5 ms·
What the F? What swearing reveals about language and ourselves
- intrasight 10y agoWhat the F#
- JetSpiegel 10y agoObligatory Brainfuck mention
- labster 10y agoThis comment is licensed under the WTFPL.
- greglindahl 10y agoWhen blekko was purchased by IBM Watson, I was amused that IBM's list of allowed licenses for the "blue wash" of our code included WTFPL.
- Mz 10y agoThis is actually a really awesome article, though poorly titled for the HN crowd. It is about brain research in brain injured individuals and how that impacts use of language: Studies from people with different types of aphasia have delineated different brain regions that regulate different aspects of communication. Wernicke’s area is like a dictionary: it helps us to understand the meanings of the words we hear and to choose the words we want to use in a particular context. People with damage to this area can’t understand language, yet they can pronounce words and assemble sentences—it’s just that the sentences they come up with don’t make any sense. Broca’s area is in charge of producing sounds; people with damage to this area have trouble articulating words and sentences. But both Wernicke’s aphasics and Broca’s aphasics, and even global aphasics, can swear. These swear words are coming from somewhere else in the brain, not the parts known to be responsible for generating the rest of language.
- hyperpallium 10y agoSo, if coming from a more primitive part of the brain, possibly pre-linguistic animal sounds are cussing.
- Mz 10y agoMy ex husband didn't cuss -- at least, not until I stupidly corrupted him (I have a terrible potty mouth and it's a long story). We knew this was completely sincere and not some sort of affectation because when our oldest son accidentally stepped on his dad's junk once when his dad was in a dead sleep on the living room floor, he woke up making cartoon sweary noise (a la "rassum frassum mrrrfff").
- timdeneau 10y agoPerhaps this is partly why it’s so hard to stop cursing. I curse like a sailor, even though I'm consciously aware that it’s an unhelpful, unprofessional, unarticulated form of communication.
- fernandotakai 10y agoone interesting thing: i don't swear that much in my native language. i find... cringy. now, whenever i speak/write english, i swear like a sailor. feels more natural to curse in english.
- rando444 10y agoI can't help but wonder if this is because of how english swear words get adapted into other languages. It's not uncommon to hear variations of english swear words in my language.. even printed in the newspaper or children's books.. nobody thinks twice about it.. but our native swear words take on a different tone and meaning altogether. Maybe this could contribute to why it's easier to swear in english? (the words not holding the same type of gravity/meaning)
- posterboy 10y agoIt's not just the adaption, but also the isolation from the context.
- seszett 10y agoSwearing (especially putain) is punctuation in French, I don't even notice when I'm saying it. Swear words don't come naturally to me in English though, so they don't get an occasion to be said at all.
- vacri 10y agoIt's unprofessional, but not unhelpful or unarticulated. A close friend of mine and her mother are both linguists, both professionals (one a speech pathologist, one an editor), both highly articulate and highly educated. They both swear a lot, except in professional settings. They love words, and the speech path in particular loves shakespeare, poetry, and constantly has a book in her hand (these days, more an e-book). Swearing is only unarticulate if you saturate your speech with it. As for the unprofessional part, that's got its edge-cases as well. I used to work in support for an agricultural telemetry company, and the primary clients were farmers. They'd call up with a problem, and usually they'd swear as part of their normal speech. I found that if I wasn't responding in kind, it would sometimes make the client self-conscious and make the trouble-shooting harder. So, torn between being professional and being pragmatic, my solution was to swear one 'step' less than the client. If they said 'shit', I didn't swear at all. If they were saying 'fuck', I would go as far as 'shit'. If they were saying 'cunt', I'd go to 'fuck'. It worked quite well, and removed a barrier to building that rapport need to work support efficiently.
- peter303 10y agoHarvard psychology prof Steven Pinker has an interesting demo of this in one of his stump lectures on language an emotion. He recites fifty English swear words in raid succession. By the end of that minute the audience is cringing. Who could think a distinguished Harvard professor could go potty mouth like that? Pinkers point is that swearing is processed by an alternative language system deeply tied to emotion and can override normal language emotion. P.S. Pinker has several video lectures on his website and one of them might have this demonstration.
