Research shows that children start swearing by the age of six and we tend to swear about 0.5% to 0.7% of the time. That’s about one dozen curses each day, depending on whether you are a Harvard professor or a sailer. But why do we swear?
Our mothers and teachers keep repeating that we should only use the lecturers-friendly language. It doesn’t matter that in the meantime they are swearing like a trooper. And they won’t even help us. Sometimes swearing can be the only way to relieve pain.
While cursing we may not even use the same part of our brain as we do while speaking normally. While most language processing is located in the cortex and in the most complex left part of brain, swearing might be associated with a more rudimentary area of the brain.
Swearing allows us to express anger, disgust or pain. The level of intelligence and education doesn’t change anything. The comparison from the header is accurate only on averagely. You might see a scientist talking to a plumber and the first one will be cursing more. It happens less often because scientist usually have less stress in their lives, or spend too much time among plants.
Research suggests the amount of potential benefit you get from swearing depends on how taboo the curse word is to you. So if you use curses more often than commas, they will not help you. On the other hand, someone who will swear for the first time at the age of sixty, using a very taboo word, will release something about 40 kilotons of emotions.
Contrary to popular belief, swearing has been shown to be a form of politeness. Studies showed that people curse more often between friends than strangers. Any problem?