No need to wash your mouth out with soap — while cursing is still frowned on in polite company, cognitive researchers have found that it’s a sign of having a more robust vocabulary.
Small children are like parrots — they absorb mannerisms and new words rapidly, especially if you happen to let slip a curse word. They’ll repeat that one at day care, in the grocery store checkout line, at bedtime, at grandma’s house — everywhere. While tiny voices with big curses are kind of cute, we try to teach our children that cursing is wrong. But why is that?
There’s a school of thought in linguistics called the poverty of vocabulary (POV) hypothesis. The assumption is that if a
person is lacking in their vocabulary, they might fill in with curse words. This perspective has led people to view cursing as a sign of poor education, bad manners, or even being lower on the socio-economic ladder. However, recent linguistic research has shown that the exact opposite might be true. Cognitive scientists tested a theory that greater fluency with curse words might be a sign of general verbal fluency by pairing a standard word association test with a taboo word fluency test. They found, across three studies, that those with higher general fluency scores also had higher taboo word scores.
This is perhaps no surprise to the well-spoken vulgarians, but the studies show that those with colorful cursing skills are likely exceptionally eloquent communicators across the board (just watch a George Carlin routine). Additional research shows that swearing can boost pain tolerance, make people more emotionally resilient, and be a signal for positive personality traits such as honesty and directness. Of course, judging the appropriate time and place for verbal bombs is a part of cursing skills, but perhaps we shouldn’t be so hard on those with more color in their lexicon.
Media Release/Jennifer A. Freeman/Word Smarts
