Every language has its taboo words (which many people use all the time). But the list of forbidden words is always changing — and those changes tell us some surprising things about ourselves. Note: The swear words in this episode have been bleeped out. To hear a version of this episode without the bleeps, go to freakonomics.com.
This is an unofficial transcript meant for reference. Accuracy is not guaranteed.
This podcast dynamically inserts audio advertisements of varying lengths for each download.
As a result, the transcription time indexes may be inaccurate.
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peter stephen dubner. This episode of freakonomics radio is about swearing,
Therefore, it contains a lot of swearing.
As is our custom. We ve bleak these where words out, so this episode contains a lot of leaping. If you don't want to hear those curse words. Even bleat now is a good time to find a different episode of economics, radio to listen to poor,
Maybe you want to hear the curse words without the sleeping, in which case you should go too far.
Economics dot com, for you will find the
Bleat version of this episode, as always thanks for listening,
wait,
I've been using my phone a lot for dictation. I will dictate emails texts and occasionally a no,
to myself like when I think of a question. I want to ask in an interview for this show the other day. For instance, I dictated into my phone, something like
about the first time you did such as such, but the phone didn't run
my dictation is talk about. It said well since, when did that
This recognition on my phone start using the f word. It struck me that swearing whatever you want to call it
Andy blasphemy, curses
slurs expletive in vulgarity. It struck me there.
seems be more of it now than ever often in places you wouldn't expect. So today, on freakonomics radio is,
true that there's more swearing than ever, and if so, what does it mean? We will
you're a little history. These are like people.
And the kings revenue will learn
We don't know much about swearing, as you might think
you know that swearing researcher doing is not a good idea.
For ten year will find.
What these words are meant to accomplish swear where its have this very particular set of.
illogical and emotional effects,
I will ask the big question: should we all
me swearing even more
the
I'm happy
This is really
ex radio, the podcast, but explores the hidden side of everything. With your host
in dublin are, let's start
by hearing from a few of our listeners
page, how many kids they need to save those were
it's for when
Something really bad happens instead of saying I'm so f unhappy because of
when you have no language laughed to express
extreme
frustration or sadness or grief
Point mean myriads ass. My language was a conversation with a spanish boy who always dating. He told me that usually people that you swear words do so because they lack the vocabulary to express themselves better. I thought to myself
this mother tells me my english is poor. Needless to say,
we are no longer dating
in love cursing? I think it adds some
dear language. I think that
is awesome. I do have an eighteen month also
sometime soon. I'm gonna have to stop cursing, but for now
In my view, that was, respectively, kristen, olga and rebecca,
parent, let none of our male listeners of ever sworn, but we did find one man who swears mecca
My name is John MC water. I teach linguistics and some other things at columbia, university,
right, I'll call him for the new york times, and my most recent too
books were nine nasty words about profanity and
racism about race and cultural issues. So John, how would you summarize
role of cursing in language. One thing that it's important to realise with cursing and profanity is that it is in words
in the sense that ironing border yesterday or therefore are words pro
kennedy when you're talking about real profanity real cursing is irruptions. There's the left side, the brain where most people process language as in the boy kicked. The red ball
the right side of the brain is more
dionysian is more about the melody,
is more about the tone and therefore also where profanity is generated from profanity comes from,
such a different place. Emotionally then,
vanilla language to the point that it often doesn't
make any grammatical sense. If I say what the hell is that try parsing what
hell is in that sentence other than just a kind of a dog barked in here's. Another expert, with a slightly different perspective,
swearing is the use of a man
finally offensive language too
Van our emotions and convey
our emotions to other people? His knee
Is Timothy J
I may professor of psychology emeritus from me,
massachusetts college of liberal arts, would you call yourself
swearing scholar or is it to reductive. I've been called worse. I like to think of
myself is pioneering the psychological research on american cursing having written,
spoke on this and publish dozens of professional articles? Yes, I'm a scholar. What would you say, the chief
things that you ve learned about swearing. Then it
a normal behaviour. It's not abnormal. It's part of language, a freak,
competent speaker of a language knows what they're not supposed to say. One of the myths.