- pm90 10y agohttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1BcdY_wSklo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1BcdY_wSklo
- uwu 10y agois there a full version available somewhere?
- posterboy 10y ago$#!7, the description !@$%& says Full talk available at http://www.thesciencenetwork.org http://www.thesciencenetwork.org haven't looked that up though.
- posterboy 10y agoThe link doesn't contain the fifty English swear words in rapid succession, but I found interesting at which words he seems to fumble himself, eg. death and nigger (there, I said it), but that might just be observation bias. Still, he seems to have missed to list death as a principle category.
- sir_kin 10y agoWeirdly enough, when he was demonstrating the Stroop test, I had absolutely no slowdown for cuss words; maybe 3x faster than when the text named a different color.
- psyc 10y agoAll swearing reveals to me is that you're inarticulate, vulgar, don't respect others, and are probably of low birth. Hahaha, JK. I love swearing and most of my favorite people swear a lot.
- LulzSect 10y agoWhat a FUCKING LOAD OF FAGGOT BULLSHIT!
- gumby 10y agoSpeaking of "fuck" I read a paper in the 80s (unfortunstally I've lost it -- it was back when papers were, well, printed on paper) that analyzed why you can say "fan-fucking-tastic: but not "fantas-fucking-tick". I wish I could find it again -- I'd surely understand it better now.
- Slickarango 10y agoExpletives are the only infixes in english! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expletive_infixation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expletive_infixation
- WalterBright 10y agoShibit!
- contingencies 10y agoThree days ago I was scanning Unicode (looking for useful characters for a roguelike, as one does), came across the metrical triseme (⏗), tetraseme (⏘) and pentraseme (⏙) in the Miscellaneous Symbols section, and added them to wikipedia. As far as I could ascertain, these are used to indicate scansion - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scansion#Other_symbols https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scansion#Other_symbols - which is apparently primarily a term used to describe rhythm and meter in a poetic context. However, the Expletive infixation page uses the alternate term prosody in perhaps more of a formal linguistic sense. PS: prosody & scansion. Certainly on the cryptic crossword one of these decades...
- nercht12 10y agoMakes me wonder what would happen if English had a deprecation system like programming. "Prosody @deprecated - to be removed in 2017."
- Tarean 10y agoDidn't this happen for spellings in various ortography reforms? I think german had the largest one in recent years and iirc there was a deprecation period for old spellings. An English spelling reform would be a blessing but almost certainly isn't going to happen. And even if something would work it probably would lead to more fun akin to color-colour.
- ryanlm 10y agoI'm kind of surprised HN doesn't implement censorship of swear words. Also I worked at a company where Fuck was dropped all the time. I'm not sure why people think it's unprofessional.
- douche 10y agoOnly if it is a super simple clbuttic one will I support the idea.
- woliveirajr 10y agoI had a boss (in Brazil) whose last name was Fucks. She would had problems in USA...
- Tempest1981 10y agoHeavy profanity can make you sound like you are constantly angry, or it at least imparts some shock value, by design. It _seemed_ to also be a turnoff when dating (and interviewing?), limiting the field. Not 100% sure.
- dghughes 10y agodang must be having a stroke.
- Tempest1981 10y agoWhat is the appropriate age to begin using profanity? If I'm out at a restaurant with my "brogrammer" friends, and a mom with kids is at the next table, is swearing inconsiderate, or OK?
- gerbilly 10y ago>What is the appropriate age to begin using profanity? Any age, just don't let your parents hear you. It was a hilarious and harmless way to blow off steam when we were in kidergarten to swear like truckers. > If I'm out at a restaurant with my "brogrammer" friends, and a mom with kids is at the next table, is swearing inconsiderate, or OK? It's inconsiderate.
- crocal 10y agoMatlab had a f##k command. On the prompt, it returned "your place or mine"... Then, in V4, it returned "this command is obsolete". Then it was gone in V5.