Whenever you hear somebody casually drop the phrase “fuck,” what’s your response? Offended? Stunned? Confused?
In any case, I’m pretty sure listening to somebody curse out of nowhere provokes some form of quick response. Now we have a taboo on this tradition towards profanity and when somebody breaks that taboo, it will get your consideration.
However why is that, precisely? Swearing is in all places. All of us do it. So why does it nonetheless have such energy? Regardless of the clarification, it goes past taboos and social norms. There’s one thing distinctive to swear phrases in our language.
Rebecca Roache is a senior lecturer in philosophy at Royal Holloway, College of London, and the creator of a brand new guide referred to as For F*ck’s Sake: Why Swearing is Surprising, Impolite, and Enjoyable. This guide is as amusing because it sounds, but it surely’s additionally genuinely fascinating in the way in which that works that deal with seemingly trivial topics in critical methods will be.
Roache explores the distinctive flexibility of swear phrases and tries to clarify why they’re in a position to talk a lot greater than different phrases. She additionally asks how the identical phrases, relying on how they’re used, can both offend individuals or construct belief between them.
So I invited Roache on The Grey Space to speak about all these puzzles and a number of other others. As all the time, there’s a lot extra within the full podcast, so pay attention and observe The Grey Space on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pandora, or wherever you discover podcasts. New episodes drop each Monday.
This dialog has been edited for size and readability.
Sean Illing
I assume we must always begin with the fundamentals: What makes a swear phrase a swear phrase?
Rebecca Roache
They are typically phrases that concentrate on taboo subjects — intercourse, defecation, faith, issues like that. And that’s fairly common. They’re phrases that we have a tendency to make use of to precise emotion, and the small quantity of philosophy that’s been achieved on swearing has talked about that swear phrases are linked to expressing feelings. You should utilize a swear phrase to vent with out essentially making an attempt to convey info the way in which you usually would in a sentence. The linguist Geoffrey Nunberg has mentioned one thing like swearing is extra like a scream than an utterance.
Sean Illing
I do like this distinction you make within the guide between swearing and utilizing swear phrases. Whenever you’re swearing, you’re not likely utilizing phrases to explain one thing on this planet, you’re speaking feelings. So whenever you stub your toe and scream, “Fuck,” that’s not an outline of the occasion, it’s an expression of ache. It’s not about one thing in the way in which the phrase “I’ve a black truck” is in regards to the black truck in my driveway. However generally swear phrases are identical to every other phrase, i.e., “There’s chicken shit on my truck.”
Anyway, to your broader level, it looks as if context is every little thing. If some phrases have extra energy than others, it’s not due to something inherent to the phrases themselves, it’s as a result of we’ve given them that energy and we maintain reinforcing it in our every day interactions with one another, which I assume is how tradition on the whole works.
Rebecca Roache
Yeah, I believe that’s precisely proper. One factor that basically brings this out, and that is the primary puzzle that obtained me into this matter, is considering how asterisks work. You see this on a regular basis in information tales, for example, the place a number of the letters in a swear phrase are obscured by asterisks. So that you get f**okay as an alternative of “fuck” and there’s this puzzle about how that works. If the offensiveness of swearing is the phrase itself, then that shouldn’t work as a result of everyone knows what phrase is being censored; it doesn’t disguise the phrase in any form of significant approach. However I believe the explanation it really works to scale back offensiveness is fairly clear.
I discussed that, when swearing offends, it’s as a result of we’re signaling disrespect and after we censor swear phrases with asterisks or with bleeps in relation to spoken swear phrases, that message of disrespect will get changed by a competing message, which is one thing like, “I actually need to convey this phrase however I’m additionally nervous about how you will really feel about it, so I’m obscuring a few of it as a result of I care about your emotions.” So, you get this message of consideration whenever you censor swear phrases like that and I believe that story wouldn’t make sense until the offensiveness of swear phrases was in regards to the attitudes that we convey after we use them fairly than that exact association of letters or sounds.
Sean Illing
Why are curse phrases so uniquely versatile? Why are you able to achieve this rather more with a phrase like “Fuck” than you possibly can virtually every other phrase within the language?
Rebecca Roache
There’s a nice linguistics paper by the late linguist James McCawley the place he’s evaluating two senses of the phrase fuck, which he calls “fuck one” and “fuck two.” Fuck one behaves identical to a traditional verb or no matter that phrase is. It’s up for grabs, is it a verb or is it one thing else? You may discuss two individuals fucking, for instance, after which it behaves in the identical approach as a traditional verb. However it’s also possible to use it on this extra uncommon approach, which is “fuck two.” That is after we say “fuck you,” or “fuck off,” or we simply pepper our dialog with swear phrases. Anthony Burgess has a terrific instance of this the place he talks about a military mechanic making an attempt to repair a truck [who] says, “Fuck it, the fucking fucker is fucking fucked,” which makes full sense, proper? It really works as a result of we perceive that swearing is not only about conveying info, asserting truths and opinions, it’s additionally about expressing emotion.
