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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.
I wonder how Wimpy Curses work vs. Real Curses. I myself don't have a tendency of cursing I tend to use the old curse or wimpy curse words like "Dag Nabbit!", "D'Oh", "Arg!", and "Crappy", and "Cruncy". I tend to shoot them out just as often and with little though like other people shoot off Real Curses.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
I just had to say it. Sorry.
"Cats like plain crisps"
There is no fucking way that this bullshit is anything but bullshit! Motherfucking fuckfuckers! Fuckshitfuck! Fuck!
Note to mods: I'm probably being sarcastic.
Oh Shit! Did I think that out loud?!?! Man I'm going to look like such an ass! I'll never be able to make another comment and be respected around here agian!
New slogan: "Cursing, does a body good."Generation Trance: What generation are you?
What about the perpetual fuck as a comma crowd though? How do they fit into this? Are they de-sensitized?
THat's not entirely true. A single swear word can be, well...
Rocco: Fucking... What the fuck. Who the fuck fucked this fucking... How did you two fucking fucks...
[shouts] FUCK!
Connor: Well, that certainly illustrates the diversity of the word.
(quote shamelessly stolen from The Boondock Saints)
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
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$*(!
A computer without Microsoft is like ice cream without ketchup.
If we want to really clean up government and speed up processing in the criminal justice system, we should put $100 million into fMIR as lie detectors.
We could have an electoral truth telling challenge between candidates to see who's telling the truth and who isn't.
Abstinence is a government conspiracy. www.SafeSexZone.co
I think that researchers who study the evolution of linguistics really don't care much about the "experiences" of "someone who plays a lot of MMOGs".
I want to propose that language is an advanced form of cursing.
piss fag mothafuckings pussy orgasm fingerfuck prick ejaculated blowjob pissering cocksucking slut pussys fucking kum shitings fingerfucked motherfuckers pornography cumming mothafuck blowjobs pissin mothafucks fistfuckers gangbanged kondum pissing fuck cumshot pissoff fingerfucks fistfucking fingerfucking cock cocks ass farted gaysex fellatio hotsex gangbangs bitcher lusting cocksucks cocksucked cuntlick fuckme lust porn cyberfucked mothafucked cyberfuckers mothafucking cyberfuck orgasm faggs phonesex fingerfuckers fistfucker pornos beastial fuckings bestial shitty fistfuck fucks bastard fagot cuntlicker smut kummer jizm mothafucka orgasims fucked mothafuckas horny phuking fistfucked ejaculation phuked motherfucked mothafuckers farts motherfucker pisser farting bitch fistfuckings mothafuckin cocksucker fagging cocksucking cum goddamn phuq fartings motherfuck bitching kumming ejaculatings fucker mothafucker pussies horniest dildos spunk cunts shittings cunilingus phukking asshole motherfuckin cunt assholes cyberfucking phukked twat jack-off orgasms beastiality cummer phuk jerk-off cunnilingus clit kock farty jism jiz bestiality faggot motherfucks fuckers shitters porno fistfucks beastility damn motherfucking fuckin mothafuckaz shitfull gangbang cums phuks kums hell dildo slut motherfuckings bitchin shitter cunillingus fuk bitches shit shitted bitchers felatio cuntlicking fagots fingerfucker cyberfucker ejaculating ejaculates pissed dink shitting ass prick fart of an asshole.
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.
For the love of God, please learn to spell "ridiculous"!!!
Which brings me to the question - why does WoW let me say 'crap' - but not 'LSD' ?
I personally think that WoW should have a 'receive' foul language option to increase entertainment.
So if two people both have the flag on - they can spit what ever they want at each other.
Sort of like VpV.
EMail: 0110001101100010010000000110001101110010 0110000101111010011011100110000101110010 0010111001100011011011110110
I have no idea where they got that (and many others of their facts) from, but wiktionary says otherwise. It seems to be pseudo-researched with a couple of reputable quotes here and there... Oh well.
To the point, in reference to their Stroop test (on page 2), where people were startled by obscene words moreso than neutral words, I find it to be the reverse in "comfortable" environments (as they vaguely mentioned). That is to say, so many people swear habitually that it's not even a big deal in casual situations. To find someone that says "poop" instead of "shit" or something unique and unsensical like "fatty arbuckle!" instead of "fuck!" tends to startle people in surprize. At first, at least.
The novelty of profanity has been worn out to the point where it doesn't have the desired effect anymore. Therefore, I subscribe to the alternative: Using unique and creative utterings to describe my feelings.
This way, after people get to know me, and get used to me being profanity-free, and then one day I get REALLY pissed off and say FUCK, they know I MEAN IT!
Works wonderfully. Plus, makes swearing that/i much more fun.
- shazow
Yes, they are. I suspect that in their case, the effect of the word has worn off on them, and the word "fuck" is no longer stored in the area of the brain wherein the other curse words are stored. Instead, it is stored along side of "like" and "lol" and the other overused (and therefore worthless) words.
Obligatory Soundbite Catchphrase
That in some people, myself included, curse words don't even come up as options so they don't get evaluated.
it's the only thing holding this family together! ... nutty fudgkins!
Another interesting observation was made by George Carlin. He was essentially guessing that teaching somebody not to use certain "bad" words is the first step in teaching them to be complacent. If you can teach them not to make certain sounds, you can teach them not to yell at authorities. Often, people who play the "word police" are very controlling. Of course, cursing is not a sign of an educated person, but when you hit your shin on a corner of a desk, "fuck!" is a more appropriate response than "I think I experienced pain" ...
A religious war is an adult version of a fight over who has the best imaginary friend
Why is it that words come to be 'forbidden' after normal usage before. At one time, none of the swear words used today existed. Remember, someone had to invent all of these words. On the flip side, why is it that swear words, after repeated use, lose their 'evilness'?
Nowadays, the phrase, "Oh, golly!" may be considered almost comically wholesome, but it was not always so. "Golly" is a compaction of "God's body" and, thus, was once a profanity.
Is it that profanity is in the eye of the beholder? If I were talking to somebody in a room can call the person a 'fucktard', chances are the person I'm talking to would take offense. But in a different scenario I'm talking with a French man that doesn't know a word of english. Now I can call him whatever-the-hell I want to. And just as long as I'm using the inflections in my voice as if I were telling a joke, he wouldn't know any better than if I were telling a joke.
What makes a word a word? It's not the arrangement of the english characters on the post card that offend me - the association between the arranged letters on the notecard and my past experience with that word that makes it vulgar. Ever since we have been children we have known which words not to say - not by the letters F U C and K, but by the face on my pissed off mother. That surely would explain why a child, illiterate or foreigner wouldn't find our swear words offensive.
So, after reading the article, I question the reactions that the tested subjects had to the swear word on the card. We aren't born with these conections in our head, they are learned.
Lastly, another question for the readers: Can swear words be taught out of existence? You would think that if people stopped taking offense to swear words that people would stop using them. It would make sense that if we were taught that 'shit' was a synonym for Cotton Candy, then it wouldn't really be offensive.
Feasible? bs? i dunno...
Slash-for-Thought
Quoting a reference from the 1940's (ok, it was Doc Smith, but he was a product of his time and highly idiomatic in his choice of language) a pre-modern perception was that men swore and women didn't. "Men swear to keep from crying, women cry to keep from swearing" quoth Kinneson. Both functions were considered equivalent mechanisms for blowing off steam.
Do not mock my vision of impractical footwear
*everyone turns around and stares*
What? I said shit.
No you didn't. You said 'shazbot.'
I...left the stove on. *runs*
you can have my violent video games when you pry them from my cold, dead hands.
Prime UID Club
The Alternative Dictionaries
2743 Curse and Slang words in 162 different languages.
Fly me to the moon Let me sing among those stars Let me see what spring is like On jupiter and mars
Yea, the part about the sorority girls. I was pretty dissapointed. Here's the whole quote,
"The investigators have found, among other things, that men generally curse more than women, unless said women are in a sorority, and that university provosts swear more than librarians or the staff members of the university day care center."
There. I saved you 5 mins of reading just to be dissapointed that there wasn't really anything about sorority girls and sex, just cursing.
TFA:
"The title "Much Ado About Nothing," Dr. McWhorter said, is a word play on "Much Ado About an O Thing," the O thing being a reference to female genitalia."
You've got to be shitting me.
from the article:
"Researchers point out that cursing is often an amalgam of raw, spontaneous feeling and targeted, gimlet-eyed cunning"
WHAT THE F%@k IS "gimlet-eyed cunning"!?
Sorry....I guess I lost it there....
A goal is a dream with a deadline
The taboo sense of a word, Dr. Burridge said, "always drives out any other senses it might have had." How does he explain, then, the new Direct TV ads built around use of the word "sucks"? In this case, it appears the accepted meaning of the word (is of poor quality) has driven the taboo sense. Is everyone else too young to remember when "sucks" was an expression not to be used in polite conversation... unless you were referring to pacifiers?
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
80 comments and counting and I'm still yet to see a CUNT around here...very disapointing...oh, wait...this is slashdot - no girls allowed.
Mongrel News all the news that fits and froths
But, if you say something like "dag nabbit", your brain has clearly had time to consider saying "fuck" and discarded it as vulgar. Hence, you've taken time to think about what you're saying, and your comment gets stored in a different location of the listening child's brain (and they go to a different place in the listening adult's brain).
That's not even remotely true.
I say "DOH!" because I attached my hand to my forehead with my shiny new pneumatic nail gun, not because I attached my hand to my forehead with my shiny new pneumatic nail gun, searched for a word, came up with "FUCK!", decided it was too vulgar, and settled on "DOH!".
Here:
:)
http://tekka.sys-techs.com/TSRumble.avi
A player in EVE completely lost it on teamspeak, the results had to be censored to get on the game forums, but the rest of us enjoyed it anyway
In SOVIET RUSSIA the hot grits profit you!
Bart: It will be like Treasure Island, only with more swearing. We'll be kings. Damn hell ass kings!
Sometimes people start to say a curse word but reconsider and say something worse, oddly enough. I'm sure we've all seen this.
English is easier said than done.
You donkeyhumping popefelchers! Only grabastic nunblowing babyraping cumburpers use such pedestrian terms like "Fuck".
On-the-fly Creatific Curse Constructions, is a great way to keep even the most guttermouthed cock-master off guard in a linguistic duel.
--A young Professor runs around the lab, shrieking "EUREKA" at the top of his lungs and grinning like a madman.--
Grad Student: Hey Professor, what's going on? did you spill the bromochloride down your pants on accident again?
Professor: I have had, perhaps, the most wonderful epiphany. It's BRILLIANT, BRILLIANT I TELL YOU.
Grad Student: Okay, I'll bite. What is it?
Professor: You know the Tri-Delt Sorority next door, the one with all the hot women that wouldn't speak to us unles we paid them?
Grad Student: Yeah...
Professor: Well, we're going to pay them to talk dirty to us.
Grad Student: But we barely have enough for Ramen noodles. We cook them here and pack them in our underwear for heat at night. Where are we going to get money?
Professor: That's the genius of it! We'll come up with a grant proposal for a cognitive study about swearing! Then we just tell them we have to find some local subjects who swear a lot, and we're SO IN!!!
Grad Student: It'll never work...
Hamlet: Lady, shall I lie in your lap?
[Lying down at Ophelia's feet.]
Ophelia: No, my lord.
Hamlet: I mean, my head upon your lap?
Ophelia: Ay, my lord.
Ham.: Do you think I meant country matters?
Oph.: I think nothing, my lord.
Ham.: That's a fair thought to lie between maids' legs.
Oph.: What is, my lord?
Ham.: Nothing.
Incidentally, Much Ado About Nothing is about both the effects "casual" conversation and the implications of real and perceived sexual relationships.
An explanation of my choices for friends
Yobanaya v jopu pizda, suka bliad', xuinia zadrochennaya molofeinaya, zalupa zloyebuchaya, pizdenishy pizdostradatel'nye prihujarennye, huila bl'adskij suchenysh' gnoinyj bliadopereyobannyi :)
Da? Putzalut moi shzopa, balshoi durak. Ti javnó sviñá.
There is a large and ancient subculture in Mexico known as the "albur", a play of words, used mostly by men, that contains a hidden message, particularly about sexually dominating the person you are speaking to. It comes from the natives being subyugated by the spaniards, and shooting a hidden meanings at your dominator was a way to achieve minor victories every day.
Nowadays, the "albur" is deeply rooted in many sectors of Mexico's working class, has become a game and secret society of sorts, and there are hundreds if not thousands of possible retorts (new ones are invented virtually every day). The point is to shoot back and forth until one of the two "players" is at a loss. There is always the danger of messing up and causing a self-inflicted goal, to use a soccer reference. Think a much subtler and faster version of "8 Mile's" rap face-offs, and you get the general idea.
A few people speak like this all the time, you're trying to have a normal conversation, then suddenly whoever's around is smiling and you have absolutely no idea what the hell just happened. An extremely small percentage of foreigners are aware that the "albur" exists, much fewer still understand it, virtually none are any good at it, and this includes people from other spanish-speaking nations.
Now, Spaniards are particularly blunt and nasty in their usage of profanity, the undisputed kings of Tourette's: "Bola de jilipollas, ostia joder, que me cago en la leche de su madre".
That last expression translates into "I shit in your mother's milk".
Lil' Thindime, lilting a lacrimose lament, krashes the kwaint konfines of Kokonino Kounty
We taught our foreign exchange student that "woodchuck" was a swear word.
He would use it occasionally, when he was upset.
Those who sacrifice security to condemn liberty deserve to repeat history or something. - Benjamin Santayana