What makes swear words bad

Consequently, we are less likely to be offended. You would find my refusal to thank you for your good turn rude, but you would probably not deem it morally suspect. The stronger the norms against using a particular expression, the greater the offensiveness of using that expression.

In turn, the greater the offensiveness of a particular expression, the stronger the norms are against using that expression. What does this tell us about whether or not swearing is morally wrong? It is helpful, once again, to compare swearing to etiquette breaches. The same holds for etiquette breaches. Even so, in most cases, we tend not to view breaches of etiquette as immoral , even where it causes offence. You would make a similar judgment were I to swear in the course of a polite conversation.

This is not to say that swearing, or breaching etiquette in some other way, is never immoral. Such situations might involve breaching etiquette with the intention to belittle, distress, harass, intimidate, provoke, and so on.

But most cases of etiquette breach — including most cases of swearing — are not like this. With this in mind, some of our efforts to punish and prevent swearing — such as arrest under the Public Order Act — seem overly draconian. Swearing is often objectionable, but rarely immoral. Modern biomedicine sees the body as a closed mechanistic system. But illness shows us to be permeable, ecological beings. Nitin K Ahuja. Thinkers and theories.

Some see Plato as a pure rationalist, others as a fantastical mythmaker. His deft use of stories tells a more complex tale. Tae-Yeoun Keum. All the stories we have are flawed. What makes something worth believing? Animals and humans. If humans were to disappear from the face of the Earth, what might dogs become? And would they be better off without us?

Jessica Pierce. Human evolution. It might be the core of what human brains evolved to do. Philip Ball. Naughty words What makes swear words so offensive? Aaron That which thou canst not undo. Chiron Thou hast undone our mother. Do all people swear? In my experience yes, although frequency varies greatly from person to person.

There are exceptions of course — like Tourette Syndrome. Kudos to the people whose entitled moral ground makes them think they know more and better than a Behavioral Science PhD.

Do they really think the world revolves around their own moral values? As for the article. Well written and informative, as much as should be. I would be interested to know how the research progresses. Reference anger to infantile expression shows a lack of connection to our language.

I do not choose to revert to anal attachment to feces, when I am frustrated. Likewise, I do not choose to use a word for intercourse, inviting people who I do not even like to intercourse.

That sex and hatred are so intertwined speaks volumes of our inability to differentiate between the two.

To reference a woman as a female breeding dog and then teach her to be proud to insult herself, defies all logic. I could get more into profanities, if they made more sense, raising themselves out of poop, piss, sex, into words that make logical sense.

Well, Mac your remarks were hilariously forthright and candidly serious. Your colorful discourse was quite amusing to me, although you appear to be quite sincere with no intention of being comical. I like. Thank you for sharing. Here is a great explanation on how context makes all the difference. Of course saying words with negative associations, are going to give rise to negative feelings and stress.

This does not apply to light-hearted situations in which the swear words are being used for dramatic effect. A cleverly placed swear word in a funny situation can be very amusing. There is no credible evidence to back up your preconceived notions. Perhaps those who are more reserved with their use of language are fraudulent, and limit themselves as to who or what they can be due to fear of judgement.

Cry babies. Get over it. I grew up in a home with parents who swear. What happened? My repertoire is just more extensive and colorful than some. Cry me a river…. When I was going to school I had a woeful stammer in my speech and had great difficulty conversing socially and answering questions at school.

Found that when I swore before starting to recite a poem especially in class it got the first word out easier especially if the poem began with a broad consenant. If the poem began with a vowel it made it that bit easier to start the recitation. I had to swear under my breath of course as swearing might not go down well if expressed loudly. Stammer is hardly noticeable nowadays. Thanks for your inspirational findings. I cringe at the sound of it, or any of the other curse words that people use.

It is offensive in mixed company. I personally feel that when someone swears, they are displaying the fact that they do not have a good vocabulary. Most of the people in my school swear just for fun.

For example, one of the sentences I overheard in the lunch-line contained at least 10 swears, in like a 20 or so word sentence. This problem has to stop. Swear words are designated in the dictionary as swear words.

When they are used, you, by definition, are swearing. If used in a different context, of course, they are not swearing, but that does not excuse the offensive nature of swear words. This is supposed to be a psychology oriented site, yet the authors of the article seem to be focusing with predilection on the linguistic aspect of the issue. By the time I read the passage where the authors claim we do not know how our children learn to swear, though, I was looking for a disclaimer announcing this is only for entertainment and that it is a fake news site.

Not only do they offer very little data in support of their claims, their claims defy rational logic, which is probably the reason we find no significant data in the article, other than the claim that the authors were interviewed 3, times regarding this issue, which is obviously not true.

This kind of articles explain why according to recent studies, a vast majority of the population of America does not trust scientists and science journalists. What is even more depressing is the fact that the authors teach in our colleges and universities, which seems to account for the state of profound ignorance of our society.

On that note, as a personal observation, I noticed that most of the swearing is done by individuals that are poorly educated on the subjects they discussed, and that swearing it is used as a cover for their lack of knowledge, as a form of defense mechanism against those who expose them for making false claims. Through my Sophomore year of High school, I never cussed. A higher shock value, you know?

I found it to be a burden, as it lessened some humor, so I took it up my senior year. No one noticed. It would be really nice if any of the studies the authors consulted were cited in this article. It is really difficult to trust the veracity of the information here if none of it is backed up. I realize that this is now a few years old but it has given me a laugh. So, swearing can be a safety valve to let off steam when you experience stressful events most significantly from those close to you.

