doesn't swear at all. Ever. On the other hand, I swear like a pirate at times. He's never really explained why he doesn't swear but he did today and I thought it was interesting.

His observation many years ago was that when someone swears a lot, no one listens to them. I wonder, do you think this is true?

I thought about it and realized that when I really want to be listened to, I refrain from any bad language. I also don't swear when I'm trying to be courteous, which is common. 

So for instance, when I'm out in public in mixed company, at a meeting, doing something business related, or with most of Butch's family, I clean up my language. If I'm trying to make a point or explain something, I also usually refrain from rude language.

But when I'm relaxed among friends, I am more apt to use the bad language. To me, they are just words, using the same letters as any other. I think of it as a vestige of religion to say that some letter combinations are taboo.

I think if you want to express something strongly, a good swear word usually does the trick. For instance, if I stub my toe, research has found that if I swear it actually reduces my perception of the pain. This only works if I am not a complete potty-mouth all the time, though.

I've heard some say that swearing shows a lack of intelligence, but I don't think that's necessarily true. I think if you swear profusely all the time, and don't express anything beyond coarse vulgarity in the full content of your speech, then yes, it shows a lack of intelligence - and class.

But I think if you save your profanity for appropriate situations, then there shouldn't  be anything wrong with it. You're just using the full breadth of the language.

Swearing Brings Pain Relief

I may be an atheist with a heart of gold, but I have a tendency to swear a lot. I tone it down for family events and around kids, but otherwise I love to swear. It enhances what I'm saying and it feels good. Plus, why not? They are simply words. I think it's silly that some words are taboo. Letters strung together and given a special dirty meaning, verbalized or written, are somehow wrong and bad? That's so ridiculous to me, such a stupid effect of religion.

Well, now I have a new reason to swear profusely if I get hurt. A study was released last week in the journal NeuroReport about Swearing Actually Increasing Pain Tolerance. Over 60 volunteers put their hands in ice cold water and kept it there as long as they could. They were to say either a neutral word or a swear word of their choice. When saying the swear word, they endured an average of 40 more seconds of the ice water and reported less pain.

Still no one is exactly sure how swearing has such physical effects on the body, but it's speculated that the brain circuitry linked to emotion is involved. But earlier studies have shown that regular language relies on the outer bit on the left hemisphere of the brain, while swearing relies on evolutionarily ancient structures buried deep inside the right half.

Also noteworthy was that the heart rate of the volunteers rose when they swore, which the researchers say suggests that the amygdala was activated. The amygdala is a group of neurons in the brain that can trigger a fight or flight response in which our heart rate climbs and we become less sensitive to pain.

A psychologist who has studied profanities for the past 35 years says about swearing, "It allows us to vent or express anger, joy, surprise, happiness. It's like the horn on your car, you can do a lot of things with that, it's built into you."

Just be careful to not go to the extreme and hotline into your brain's emotional system in a situation like road rage, where you escalate to physical violence. (of course)

There's one catch though. The more we swear, the less emotionally potent the words become. And without emotion, all that's left is the swear word itself, which is unlikely to soothe your pain.