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I’ve received flak for the profanity in my writing. Once is a chance, twice is a coincidence, three is a pattern. Thus it’s time for some introspection. Do I curse too much?
The first time I used a “bad word” I was in primary school. I thought it sounded cool to put the word “d*mn” in front of my nouns; my teacher thought otherwise. The reaction the simple word elicited from him taught me one thing that day: some words can evoke an emotional reaction just by being.
The emotional reaction doesn’t just happen. A “bad word” is, after all, just another word. We are the ones who give it the connotation it carries. We gave it power. Because some people consider certain words to be “bad”, these words possess the power they have. And guess what? It’s a good thing.
For one, profanity increases your pain tolerance.
Richard Stephens, a senior psychology lecturer at Keele University in the UK, experimented on the analgesic benefits of swearing. He instructed students to submerge their hands in ice water and hold on for as long as they could bear. First, they were to use a “bad word” of their choice, followed by a neutral word. Stephens found that when they cursed, they were able to tolerate the pain better, lasting up to 50% longer.
Stephens concluded that the emotional reaction from swearing puts your body into a flight-or-fight response. The cruder the language, the greater the relief.
Similarly, in another study by Stephens, participants were put through bicycle and hand-grip exercises. As they pedalled against resistance and squeezed a hand dynamometer, it was observed that swearing improved athletic performance.
Useful as those two perks of swearing are, honing my swearing skills has done me another solid. It has helped my career.
I’m an airline pilot. The nature of commercial cockpit work entails two people cooperating to achieve a safe and efficient flight. This is why there is a great emphasis on CRM (crew resource management) — how well the two pilots work together can make or break a flight.
This circumstance put me, an introvert, under the pressure of building rapport with a fellow pilot who might be a stranger. It was a while into my career before I discovered a hack: nothing breaks the ice like a carefully placed “bad word”.
Emma Byrne, the author of Swearing Is Good for You has a point when she says that those who feel safe enough to exchange swear words tend to report that they trust each other more. In other words, a skillfully uttered “bad word” is a way to foster ties.
But it takes more than rattling off a series of F-words to achieve this sweet spot. You have to shock them enough to get a chuckle, but not too much that they get offended. The message you deliver when you curse the right way in front of a person is “I understand your limits, hence I understand you.”
Using the right amount of bad words in front of the right people is an art.
Writer Monica Corcoran Herel wrote for Elle that chain-swearing is like over-accessorising. Stop at some tasteful earrings or a fun hat. Don’t drench yourself with gold ornaments from head to toe, or as my late mother would say, “Turn yourself into a Christmas tree.”
Curse with “originality, elegance, and authority”. Each “bad word” should be well-placed, well-timed, and well-delivered.
Another reason to be strategic is that excessive cursing reduces its catharsis effect. In (yet another) study in 2011, Stephen learned that those who curse too much do not benefit from the same pain relief. The emotional effect weakens with repetitive use.
Timely and succinct. Got it. It’s a work in progress for me. It’s so bl*ody, g*dd*mn hard to get it right.
Chow Ping Lee is a content writer under Headliner by Newswav, a programme where content creators get to tell their unique stories through articles and at the same time monetize their content within the Newswav app.
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