Howstuffworks "How Swearing Works"

Popularity Report

Total Popularity Score: 0

Rank

URL Tag Cloud

Groups (0)

Related Lists

Essay 3

Bookmark History

Saved by 7 people (-3 private), first by anonymouse user on 2007-07-30

Jeremybuege on 2009-02-27 - Tags no_tag
Lucidor20 on 2008-09-12 - Tags language , psychology , swearing , social
Rogi_x on 2007-11-24 - Tags imported
Johnfromberkeley on 2007-07-30 - Tags language , psychology , culture
Egonerwin on 2007-07-30 - Tags brain , history , language , neuroscience , psychology , random , social

Public Comment

Public Sticky notes

But swearwords aren't quite as simple as they seem. They're paradoxical -- saying them is taboo in nearly every culture, but instead of avoiding them as with other taboos, people use them. Most associate swearing with being angry or frustrated, but people swear for a number of reasons and in a variety of situations. Swearing also serves multiple purposes in social interactions. Not only that, your brain treats swear words differently than it treats other words.

Highlighted by joel

Virtually every language in every culture in the world has its own unique swearwords. Even different dialects of the same language can have different expletives. The very first languages probably included swearwords, but since writing evolved after speaking did, there's no record of who said the first swearword or what that word was. Because of the taboos surrounding it, written language histories also include few records of the origins of swearing. Even today, many dictionaries don't include profanity, and comparatively few studies have examined swearing.