come up about control, although swears just can't control themselves
Why does J called this amidst the idea that swearing represents a loss of control? Well, this goes back,
to research from the early nineteen eighties, when J set out to document the use of swearing and other taboo words we recorded over ten thousand people swearing in public with different means
in public meeting places like schools and stores and at sporting events. I
cod dray of research, assistants- and we had these pre printed
field cards, they had categories.
the speaker, the listener, their age is what was said and
was the emotional surround. Was this joking
it anger. We ve also use voice activated tape recorder.
and put them in various places. This recording and note taking was all done covertly without the subjects. Knowledge, but J also asked people directly about swearing. I've surveyed, hundreds thousands of students having them filled
surveys on how frequently these words are used and how offensive they are. When you
started this research. I'm curious how you're academic pier
and or elders responded negatively added dean. Pull me aside at a social
event I'm right out of college twenty six years old. I've got a wife and kid.
You know that swearing researcher doing is not a good idea for tenure, so I swear
gears for a while, and I became a guru of computer assisted instruction wow, that is
big gear switch.
Actually, I won the g stanley hall award for excellence in education by incorporating computers into psychology, and about the same time I got tenure
now you can do what you wanted to do. In the first place, yeah one of my bodies set TIM everybody's doing this computer stuff
nobody's doing the taboo word research. The first analysis I did. I had a nike sneaker box that was filled up with these cards. I said: ok, we gotta go through an endless, although this we wanted to document the whole arc of this. What hat
and in the pre school years, what happens in the school years? Sir,
May there are age differences? There are gender differences. You have
boys and girls, men and women. A modem with save anger or
aggression and their use.
indifferent language, you can make
of these agents,
gender related comparisons.
ok. Here are a few comparisons. First, gender men do curse
more often than women. They use a larger variety of swear words and more hard core swear words. This holds true for the internet era is well men and women both swear more when in the presence of their own gender and what about age dark is adolescence. Preschoolers
have the vocabulary that teenager stube by the time you're at twelve thirteen fourteen you ve got a pretty
Don't like vocabulary. What happens after
depends on the setting is this person?
a structured corporate setting or they working outside as a laborer. Are they plank sports? It becomes very,
textual ice after that. As to the why the purpose of
swearing and obviously diversion
and a person situation a situation, even I can think of a lot of different reason,
as you might be, angry you might be disgusted. You might be trying to elicit humor from someone else who might be trying to bond. You might be trying to show that you are your own person and I won't be bound by society's rules. If I ask you to
give the answer to the title of this one book of yours, why we curse? Why do we? How answerable is that question you just answered it?
still need just elaborated a lot of the reasons why people swear now we're
the only animal with emotional architecture in the eighth physiological, illogical.
can express our emotions abstractly with words. I regard this
an evolutionary leap that, instead of five
ding tooth and nail when were angry with someone weaken
say I hate you were a variety of other word, ok, and what about the common
leave. That swearing is more popular among the less educated, the lower classes. Then the upper Timothy J says that this too is somewhat mythical: the data that
been collected. Turning generate did this. In england, he collected phone conversations that are much more class oriented
to her than ours peace, able to see that yeah there's more.
swearing in the working class, but their swearing,
everywhere there swearing in every class, this class oriented view of swearing is snobbery its away too.
but the working person down to lower classes down J has seen.
Further evidence in his own research. We gave people a task, see other words. You can think of that begin. With the letter f sale,
words that begin with the letter a than you
give them a minute to do. That is a major fluency. Then I ask them
All right, namely the animals you can in a minute and then name all the swear words you can in a minute which, if you try to do this, you can get out about ten quickly. The p.
or who generated the most swear. Words were the people who generated the most, let her words and animals. It's the opposite of what people think people that
A high vocabulary are also have a high swearing vocabulary. There really doesn't make any sense there if you couldn't think of a
because it wasn't in your lexicon. You would say I swear word that doesn't make any sense, John.
Warder agrees that the class based swearing theory is bankrupt. Any notion that being a classy person is to not curse, has fallen completely apart. I would say:
that as a very bourgeois upper middle class person, who has no interest in shock
Can anybody nor my trying to take
down in order to indicate that, despite the fact that I'm not poor, I'm still down with everybody else, I say probably a dozen times a day and I think I'm ordinary for people of my- u no place and station. That was not true in nineteen
fifty, but that's the way it is now cursing is no longer about sailor.
