Comments on: The Benefits of Swearing

By: K Q Smith

K Q Smith — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 16:35:31 +0000

How disappointing that the issue of manners did not arise. Swearing is like pooping on the kitchen table: one isn’t stupid because he pooped, but surely inconsiderate for putting it there.

By: n2y2

n2y2 — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 05:56:27 +0000

Dana,

I just want to say again that I admire your ability to be concise and lucent. Verbose and ambiguous is my talent.

By: n2y2

n2y2 — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 05:31:23 +0000

Blake, it’s pity that you are leaving now, just when this is beginning to turn into a proper discussion. And, I thought I had made it clear that I am not interested in ‘winning’ – whatever that means.

I am looking for an exchange where we both come away understanding each other’s point of view and hopefully learning something along the way. Did you know that Justices Ginsburg and Scalia are friends? They have taken vacations together. Yet they nearly always vote on opposite sides of decisions.

Since this may be the last post we trade, I want to offer you a bit of friendly advice (I DO intend for it to be friendly). Never call yourself “highly intelligent”, even if it happens to be true. Usually the people who do so are either pompous or fools. Have you ever met a dumb person that thought that they were? How many stupid individuals do you encounter that claim to be smart? Conversely, many wise people downplay their own abilities. e.g. “It’s not that I’m so smart, it’s just that I stay with problems longer.” ~Albert Einstein. I find it best all around to let others form their own opinion of my intellect.

By: Dana

Dana — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 05:28:32 +0000

Fair enough, I mention it not so much because I think it’s a feasible study (although it would be hilarious) but more to clarify the specific type of swearing that has a tendency (for me personally) to lead me to wonder about a persons mental aptitude. I mean, I’m all for swearing to add emphasis and expression, but when it is used to the point where normal words simply disappear, it can definitely stunt communication. Just like anything else, without use, atrophy sets in. Period.

By: n2y2

n2y2 — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 05:04:25 +0000

Dana, I had not thought it out to that level of minutia, but you make a fair point. The difficulty would be to teach the test group the proper style of cursing. (I laugh to myself think of a white coated post-doc instructing a class on proper swearing techniques. Also, humorous to think of the participants tracking that use: “Honey, would you say that my *#$%@#$ profanity outbursts are more interjection or *@#&%#-tion based?”)

Another challenge I thought up, but did not state (because my posts are too long anyway) is how to fool the participants. If the subjects know what is being tested, they may affect the results – consciously or unintentionally. In the best studies the volunteers think the testing has a different purpose.

If I were to actually do this experiment, I would start with the broader definition of ‘any cursing’. Then if the results showed any statistical significance, I could follow that up with the more nuanced definition that you proposed. After all, researchers are always looking for the next study/grant.

By: Blake

Blake — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 04:09:39 +0000

Very well. My support in repartée of dispute to your opinion and theory:

I am a highly intelligent person, and know a number of other very intelligent people from a number of backgrounds and cultures. These people swear frequently, and in some cases interjecting swear-words as nouns, verbs and adjectives in the sentence; and yet despite this fact, they still all maintain not just a higher-functioning ability to use our language correctly and impressively, but work with me in a position that requires it at our workplace.

Ergo, the total use of poor language in sentences does not appear to diminish their ability to use our own language effectively and to full use.

I believe, now, that I have spent already too much time with this tab open and I believe this will be the last I say on the matter. Treat my lack of willingness to waste any more of my days off responding as a win by default if it makes you feel good about yourself.

By: Dana

Dana — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 02:03:32 +0000

. . . n2y2, I know your post is simply intended to make a point and offer a simple procedure for testing the hypothesis (and that you were not describing a detailed, actual clinical trial) but I do think it may be beneficial to make one small distinction in the methodology.
(Feel free to tell me if we’re diverging in our thought processes here, this is just my opinion) I think it should be specifically mentioned that the curse words be used to REPLACE words/ideas in a sentence, and not merely as interjections or in order to add emphasis. – In other words “****! what the **** is this ****ing **** ****?!” may inflict more damage than “****! I can’t believe this *****ing traffic!” — just a thought!

