The Psychology of Swearing

The recent brouhaha over a presidential candidate who allegedly recited expletives about the Pope spawns several moralistic questions. However, not only these questions are grounded on the moral and religious but also on the political and psychological. From the varying points of view of the religious, the politician, the linguist, the historian and the psychologist, one can only heave a sigh of a curse word or two. But, why do people swear?

Maledictology, a branch of Psychology that deals with cursing and blustering, assumes that these verbal activities are only part of human life which serves as a reflexive self-defense of people to prevent harmful confrontations. In another standpoint, swearing is believed to be one effective but underappreciated technique in anger management. Researchers found out that swearing, in fact, has the capability to reduce the effects of physical pain and advised people experiencing pain to swear. However, it was also noted that the overuse of such tends to lessen its mitigating effects. While cursing is associated with negative emotions such as sadness and anger, most psychologists consider this a powerful coping mechanism for people.

Language experts deem swearing as uttering words that are socially or culturally unacceptable. There’s a slippery slope, however, to this definition since words always take on new meanings. Arbitrariness: What may be offensive in the past may now be most welcome for some people in certain societies as time progressed. Would you think that words such as tea bag, blue waffle, nice boots, snow ball, baby arm and white boy are profanities? In the 16th century, meanwhile, the word ‘occupy’ used to refer to an act of sexual penetration. While reading this, which room do you actually occupy?

History tells that the Romans were comfortable in saying the four-letter words f—k and s—t that they gave us the model for saying it when and how. Early forms of vulgarity included not only sexual braggadocio and blasphemy towards something or someone sacred but also references to the human body and its functions. Through time, racial slurs and ethnic epithets became part of the canonized curse word list.

In the digital space and time, however, experts noted the rapid rise and fall of profanities. Video-recording oneself mincing oaths and expressing expletives has become so commonplace via the Internet that it already produced a weakened effect of anything taboo. Researchers, moreover, revealed that kids often learned to swear before mastering the alphabet and that the middle-class people use less profanity than those in the higher end.

So what do all these tell us? What was presidential wannabe Rodrigo Duterte thinking when he cussed in public? Should we condone cursing?

There’s no doubt that most religions around the world, especially the Abrahamic family, despise foul language in any form. However, religious or not — anyone, irrefutably, does not just want to cuss without reason unless one is afflicted with Coprolalia or Tourette Syndrome. There must be some reasons why people say bad words.

Did Duterte swear intentionally to be able to relate to the average people on the street? Did he swear because he wanted to show he’s real and comfortable with what and who he is? Did he swear because he didn’t want to be hypocritical and pretentious? Whatever his reasons are, he already paid the price and is going to pay more in the future unless he can overcome this bad habit.

This is neither a defense for profanities nor an apologetics for Duterte. This is an attempt to provide a different perspective on a dreadful human habit. Yes, swearing in any form and degree is harmful. But what can the government, church, school and family do to diminish or totally eliminate this? This is the bigger question that most of us just want to swear about than answer.