And bar stools. Sir John, there is a sense that
there's more swearing today than in the past, I'm curious to know other. That's at all. True. There is definitely today in public language, more use of words that used to be considered,
blasphemous against god or blasphemous against the authorities that say that you're not supposed to talk about sex and excrete.
I mean the way language is used on a tv.
No, even like parks and recreation.
And then certainly in shows like the wire, that's new. That's public language
but then, on the other hand, I think a lot of it also has to do with the fact that those words just don't have the meaning that they used to. I asked Timothy J, the same question,
is there more swearing now than in the past. Unanswerable question.
Proceeding. My work there aren't collections of swearing.
So there's no way to tell history is written.
the literate you have no
oh idea what language was like in a tavern or a brothel and wait a minute. You just told us that swearing is not necessarily the province of the uneducated. So why wouldn't the literate swear as well censorship, the written documents at night
included the language except maybe chaucer, for he just having
Apples and those are frequency counts, that's also a certain kind of boy.
Cardenas more than defaming a deity, let's say yes,
remember having to read the miller's tail in high school and not understanding what I was reading about absalomed using the word
the q. U e n t e and there's my english teachers having us read this stuff out loud and I'm gonna like she could go home and laugh it off
The
whether the frequency of swearing is up or down over time. John MC warders
as we are currently living through the third major phase of swearing in human history. That's coming up after the break. Also, what does
wearing due to you. If you can
Someone of immediate your heart rate increases I'm stupid dominant. This is for economics, radio. We will be right back
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the? What have we learned so far about swearing? First, it's hard to know whether there's more of it today than before. It's even hard to know whether swearing is a normal, albeit heightened part of language, or not a regular part of language at all
to add one more complication swearing like all of language refuses.
it still here again is the columbia linguists john mcwhirter language.
Changes just like cloud patterns change its never not changed, and you just can't stop it since
language is always evolving. Swearing is always evolving as well
the neatest thing about the evolution of profanity is how differently people indifferent
feel about certain kinds of worth, and this brings us to what MC warder describes as the three major areas of swearing over the history of humankind. So it used to be that profanity
was about religion whose about god and Jesus you are allowed to swear to god. If you meant it, it was a form
signature in a society where most people couldn't write. So I swear it.
God that I will do ex wires or what you weren't supposed to do with sweat.
in vain, because that was the disrespect god and therefore you
euphemisms for by god, etc. When you weren't gonna,
We sincerely that's why we say swearing, it used to be the
actually worth swearing to something, and then it becomes shorthand for using bad words in what
Some of those euphemisms gad, dukes, bodkins e gad by george jeez.
Gee purse. Creepers g will occurs. Ok, so phase one of swearing had to do with
Listen? Then there comes a time around the rents,
when their develops a sense of privacy that wasn't
before and along with that sense of privacy and perhaps
the visual ism due to the reformation. You have this new sense that what's profane is talk.
to freely about the body and soul.
Sex and excretion goes from being a giggle to be
something that you absolutely don't put down in writing and that you don't use it
public in all of this gets worse with the development of bourgeois society and so that, when
get the idea that, And- and the like are
very, very bad words, rather than just mundane things that are part of being human being so that phase
ass for a while. It's not that the god word suddenly are okay. You have
two layers, but it certainly the case that throughout that time,
I am and have become less potent as profanity whilst an
become so unspeakable that as late as the Kennedy administration, there dictionaries being published and big ones. Where is not in it
then there's a new phase that were in where what
considered profane
slurring subordinate groups? That's why they're such a difference between
the way the end word was used in popular culture,
and as recently as the seventies, whence it gone, characters could within reason use it, especially if they were black and today, where
the utterance of the two syllables in any way is often thought of as a transgression of legitimate humanity? So we go from religion to the body
slurring against groups, and you can see that as this is no disrespect intended against religion. But it's
intellectual and moral development of our society,
we're going to be sacred about something. My personal feeling is that it's better for it to be about slurs against groups than about Jesus or your. But okay, let me ask you so you happen to be the
I happened to be here. Do you ever find yourself in writing? As you do quite a bit about
yes and racism in language. Do you ever find yourself having to signal overtly that you are black yeah? Sometimes
I'm running about language and especially
if I'm writing about the end word. Sometimes. I do feel like I have to slip it in because there are different tacit rule
As far as that words of as much as MC warders cares about contemporary language and as much as he knows and cares about language from the distant past you get the scent.
