Thursday, July 16, 2009

More swearing

In case you're interested in why swearing helps reduce pain, this article in TIME has some interesting suggestions.

The one message I got from the article was not to overuse strong words or you blunt their usefulness. Damn.

14 COMMENTS:

writtenwyrdd said...

Damn and damn again! Nope, didn't slow the pain of having to swear less to make it more useful!

I have a filthy mouth, worse than a sailor. The guys I work with don't swear as much as I do.

writtenwyrdd said...

Oh, I should add that I get pissed at them if they use "witch" instead of "bitch" because it's a religious term. How's that for being a bit hypocritcal, considering how often I take their god's name in vain?

fairyhedgehog said...

We all seem to have different tolerances, don't we?

I've just been watching Torchwood, which being very British uses "bloody hell" a lot. I have no idea how that comes across to an American audience. To me it just seems very natural and fairly mild. They had a parental advisory though, and that was the strongest language in it.

Robin B. said...

Ah.

THAT explains it, then - why I never felt/noticed the pain blunting thing.

Scott from Oregon said...

From my travels it has been my experience that weak and feeble men and women swear the most.

Someone should study why?

The big dudes just sort of let stuff roll...

JaneyV said...

I must be very weak and feeble because I use any words necessary. There are one are two I don't use but strangely it's not because I find them offensive - it's because I don't like how they sound. Obviously the musicality (to borrow a term) of swearing is far more important to me than the meaning.

fairyhedgehog said...

Robin: That's probably my problem too. Although I mostly use the very British "bugger" and "sod" for everyday use. I try to reserve the stronger words for when I really need them but I don't always manage it. Counselling training and watching two sons go through the teenage years have given me a very high tolerance for strong language.

Scott: That's interesting. I wonder if it's a cultural thing, because my experience has been that builders are the ones who use the strongest language without even thinking about it. When I worked in a school I had to moderate my language excessively: not even the odd "damn" and certainly not a "bugger".

Jane: the musicality of swearing is a wonderful phrase. You need to copyright it!

Ms Scarlet said...

I do save the strongest profanities for special occasions. Works a treat... and for some reason, people often start laughing?!
Sx

fairyhedgehog said...

Scarlet-Blue: Yes, special occasions like weddings and christenings are just right for bringing out that expletive you've been saving up. I wonder why people laugh.

Bevie said...

Spontaneous physical pain doesn't usually induce swearing on my part. (I guess I'm one of the 'big dudes' Scott mentioned.) I generally make phonetic sounds which aren't real words - in my native language anyway.

However, that being said, strong emotional build up can trigger more forceful words than "deity curse", "poop", or "coitus".

Hope I'm not being offensive?

Bevie said...

Oh. Had to give this an "oh dear" due to subject matter.

fairyhedgehog said...

Bevie: you're going to have to try much harder than that if you want to be offensive!

Lisa said...

Cursing in another language doesn't count :). Bugger is among my favorite! Is bloody hell even cursing - soft cursing.
I think the key ingredient is to release the stress. belting out a string of vulgaritirss seems to me more like an inability to rational express feelings.

fairyhedgehog said...

Lisa: it's odd how foreign swear words just don't pack the same punch.

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