Cursing as Peephole Into Brain Architecture

tabdelgawad writes "The New York Times offers this excellent and entertaining writeup on cursing and its role in recent studies of the brain. The article discusses the universality of cursing across time, space, and culture, its varied roles, from linguistic evolution to anger management, and its uses in recent brain research. You can also read all about the sexual effects of uttering obscenities and the swearing habits of sorority women." From the article: "Researchers point out that cursing is often an amalgam of raw, spontaneous feeling and targeted, gimlet-eyed cunning. When one person curses at another, they say, the curser rarely spews obscenities and insults at random, but rather will assess the object of his wrath, and adjust the content of the 'uncontrollable' outburst accordingly." As someone who plays a lot of MMOGs, in my experience this is only mostly true.

Comments

Office Space reference

[Keck]

hey say, the curser rarely spews obscenities and insults at random, but rather will assess the object of his wrath, and adjust the content of the 'uncontrollable' outburst accordingly."

And that expectation (which we all have) is why it's so damn funny in Office Space when Samir, the non-native English speaker, is cursing completely inappropriately. SON OF A F$*(!

Not particularly effective

[Lifewish]

I know that I tend to react "guiltily" to being challenged, regardless of whether I'm actually in the wrong. I suspect this is a consequence of the fact that, when one's parents are enraged at, for example, the paint on the walls, one's guilt or innocence (no really, my sister did it) ceases to be an issue. Then if, as I suspect, the detectable physiological reaction to guilt is fear-based, it could be that the so-called "liars" just had parents who were a bit hasty with the shouting and the smacking and the grounding. Hardly a basis on which to lock them up.