at his most tickled by the rules of language during the second of the three eras of swearing, when the words considered the most taboo had to do with the human body, for instance, food. Oh food is amazing
and you see it popping up in early middle english, not improved
but in names there were actually people too.
can seriously with name
like roger by the naval and henry beggar literally
and this is not in some funny poem. These are
people in the kings revenue and their work,
so called grove, and you know what that was for, but it was on a sign
wasn't something that people said among themselves and then there comes
time when you're not supposed to use the word that way, any more and there's all evidence that people were using it, but they weren't supposed to write it down.
If they did, they wrote it in code. The idea,
It is a profane word, but just started as a vulgar, but
common and accepted word for sexual intercourse. You write about a monk in fifteen. Twenty eight he's talking about an abbot, he calls him,
abbott. So that's meant to be just a general. I think he's an idiot kind of thing.
what you see on the page is oh, then, a space than d.
And then at it- and you think
what he's writing is old.
Abbott, and because it's an old document, somebody smudged out the el, but no
is no else smudged out what he's writing
oh and he's abbreviating, damned abbot, and so for him. You don't write damn because that's blasphemy, but then with
and he puts that in with this kind of beavis and butthead snicker. Let's hear some more about this middle era of swearing,
so there were a lot of names for plants and animals which I think are so funny you had a plant called tore. There was a hair in the
This word for heron with euro area, then wines that was a good one,
That's a wind finger was a bird kestrel but is melissa more
and I am a writer I gotta figure out,
to explain what I do. I maria my name is melissa. More now, I'm a writer more is the author of a book called wholly a brief history of swearing,
she had planned on being an academic and she got a phd
in medieval and renaissance english literature, but somehow she got sidetracked by swearing,
Yes, sir, when I was getting my ph d, I was
Reading a lot of medieval and renaissance tax, stubby say, as one does as one does, and I notice that this
ring was really different and the kinds of language that people were getting upset about was
in a religious in nature and the kinds of language that they weren't getting upset about were the things we do get upset about, and so I got interested in
How and why that transition happened. If you ve been paying attention
I notice that Melissa more is now talking about the same transition that John mc order was telling us about a new tab.
Boo onwards concerning sex and excretion. Now, why did this new
abu arise more things. It was driven
only by the new found personal privacy, but by the technologies that made such privacy increasingly possible. So you know the bedroom, actually it needed in innovation in fireplace technology. Before we go
in the because in those time of beowulf, you just had a big central fire pit and people slept in the hall.
Eight in the hall peed and decade in the hall. Under the straw I mean it was really. It was like a barn and eventually, twelve thirty,
century. You got better, fireplaces aristocrats could get bedrooms and it just took a law
long time before people had a sense of space that they could serve me enough. E private, original, even privies, weren't private you'd have Malta seat produce and just go in there together.
they actually solitude. Was it a sort of suspicious thing like what were you doing by yourself? It's like you and the devil, if you're, not with other people in her book more sites, a pamphlet written in fifteen thirty
the philosopher and theologian, and desirous erasmus advisor
young boys, that it is impolite to greece,
one who is urinating or deprecating court regulation,
from the same era. Said quote: one should not like rustics who have not been to court.
lived among refined and honourable people relieve one
health without shame or reserve in front of ladys ass people got wealthier, you could become solitary and it started to be. You know not such a bad thing
once you could be solitary, you could take care of your bodily functions in private. Meanwhile, there was a change in the practice of religious oath, taken what John MC warder described as I swear to god that I will do exe
why or z, Melissa more argues that the spread of trade and capitalism meant that this sort of oath, taking with no longer practical or necessary
seventeenth century? These owes we're just coming so thick and fast that you couldn't
No, it's like one. You swear, there's! No, no! You swear that and, as trades,
Bread and people became involved in more more transactions with people who they hadn't blown up with his people moved in commerce opened up what became
a guarantee of your honesty was not your swearing, but the fact that you continued to do business this decline in oath taking may have you been helped boost the
abu index of all those newly dirty words about the human body and then came the victorians. Yes,
the victorian era, was the sort of high point of power for the
seen words that are you know, based in body parts and actions, so trousers, for instance, with very taboo word, because
as I mean it sounds ridiculous, but it really was because of you,
them down. You were naked and they had come to reveal the shape of your leg and say you couldn't say trousers, and so there are all these crazy you from it,
comes for trousers people. Would you like?
