The Case for Cursing

The New York Times:

You know when you stub your toe and involuntarily utter an expletive? You probably didn’t give it much thought, but you might have been on to something.

As children we’re taught that cursing, even when we’re in pain, is inappropriate, betrays a limited vocabulary or is somehow low class in that ambiguous way many cultural lessons suggest. But profanity serves a physiological, emotional and social purpose — and it’s effective only because it’s inappropriate.

“The paradox is that it’s that very act of suppression of the language that creates those same taboos for the next generation,” said Benjamin K. Bergen, author of “What the F: What Swearing Reveals About Our Language, Our Brains and Ourselves.” He calls this the “profanity paradox.”

…

“There must be evolutionary advantages to cursing, or we would not have evolved to do it,” said Timothy Jay, an emeritus professor at the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts who has written extensively about profanity. “We can express our emotions, especially anger and frustration, towards others symbolically not through tooth and nail. Cursing is coping, or venting, and it helps us deal with stress.”

Read the whole story: The New York Times