Swearing Is Good For You

SWEARING IS GOOD FOR YOU: THE AMAZING SCIENCE OF BAD LANGUAGE
By Emma Byrne

You might expect a book on the science of swearing to take a lot of the fun out of the subject. Talking about taboo language is sort of like explaining a joke; subjecting the f-bomb to critical analysis defuses its impact.

Nevertheless, given how significant a role swearing plays in our lives it deserves a closer, clinical look. And Dr. Emma Byrne, a scientist and a journalist who has done research in the field, is well qualified to be our guide.

For Byrne, swearing isn’t just vulgar invective and angry ejaculations but a use of language that is “intelligent and powerful” as well as socially and psychologically essential. A “complex social signal that is laden with emotional and cultural significance,” swearing has meaning and utility in many surprising ways that go beyond the merely communicative.

For example, studies have shown that swearing can have an analgesic effect, so that we experience less pain when indulging in some expletives. And in the workplace swearing can become something like a tribal language, leading to increased social bonding.

In informal and off-colour prose Byrne looks at the science of swearing from the different angles research has taken. There’s a chapter on the structure of the brain and swearing, one on swearing and pain, on why a discussion of Tourette’s syndrome doesn’t really belong in such a book (though this is one of the longest chapters), on gender and swearing, workplace swearing, primate swearing, and swearing in different culture and languages.

Along the way we learn many interesting factoids. For example, by consulting a language database that’s charmingly known as the Lancaster Corpus of Abuse we can see that women’s use of the f-bomb has increased greatly in the last few decades while men’s use of the same has actually gone down, at least in Britain. Byrne views this as progress: “If women and men want to communicate as equals, we need to be equals in the ways in which we are allowed to express ourselves.”

It’s in ways like this that swearing continues to evolve. But despite its ever-changing vocabulary and levels of acceptance it’s safe to say that in one form or another it will always be with us just because it’s so useful. And, yes, good for us too.

Notes:
Review first published in the Toronto Star November 24, 2017.