et cetera, rose inexpressibles, it's easy to
Now from this distance at the notion of trousers being, it
Abu word among those long ago prudes, but we may be sure, laugh to quickly John mcwhirter, again people
Can the twenties and thirties thought that it was profane to say belly, he's talking about the nineteen twenties and thirties in
movie musical forty second street, there's a lyric where there is a reference to with a shot gun at his belly.
And then she changes it to tommy,
instead of saying belly, despite the fact that belly rhymes with nellie on the next line, you just kind of weren't supposed to say it coming up after the break
These days, while belly, in other words, have become accepted,
a long list of long accepted. Words is being challenged, there can say, wait, I'm stephen Dublin. This is reconfirm. Its radio will be right back
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When we swear. What are we trying to accomplish? Here's a clue.
In twenty seventeen, an international group of researchers ran a series of experiments to analyze the relationship between profanity and honesty. We found that people who swear
are perceived as more authentic, here, again
is John MC warder, part of becoming close to people, part of becoming part of a group,
is to be able to let your hair down is to show that you don't think you're better than other people and one of the best ways to do. That is to use salty
language? That is normal human behaviour in here,
Timothy J, on the various uses of swearing.
its humor, its bonding its defended
yourself. It's pudding, people down itself denigrate
in its storytelling J is written about swearing. Research that shows physiological benefits is
melissa, more is also a fan of this research. Well, yes, sir, it's basically
If you're swearing or hearings swear words, your skin conducted responds changes. So you know the way you're askin conducts electricity. There is a famous ice bucket challenge where you can stick your hand in ice water longer if you're, using a swear word than if you're, not using its word
Someone also did a grip challenging. You know, holder, gripper, with more strengthened for longer. If you're swearing, that's interesting, it be funded. Try that with courage
Your words versus the morgue toothless old swear.
Words, what do you think is more common over time for words that are taboo to become less taboo or vice versa. That's interesting question.
you ve got this kind of euphemism treadmill that steven pinker talks about? Where starts off as a bad word button
People use it more and more and then you get used to it and then it falls away, and then you need to come up with another bad word and you seen that with the religious words were seeing it with food and gluten
but on the other hand, homeless person becomes taboo, yes,
right now. We are in a new new, victorian ism in that way, and of course, that's very culturally specific in the united states, like
among my relatives in wisconsin who didn't go to college they're, not
I say the unhoused, but in academia and cambridge, its
I share with you this story, something that happened. I think just illustrated where we are now. I happen to play golf, so I hope you don't judge you hate golf and I belong to this club very nice people.
And I was up there not long ago- and there were these three lady
he's getting ready to tee off and one of them was describing this
tournament. That they're playing in was one where you could play the eighteen holes any time you wanted and register your score. So another
you can choose when to play it based on the conditions, the weather and so on, but also
based on where, on again,
day the holes were cut on the green because they move around in some days. They
easier and sundays harder, so she's describing how
the two women she was playing with that they
it's a game. The system to like drive up to the course one day and if they saw the flags were in a bad place, they would choose not to register their score that day, and so she used
grabbing, how they were being a little bit like you know, sir
tj jager sneaky was a word she was using, but as she was saying it using will these sneaky
Ladys await we wake. I can't use outwardly these sneaking
howls and no I can't
say GAO's and these sneaky mother preservation in what world.
is like mother or now ok, but it was wow. So what is that?
mean yes that is really funny. Well, I don't think that the whole world will move in that direction, but
people are preemptively worried about causing offence. Like I'm sure, no one would have been offended by ladys bet. You wanted just make sure that whatever you say has no possibility of offending anyone. Did you see this stanford university? I t list. If word bono, the people couldn't say yeah, it was meant to make.
technology, more inclusive and had very good aims. But it was, you know, don't say american use, u s! Citizen, because if you say american, you know there are so many countries in the americas. Your disrespecting them
I say: I'm seeing I looked it up. No, you can't say white paper, white paper right, yeah cause can say, wait yet. So what do you think about use? Do you think it's a good idea that that word be restricted?
