If you swear ‘like a trooper’, like myself, you probably believe what your mother told you – that you're lazy with language if you’re foul-mouthed, and that swearing, while a lot of fun, is a bad habit.
Well, all the swearing naysayers can literally fuck off (not your mother, obviously, because she only had your best interests at heart), because a new study has suggested that those who swear are more likely to have a wider vocabulary than those who don't.
The study, entitled Taboo word fluency and knowledge of slurs and general pejoratives: deconstructing the poverty-of-vocabulary myth (quite a mouthful), published in the Language Sciences Publication, aimed to dispel the myth that people who swear are lazy with language.
‘We cannot help but judge others on the basis of their speech,’ the study says. ‘Unfortunately, when it comes to taboo language, it is a common assumption that people who swear frequently are lazy, do not have an adequate vocabulary, lack education, or simply cannot control themselves.’
Participants in the study were made to do fluency tests, and given two minutes to list as many swear words as possible. Then they were asked to list as many animals and ‘emotionally-neutral’ words in the same time frame. Those that swore more, were able to list more of the words in the second category than those that didn’t swear a lot.
This proved to psychologists Kristin and Timothy Jay, who led the study, that, ‘Speakers who use taboo words understand their general expressive content as well as nuanced distinctions that must be drawn to use slurs appropriately... The ability to make nuanced distinctions indicates the presence of more rather than less linguistic knowledge.’
The study also found that sweary people were more likely to be ‘neurotic’, but also more likely to be ‘open’. