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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.
apparently no one got the joke from South Park (TM)
"....and double-damnit on you!"
Exactly. Your mind will start to follow suit and you won't even think in terms of profanity any more, which will further extricate it from your vocabulary. I find most avid users of profanity usually have a very poor vocabulary, anyway. It is hard to distinguish when they are actually angry, and when they are merely slightly annoyed because they drop the f-bomb every other word. Oh well, their loss. :)