As the saying goes, sticks and stones may break our bones, but words can still totally hurt us. And the words we use say quite a lot about us, especially the dirty ones. “Profanity is a gold mine,” writes Benjamin K. Bergen, a professor of cognitive science at the University of California. They’re the most potent, because they have a “direct line to the emotions.” We can use them to inflict pain or make discomfort more tolerable, express frustration or abuse, feel excitement and even enhance sexual arousal. These words elicit the strongest emotions in the English language, “the fastest pulse, the sweatiest palms, the shallowest breathing.” So what does that say about us?
1.While historical religiosity is the best predictor of whether language will have a system of profanity, the second best marker is language relating to sex and sexual acts, the third being bodily functions and, finally, slurs. Across the world, profane language tends to come from at least one of these four domains.
2.Damage to language-supporting brain regions doesn’t impair all language equally. In fact, frequently, even when brain damage reduces most language, people can still swear. And people with brain damage swear a lot, for obvious reasons, meaning the automatic, reflexive swearing that bursts out of us when we stub a toe or drop something uses different parts of the brain than the rest of language.
3.Dirty words don’t have to be spoken — they can be expressed in gestures. Take, for example, the most iconic: The Finger. The earliest record of it dates back to ancient Greece in playwright Aristophanes’s 419 BC play The Clouds, in which Strepsiades gives Socrates, well, The Finger, before wagging his penis at him. Back then, it was called the digitus impudicis, a.k.a. the “indecent finger.” Rumour has it, the emperor Caligula belittled his subjects by making them kiss his middle finger rather than his hand.
4.When words become profane, it’s a social change based on cultural beliefs, norms and expectations. What’s acceptable in one place at one time may not be in another. The name “Richard” was most popular in the ‘20s and ‘30s, but by the ‘60s, it began to phase out; no more Dicks. Just as you can no longer say “nice pussy” and hope everyone knows you’re referring to a cat. Those in close geography and similar social demographics tend to disseminate the same language between them (ex. the relatively recent spread of “MILF” throughout fraternities).
5.Kids swear, too, with their knack for picking up on what their parents, teachers and peers say, and four-letter words aren’t too tough to grasp as a toddler. But even so, it’s the low-key swears that float their boat: “oh my god,” if you consider that a swear, is the most common profane expression used by girls aged one through 12, while “shit” is the most common for boys in the same age range.