In Defense of Bad Words – Arthur C. Brooks

The Americans swear as hard as they can. According to some linguists, out of every thousand words spoken, five are on average profanity. If you keep in mind that many people do not routinely say vulgarity when they speak – a research conducted on a group of college students found that nearly half of them did not do it at all in normal conversation – it is possible that those who do so utter 9.43. bad words every thousand words. Yet in 1986, men were responsible for 67 percent of public swearing, while in 2006 the percentage had dropped to 55 percent, probably not because men swore less.

And if you are like many Americans too, you have become a little more scurrilous in the last couple of years. Between 2019 and 2021, the most common swearing on Facebook increased by 41 percent, on Twitter by 27 percent. Apparently children say more swear words. Adults use more of it at work.

People I know who never cursed before the pandemic now do a little more, and my friends who once cursed in moderation have become geysers of vulgarity.

Different words and intentions
On the surface this might seem like a negative fact, proof that unhappiness has increased, a confirmation of general cultural degradation or anything that prompts us to swear. Or maybe bad words are simply a way to find some relief in difficult times. After all, it wouldn’t be bad. In fact, swearing can be both bad and good for you and for society. The secret is to learn how and when to do it and when it is best to avoid it.

A curse includes many different words and intentions. This can be a slight change to an expression, “I’m damn tired”, a joke, “I say too many bad words for my wife, but I think it’s bullshit”, or an offensive obscenity that can end a career. or to a wedding (I don’t give examples; I want to keep my job and stay married). The classifications of profanity, like the classic text of the anthropologist Montague Francis Ashley-Montagu The anatomy of awearing (Anatomy of cursing), distinguish between generic cursing, “curse”, cursing someone, “be cursed” and blasphemies, “for God”.

Swearing can be voluntary or involuntary. According to a study published in 2006, more than half of voluntary swearing is related to anger and frustration, 9 percent to a joke and 6 percent to pain. Really involuntary expletives – that is, not controllable by the speaker – are much rarer and are associated with neurological disorders such as aphasia (in which the speech center located on the left hemisphere of the brain is usually damaged), Tourette’s syndrome (a dysfunction in the neural circuitry connecting parts of the brain that causes involuntary movements and, in some cases, unintentional obscene vocalizations) and some neurodegenerative and autoimmune disorders.

According to psychologist Timothy B. Jay, swearing with hostile intentions is a characteristic that distinguishes individuals with the so-called type A personality, typically linked to competitiveness and aggression. Swearing is associated with lack of scrupulousness and courtesy. Researchers have found that doctors who swear in front of patients are considered less reliable and less experienced than those who don’t.

But in order not to be tempted to conclude that swear words are related only to unpleasant personality traits, I would like to point out that they are also connected to honesty. The authors of three studies released in 2017 in the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science, including one that analyzed nearly 74,000 social media interactions, found that “swearing was associated with fewer lies and deceptions.”

Sometimes bad words just make us feel good and give those who use them some emotional relief. According to linguist John McWhorter, author of Nine nasty words (Nine bad words), “what you need is a nice, invigorating eruption that allows you to release tension.” Academic literature shows, for example, that profanity relieves the malaise due to social distress.

And they can even ease physical pain. In 2020, a group of British psychologists asked 92 people to dip their hands in freezing water. Some were told they could curse, while others were asked to limit themselves to a neutral, non-vulgar word to describe a table, such as “solid”, or to a swear word invented as “accipanca”. Those who swore tolerated the pain better and found the experience more enjoyable than those who used the made up swear word, but the made up swear word also brought more emotional relief than the neutral word. It’s no surprise, some scholars say, that swearing could help improve patients’ conditions. Maybe one day your doctor will tell you to throw two curses and call him back the next morning.

Bad words can hurt others or make them laugh. They can give an image of less competent less competent, but they can suggest to the listener that they are in front of an honest person. Uncontrolled profanity indicates the presence of a neurological problem; controlled ones can alleviate social and physical suffering. Overall, they are neither an absolute good nor an absolute bad, by most people’s standards. To find peace of mind, I propose three rules to refine the techniques of cursing.

Even for those without aphasia or Tourette’s syndrome, swearing can become a habit, like an unbridled verbal tic. This indicates a lack of metacognition, or the inability to manage one’s feelings and reactions, letting oneself be managed by them instead. Happiness, on the other hand, is associated with the ability to manage oneself, which is not compatible with the reckless issuing of a stream of curses wherever one is. If you feel the need to stop this habit, you can resort to one of the many methods already tested. For example, the “jar of bad words”, a jar or box in which to put money every time you say a bad word. It is a custom that has existed since at least the sixteenth century, when medieval expressions became dirty words.

If you decide to swear on purpose, it’s best to do it rarely. In the social sciences, the law that probably beats all the others is that of “decreasing marginal utility”, according to which the utility of a good decreases as its availability increases, because it becomes less desirable. If you choose to drop a bomb of insults, pretend it’s a cup of ice cream: savor it once or twice a week, not every day, and don’t go for an encore. This way your curses will keep their freshness and each of them will bring a high benefit to your mood.

Some researchers have found that profanity is more offensive when used to attack or mistreat someone. This could help explain why social media, where people swear more than in ordinary speech, can be such an unpleasant experience. Even if you have no bad intentions, offending others’ sensitivities and beliefs with a curse can lead to embarrassing off-air situations or even job loss. Before saying a bad word, think twice.

One last tip: if the temptation to swear is too strong, you may want to consider creating a “protected space” for swearing. Years ago, when my eldest son was still small, he returned from a sleepover at a friend’s house full of admiration for the other boy’s father. In the family there was a strict rule against swearing, except in the car, where it was allowed to say as much as I can. It was like a kid’s version of Vegas – what you say in the minivan stays in the minivan.

It seemed ridiculous to me, until I thought about it a bit and realized it was a brilliant idea. The family gained the cathartic benefits of profanity while limiting its social disadvantages. This is what Mark Twain was talking about when he said, “In every house there should be a room to swear in. It is dangerous to have to repress such an emotion ”. I don’t have a minivan, but I started doing just that in the soundproof studio I set up in the basement for video conferencing. When I am frustrated I close the door, I exclaim “accipanca!” – hey, I’m still a beginner – and I feel better.

(Translation by Davide Musso)