I don't think it's a good idea. I don't know it is funny cause. I know
MC warder is a very powerful advocate, for you know not bowing to these wins. I think I probably quietly bout the winds
yeah. I think we overdo it today, and that is the end.
Bowing John mc order, the idea
somebody can lose their jobs because they use the inward, and this is the important thing we're losing the difference between using it and referring to it
somebody to lose their jobs because they talk about the inward that's going
into treating that sequence of sounds as taboo, which is frankly the way people acted about the excretion words, and I think we could
beyond that, but you know: when did people not overdo thing
in general. If we are gonna, be pious about something for it to be about disrespecting minority groups. I fully get that that's an advance, that's a moral advance, but because this is language we're talking about,
Things are always changing and there are always complications. We often talk about how groups
candy nature, a slur by taking it on themselves, but that doesn't mean that the
thing doesn't remain when its applied by people from the outside. You can witness this with the edward. You can witness this with the word. I think
It's one thing for women to use it as an in group term, but for the rest of us.
casually use it when we happen to be upset with someone who's, a woman that was much more common
say the seventies and eighties than now. That's a good thing. We need to stop that now. What's your position
on bleating curse, words is
just a charade. Yes, or is it a good idea, the only ones that should be bleep are that slurs against groups. However, that's just me
I know many people would rather their children, not here the salty.
At least not until a certain point. I frankly disagree because I think we're living in a different world if your chin,
run around the age of nine, are gonna start hearing pop songs that are full of shit
was profanity, and I have now watch that happen with my two little girls
not sure why they should ever have listened to anything where words were bleep out, because I think we don't give kids enough credit for understanding context very early on my girls notice that daddy says they in
instantly knew. He does that that's funny, but we're not supposed to do it, and I cannot prescribe
for other people and how they raise their kids, but mike it's a bit
is listening to fluent profanity, not the slurs but the other ones since
birth. I may be reading too much into what you just said, but it sounds as though you're saying that profanity can help develop a sort of linguistic sophistication,
in that it's a set of words that one is allowed or even encouraged, to use in some circumstances- probably private ones and not in others, probably public ones, and so on. Can you talk about
that notion, whether profanity
really does help us become better at our language. Frankly, yes, because the way profanity is used is often not just colorful, and it's not just independent eruptions, but there is subtlety to it
there is wit to it. You have to learn when to hit the no not to hit the note too many times is one way of being articulate, which Chris
where it in english would you say, is the most flexible, astonishing gimme, the fur
like seven sentences that come to mind with serving as different functions. Every thing
then there was that get your hands. The food off of me
I don't have any more left kid. He didn't do all I am broke as this person-
other person or mother and you're not really talking about king at all Melissa more is also fairly fluent with the
where'd. You can stick it in the middle of words that abs of not gonna work intensifier
that's amazing. I can be a person near a dumb. I never
cease to be amazed by how many different ways you can use it and how the people who use the most off
considered inarticulate, vulgar,
easy. When really a grammarians could spend days feasting and figuring out exactly what each usage of
was doing what is it doing there? What's the meaning of that
What about realms, rude precincts in which swearing prevent
is still really not welcome. I guess I'm thinking mostly public realms the mean look. There are some people who just don't sweat
I don't like it right. We agree on that, but then, like in politics, for instance, you're pretty much supposed to not swear still. What do you think about that?
I think that in all languages there is a high kind of language that might be about religion. It might be about a battle cries of Joe Biden says when
mama cares being signed. This is a big deal it's gonna be. Can
sitting remarkable we're not going
be a society with no sense of ceremony and profanity
amidst ceremony, is always gonna seem a little bit out of place, except very judiciously applaud
so, for instance, you would not be in favour of buying
let's say during televised addressed a nation saying: look america vladimir p
is a real tool. It would sound. Trivializing yeah
I wouldn't find it immoral? I would not clutch my pearls
I think that would be better ways of explaining what a terrible force he is that would have a gun,
a task other than using a towel snapping work. It's interesting
say trivializing? Doesn't it have a power that
could convey some usefulness, the problem with tall or the related motherfucker in that usage
is that we tend to use those terms for every day sorts of things you get caught, often traffic. Somebody takes the last slice of pizza, whereas with putin we're talking about,
somebody who's monstrous. You want to bring out words that connote that he's not cutting you often traffic, that he's gonna
committing an atrocity as grave is genocide
that's not tall with Putin? It's beyond it.
