What’s Wrong with Swear Words?

Whenever I overhear the conversations of my fellow Korean peers, the word they spit out would probably be seedfoot, which is a well-known swear word in Korean. It has become very common to hear these words, but I usually stay away from them because something in me whispers that seedfoot is somewhat “bad”. What is wrong with swear words?

To start with the obvious, some swear words are meant to insult others; it is just cruel to reference a person with swear words. These words come out of things we fear or things that are nasty. Therefore,  they are bad because of their connotation. Class differences are also part of our taboo construct. While the upper class used words such as defecate (formal word for poop), S-words were used by the lower class. This is the line of tradition that impacted the distinction between “good” and “bad” words.

Why can’t we end the usage of swear words? It turns out that swearing can be useful for many situations. When we want to express our disgust about something, instead of saying “That’s weird…” “S*@&!” would appeal more to others. If defecate and the S-word had the same level of social acceptance, people would find new, badder words for this purpose. Surprisingly, it isn’t only humans who have developed this distress signal. Chimpanzee’s alarm cries when they see predators are similar to swearing, too.

Swear words are a quick, efficient way to remark something. fMRI scans show that swears are not processed in the Broca’s area (responsible for our daily words), but are directly from the limbic system (related to emotion and memory). This is the reason why some patients with aphasia can swear fluently but can not produce the right speeches. Also, it has been recorded that swearing in painful situations, or lalochezia, can reduce the pain felt when subjects put their hands in cold water. 

While reading this, you may have had second thoughts about swearing. Maybe swears are quite helpful sometimes to emphasize our emotions, to alert others of danger. It is just that many people are using it in the wrong cases, to minorities or other people to hurt them. So, to not create misconceptions, how about replying with something else than swears?

Written by Jihoon Choi