Sean Illing
So when is it okay to swear and when it isn’t okay to swear?
Rebecca Roache
There are a number of dimensions right here. One is that simply chucking in a swear phrase into your fucking sentences as a type of fucking punctuation like I’m simply doing right here is comparatively benign in comparison with trying any individual within the eye and saying “fuck you” or “you fucking fool,” one thing like that the place it’s directed at any individual, you’re weaponizing the phrase, you’re utilizing it to accentuate your unfavourable angle in the direction of one other particular person.
I believe that that directedness performs a component in aggravating the shock worth of swearing. Lots depends upon who we’re with and who we’re swearing in entrance of. Even people who find themselves very liberal about swearing are likely to need to tread rigorously round kids, particularly different individuals’s kids. Should you’re simply letting off steam and any individual’s obtained their child with them, then itÆs like, “Oh, God, sorry.”
I believe we additionally get just a little cagey round energy imbalances. Swearing at a police officer, for example, or a trainer, the form of factor the place there’s one one that is free to do what they like and the opposite one that has to obey the foundations or they get into bother. However extra usually talking, there are some contexts which are extra casual than others, not simply with regard to the language we use, however issues like how we costume, how we’ve to handle one another, whether or not you possibly can name individuals by their first names, for instance. And I believe it’s useful to view swearing as simply a part of this fairly wealthy and complicated community of norms. The extra formal a state of affairs is, the extra dangerous it’s going to be to swear in that state of affairs.
Sean Illing
Lots of this boils all the way down to a social or emotional intelligence, or a primary capability to learn the room and know the place you’re, who you’re, who you’re with and choose appropriately. Should you can’t do this, then you definately’re most likely going to run into bother.
The purpose about parenting and youngsters is fascinating. My spouse has needed to verify me lots at dwelling as a result of she doesn’t need our son, who’s now 5, listening to a bunch of curse phrases. And on the one hand, I get it however, alternatively, why can we care? They’re simply phrases and a number of them, as we’ve demonstrated, are objectively nice and the one purpose for not wanting him to listen to them isn’t that they‘re inherently dangerous, it’s that we don’t need him to make an ass of himself in well mannered society. And if we‘re being sincere, we most likely additionally fear about being judged by different individuals who hear our child. However is {that a} ok purpose, actually?
Rebecca Roache
We wish our kids to develop up understanding learn how to navigate the norms of the tradition they’re in, however we do appear to take an extremely precautionary method right here. If we had been to take this identical angle to different norms, then we’d have our children not say “mama” or “dada” and as an alternative say “mom” or “father,” or we’d make them tackle everyone tremendous formally simply to verify they don’t slip up in some social state of affairs. We don’t actually do this, although.
I believe a part of it’s most likely that folks choose breaches of etiquette that must do with swearing extra harshly, and choose the mother and father extra harshly, than different breaches of etiquette. Nevertheless it’s additionally bizarre that we’ve this angle that we have to defend our children from swearing however, on the identical time, in case you are to satisfy any individual who took that to the acute and mentioned, “I’m taking steps to make sure that my child by no means learns to swear, they’re going to have a chaperone with them always to verify older children don’t educate them impolite phrases,” this form of factor, that might be actually sinister. Even these of us who’re involved with our children being well mannered, it’s not that we by no means need our children to be taught these phrases, possibly it’s that we simply by no means need them to be taught them from us.
I believe this explains the squeamishness we’ve about swearing in entrance of different individuals’s kids. There’s additionally the concept that it takes a village to boost a baby and we predict, “Effectively, the mother and father may be actually working laborious to deliver their children as much as be well mannered and but right here I’m dropping F-bombs left, proper, and heart ,undoing all their good work.” So we simply need to be supportive of different individuals’s efforts to boost their kids.
Sean Illing
How do you stroll that line between avoiding swear phrases in order to not offend individuals on the one hand, and utilizing the phrases you need to use and easily not caring about offending people who find themselves offended by the improper issues?
Rebecca Roache
If I believe individuals are going to be offended by swearing, I don’t swear. Usually, we must always keep away from inflicting individuals to really feel offended if there’s no good purpose to do in any other case, and I believe generally there’s a good purpose to do in any other case. So, for instance, when you have a relative who’s offended by mixed-race relationships, in that circumstance, it’s the relative’s downside and you’ve got purpose to simply ignore what they discover offensive. However I believe with swearing, often there’s nothing to realize by swearing within the firm of people who find themselves upset by it, and my view is that I’d fairly be good and have everyone glad.
Hearken to the remainder of the dialog and make sure to observe The Grey Space on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pandora, or wherever you take heed to podcasts.