So you're saying. If I'm hearing it right, is it profanity
performs a lot of different roles, but among them are that there's a playfulness, but all
so a sort of trips
our duty to it, and
If I'm reading you re, then I'm gonna go
Next step and say- and that probably me,
we should all be.
Swearing a little bit more than we do is at a logical conclusion, not quaint it is
That's where we're dealing with this dividing line between salty and profane
because we're using those salty words more, it's a more honest rendition of how we actually feel about life.
But we're using them so commonly that we can't say that were profaning against anything now how
gonna play out in terms of our slurs against groups. That's gonna be interesting where the next angle of profit-
haiti is gonna go, but where you ve got
things that are especially on that fine line between salty and profane, and even when
profane you're, gonna
them sometimes and its part of the general tool kit of being a whole human being. I also asked melissa more if
we should be swearing, more self
seen words like then, should we be swearing more, I mean they can be useful
It's funny that some studies, though, that even the people who have done the ice bucket study- you know that says you can keep your hand in longer. If you're swearing, if you're a habitual sway over that effect goes away,
Oh, I wouldn't say we should be swearing more, I think, should swearing
appropriate amount. You swear constantly it kind of loses its oomph ooh.
I asked Timothy J the same question wish,
be more aware of what swearing is where its valuable, the, where its harmful think about your toolbox,
I'd. Rather, somebody swear at me than ram me with her car or pull a gun on me. I had it.
I threw a hammer at me once in a car why I passed him
so he got angry because I passed him. I thought he was dried
too slow, and then he got her, hamper and threw it off I'd rather
this gimme the finger before we
Let's hear from a few more of our listeners here
First is Alison a lot of women, especially dont like using the sea word, but I decided to embrace it because I had a former french
That really did me wrong, and so
I started, calling her you're gonna want to believe that
and it really made me feel good. It was cathartic to call her that, and I did
for many months, and then I realized one day that I did not mean to use that word anymore.
I didn't, have a need for it and, I think, being able to
express that anger
through the use of that's where word, was really helpful to beat and hears alex. Finally,
EL listener, who at least knows what's
hearing, is and isn't
when my mother was a hundred years old we were
sit around the table. One night talking in someone said something very interesting and my mother look up and said, shut the front.
door. We have no idea. Why should learn that expression, but we laughed for hours and with the final word here is jennifer
when I was a teenager. I was not the nicest to my mother and one morning when I was rushing to leave the house she,
became very upset with my attitude and said, I need to stop being a little which
which shirley was not her best parenting moment, but I heard about
instead of a w- and I turned around and screamed- know you're the bin and
proceeded to slam the door right under my pinky finger and broke it,
so in the end, I learned that karma. Not my mom, thanks to all
listeners for sending in tape and thanks to John MC warder, Timothy, J and melissa, more for so capable walking through the thorny and fascinating landscape of
wearing coming up
time on the show. You ever wonder why all of your projects were always lead over budget overtime over and over again, and why do we procrastinate hook hush? What is the primary root cause of procrastination like get the heart of everything, I've thought about the last fifteen years and one question why your projects are late:
What to do about it? That's next time
on the show until then take care of yourself, and if you can, someone else to the freakonomics radio is produced by stitcher and Ren, but radio. This episode was produced by katherine mon cure and mixed by greg ribbon with help from Jeremy Johnston. Our staff also includes zach lipinski morgan levy.
ryan, Kelly, Lena coleman, rebecca the Douglas Julie, camphor, Sarah lily ellador osborne, jasmine, cleaner Dario, Lennart immaterial lyric about it and elsa Fernandez, the for economics, radio networks, executive team- is
Ruth Gabriel wroth and may even double our theme. Song is MR fortune
by the hitchhikers. All the other music was,
posed by luis scared. I dont
If swearing was invented for golf, a golf was invented for swearing. What's your favorite on course curse? It starts out like oh Jesus, god damn and then the motherfucker. For me, it depends
how bad is here and who I am with the economics radio network. They head inside of everything
the.
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Transcript generated on 2023-06-28.