Before people think I am a brain challenged moron, I am an Oxford qualified pathologist and to be frank, I like swearing. Some of the people responding here are straight from Victoiana and I shoukd know as I am living with one! I have specific questions. Thank you. After seeing so much profanity on the Social sites. I got curious and wound up here.

To put it simply, there are 3 things that are basic. You need a sender, a receiver and a medium to communicate a subject matter. In my case, the medium is the internet. When the communication is sent there is a context. The receiver evaluates the message and responds. The use of the internet as the medium is important to the context by veiling the sender and receiver.

With face to face there is the advantage of seeing facial expressions as tone of speech. As already stated the message can be good or bad. Since the message is written, you know the sender had time to think of the words they will use. All of this causes me to conclude the profanity used in the internet social media is mostly pejorative. Thank you for this input. I have been working on some research on swearing which was participated by college students.

This might answer our question if swearing should be avoided or not as perceived by those who swear. However, this could be not enough, so it is also a good thing to consider why some people do not swear which might also answer the same queation. This article is helpful to understand the teen psychology. Though, swearing words sound bad but their effects are very positive in anger management at least, and what I observed. Those teens are less illusive and avoid fanaticism. Here in this neck of the woods do woods have necks?

I started swearing after about ten years as a senior research scientist, as a way of releasing the build-up of stress from the demands of the job and from having to deal with belligerent members of the public who thought they knew better than someone who had studied their particular area of expertise more carefully than those members of the public could ever do.

APS regularly opens certain online articles for discussion on our website. Effective February , you must be a logged-in APS member to post comments. By posting a comment, you agree to our Community Guidelines and the display of your profile information, including your name and affiliation. For more information, please see our Community Guidelines. He can be contacted at T. Jay mcla. Expletives seem to hold a very special place in the human mind. This means cussing is baked right into human instinct, nestled into the subconscious.

The researchers had Polish students translate texts that were filled with curse words, both general swear words and ethnic slurs, to see how they would translate them. When they translated from English into their native Polish, they tended to tone down how offensive the words were. What does profanity tell us about learning a language? It means that even once you nail the grammar and vocabulary, it might take time before you really start to emotionally resonate with the language.

It also means you may want double check how words are used in a new language. Even within a language, there can be differences in swearing culture.

This has caused many an American tourist including myself to be scandalized. Swear words are culturally constructed, so to use them well, you need to learn about the culture that uses them. Thomas grew up in suburban Massachusetts, and moved to New York City for college.

He studied English literature and linguistics at New York University, but spent most of his time in college working for the student paper. Because of this, he has really hard opinions about AP Style. He's spent a lot of time trying to learn Spanish, and has learned a little German. Thomas ist in einer Vorstadt in Massachusetts aufgewachsen und nach New York gezogen, um den krassen Kontrast zu erleben.

Deshalb ist er auch etwas pedantisch, was Textstandards angeht. Ha studiato Letteratura inglese e Linguistica alla New York University ma ha trascorso la maggior parte del tempo a lavorare al giornale scolastico.

Thomas cresceu na suburbana Massachusetts, e se mudou para Nova York para fazer faculdade. Even if you never work up the nerve to strike back, it never hurts to recognize a sick burn when you hear one. When we surveyed a small panel of our Babbel colleagues who grew up in other countries, most agreed that English profanities are kind of repetitive and overly focused on sex. Perhaps the tradeoff is that you can lob an F-bomb anywhere in the world and be understood.

If what you want is to become a sophisticated sommelier of curse words in other languages, this article is a good place to start diversifying your palate. We answered some of the most frequently Googled questions about curse words in other languages. Easy: you acquaint yourself with some basic building block words and just stack them together. The more elaborate you get, the more you raise the stakes.

Yep, that one will register in France too, which may or may not have something to do with the fact that French people really love the F-word.

Next is the chin flick, which you might associate with Italy but is also common in France. Need a slightly stronger version of this? You can tell by comparing the lengths of profane words in blue bars with English words in general, shown in the red bars. As you can see, English has a lot of words with four, five, six, or seven letters.

And in general English looks like a smoother version of the profane distribution. But what really sticks out is how many more profane four-letter words there are than expected from English in general. Perhaps more surprising is how many profane three- and five-letter words there are. Less important but also notable is the little bump in eight-letter profane words, compared with the language in general.

This is due to words composed of two four-letter words, like bullshit and shithead. So this raises the obvious question, why? Why are profane words more likely than other words to have four letters? The three-letter words included in the list are ass , cum, fag, gay, god, Jew, and tit.

And the four-letter words are anal, anus, arse, clit, cock, crap, cunt, dick, dumb, dyke, fuck, gook, homo, jerk, jism, jugs, kike, Paki, piss, scum, shag, shit, slag, slut, spic, suck, turd, twat, and wank.

Do you notice any general trend in how these words are pronounced? Just a few words on the list have more than one syllable: anal, anus, homo, Paki, and, arguably, jism.

The profane words are but a speck in a sea of monosyllables. They tend to be built in a particular way. English allows many different types of syllable. Every syllable has a vowel at its core.

For some syllables, the vowel is both the beginning and the end the alpha and the omega, as it were , as in words like a, I, and uh.