Does ‘effing and blinding’ more make you less of an intellect?

 

The statement swearing is a sign of limited intelligence gets tossed about here and there but lacks any scientific evidence or reason to be considered correct.

However, there IS scientific evidence as to why swearing makes you MORE intelligent, so keep up with all the taboo language and you’ll be as smart as Einstein in no time! (Unfortunately, I’m joking, please don’t actually go around ‘effing’ in peoples faces for the magic that is Einstein’s brain…)

Swearing is actually more complex than you think and can be used in several ways, it isn’t just the braindead language of the illiterate. In fact, swearing is used for linguistic effect, to demonstrate emotion, for a good laugh and even to be purposefully nasty or mean to someone else.

Psychologists actually find quite fascinating and there was a study conducted by psychologists from the Marist College to see if there were any links between how fluent the subjects were in English Language and how fluent they were in swearing. The first test was the verbal fluency test, which conducted of subjects having to name as many words as they can beginning with every letter of the alphabet for one minute each time. The second test conducted was the swearing fluency test in which subjects simply had to name as many swear words as they can in one minute. Ironically, all those who did better in the verbal fluency test did better in the swearing fluency test as well.

Swearing also has some practical uses too, such as pain relief. Another scientific experiment was conducted where subjects had to put their hand in freezing cold water and tolerate for as long as they could while repeating a certain neutral word, and then try it whilst repeating a certain swear word. The results concluded that those repeating the swear word had a higher pain tolerance than those who didn’t.

Taboo language is also seen differently in other cultures, so our perception of the word ‘f*ck’ may be different in other countries. For example, in the Netherlands, they completely accept pretty much all swear words and don’t get offended. But using words meaning poor health as an insult (such as ‘that’s cancer’) is very frowned upon. Another example of this is blasphemy, using the lords name in vain is considered worse than ‘f*ck’ too. Which proves we shouldn’t put certain words on a pedestal and link them with being unintelligent as other cultures find certain words more offensive than others and some of those words aren’t even considered swearing in English.

I do agree however that excessive swearing can be quite annoying sometimes, especially when the person swearing doesn’t even try to mix up their own vocabulary from time to time. This is clearly where the stigma came from and maybe there are a lot of unintellectual people who overly swear, but the vast majority are people who just want to crack a rude joke or express frustration, anger or pain.

Overall, swearing can be used in many different ways such as linguistic, effect, emotion or even for jokes, swearing has also been proven to quite the tool for a higher pain tolerance and other cultures have words that are considered worse than the most frowned upon swear words like blasphemy.