By: n2y2

n2y2 — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 00:26:55 +0000

All of the examples you provided in paragraph two are testable hypotheses; in fact many of them probably have been. Take excessive swearing. There could be a clinical trial where a group of test subjects, who are not habitual swearers, are given a base-line intelligence test. The control group is asked to maintain their speech patterns. The test group is instructed to inject imprecations into their language as often as possible; multiple times per sentence is preferred. After 12 months of this, the subjects are re-tested and the results are tabulated. If you have the time and money, feel free to borrow my idea to conduct the experiment.

I am not trying to *prove* anything? I have been demonstrating my point. That involves expressing opinions that I have formed through my experience in life.

I have proven nothing and you don’t need to either. Just support you point with a bit of rhetoric that demonstrates your stance.

Any debate (even one that cites empirical evidence) is a difference of OPINION. So express and support yours. I am begging here. I could make a much better argument against than anyone has expressed here.

Am I winning you over? You say, “…my judicious use of the colourful language…” I am talking to the extreme use of foul language. If you are presenting the judicial use of it, you have scored an own-goal.

Your last paragraph does not apply to this discussion and you seem to be confusing the word empirical with incontrovertible. By strict definition, I have provided empirical evidence (based on observation, capable of being proven or refuted, etc.)

So, please, provide a counter example to my cookie example or the tool analogy. Make up your own. Anything.

By: Blake

Blake — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 02:34:14 +0000

n2y2, you are asking me to prove that regular swearing does not diminish a person’s intellect or their use of the English language, and you know full well that proving such a thing is not within my ability – and yet I note that you have yet to provide empirical evidence that it does as such a thing is also not within your own ability.

Until you can provide this evidence, your own opinion remains simply cast into the realm of personal, unfounded opinion. Trying to prove that swearing regularly diminishes the intellect is like trying to prove that eating regularly diminishes your fitness, or that being insulted regularly diminishes your esteem – in this example, you would be asking me to prove that eating regularly does not diminish fitness, and being insulted regularly does not diminish fitness.

The only argument you are able to provide is personal opinion. The evidence I bring to the table is that I am a very intelligent person, and I swear regularly, and this fact has neither diminished my intelligence nor my judicious use of the colourful language we have. In fact, I maintain a word-a-day community to bring many words back into common knowledge.

Applying the simple rule of entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem to the situation, when faced with the idea that something does or does not, when there is no clear ‘a’ versus ‘b,’ or empirical evidence to support the ‘does,’ then the clear result is ‘does not.’

By: n2y2

n2y2 — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 22:20:57 +0000

Blake,

You appear to be painting all of my posts with the same passive-aggressive brush. Your comments are fair when applied to the end of my comments toward Luis, but do not reflect the beginning of the conversation. I think my contributions have followed a progression.

I consider my first two to be neutral/explanatory – no subtext. By my third post, I had grown tired of being attacked personally and decided to send a few volleys back. I think I was merely being nuanced, but I suppose passive-aggressive would be a fair description.

I had hoped that my 6th volley, the one just before you joined the conversation, would be interpreted as openly hostile – the way Luis had been from his first retort.

Forgive me if you felt I was swing at you. By that time, I already had my riot gear on. However, your awe-shucks-I’m-just-not-that-smart tone in that post is a bit passive-aggressive, No?

Now on to your last point: You say that you cannot provide a counter argument because you cannot prove a negative. I do not see it that way. I have not asked anyone to prove that the Lock Ness Monster does not exit. Let’s pretend this had been a debate about whether Spam makes you fat. I would take one side, you might take the opposite and we both support our statements.

This is not different. I have said that excessive swearing can diminish a person’s mind. Not on moral grounds, or because of any taboo, but because of mental laziness (as Dana put it so well.) I have supported that with example, analogy and fact. I still have some unstated supporting arguments ready if someone wants to actually debate and not bicker.

The opposing opinion would go – “Excessive swearing has a neutral effect on the human intellect because…” There is no negative to prove there.

We don’t even need to agree, we both say our peace and then part as friends.