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What the F? What swearing reveals about language and ourselves

arstechnica.com

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Re: What the F? What swearing reveals about language and ourselves

#21

Post by vacri »

timdeneau wrote: post #4

Perhaps 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.

It'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.

Re: What the F? What swearing reveals about language and ourselves

#22

Post by gumby »

Speaking 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.

Re: What the F? What swearing reveals about language and ourselves

#23

Post by Slickarango »

gumby wrote: post #22

Speaking 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.

Expletives are the only infixes in english!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expletive_infixation

Re: What the F? What swearing reveals about language and ourselves

#24

Post by hinkley »

timdeneau wrote: post #4

Perhaps 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.

I discovered cussing late in life due to my upbringing, and I've been making up for lost time ever since.

As someone once eloquently put it, trying to negotiate a compromise or agreement with someone without signalling that strong emotions are involved is a form of self censorship that is self-destructive. If the person you're talking to doesn't know how you feel about something why would they ever honor your concerns?

At about the same time I read this I was trying to reject the notion that there are magic words that can force other people into an emotional state. Why do we let other people control how we feel? That's bullshit. I am my own person and unless we're discussing a matter of public policy (you are denigrating an entire group of people on purpose or through carelessness), if what you say upsets me then that's my baggage, not yours. It would be nice if you were sympathetic, but that power dynamic needs to be broken, and pretending it doesn't exist by censoring yourself makes you an Enabler, in the language of Codependency.

It took me another ten years to realize that I still get emotionally hooked on other people's mostly innocuous word use. It's the basis of marketing and persuasive speaking, and in many ways the person swearing is being far, far more up front and honest with you about what they're trying to do to your head.

Re: What the F? What swearing reveals about language and ourselves

#25

Post by afterburner »

gumby wrote: post #22

Speaking 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.

Is it because 'tick' is a word? Or because it's nicer to have 1-2-2 syllables rather than 2-2-1? Or because 'tic' is the least stressed syllable in the word 'fantastic'? And the middle syllable is the most stressed, so preceding it with 'fucking' feels nicer?

Re: What the F? What swearing reveals about language and ourselves

#26

Post by greglindahl »

labster wrote: post #12
JetSpiegel wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obligatory Brainfuck mention

This comment is licensed under the WTFPL.

When 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.

Re: What the F? What swearing reveals about language and ourselves

#27

Post by Tiksi »

sir_kin wrote: post #20
pm90 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1BcdY_wSklo

Weirdly 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.

Agreed, I could name the colors for the swears as fast as the initial one where the word was the same as the color it was printed in.

Also there's a trick to doing the Stroop test where the colors don't match. Look just above the word and slightly out of focus, that way you're just naming the color of the blob instead of fighting yourself to read it.

Re: What the F? What swearing reveals about language and ourselves

#29

Post by douche »

ryanlm wrote: post #28

I'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.

Only if it is a super simple clbuttic one will I support the idea.

Re: What the F? What swearing reveals about language and ourselves

#30

Post by psyc »

peter303 wrote: post #6

Harvard 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 c…

Language strongly associated with violence, threats, and insults isn't part of the normal language system?
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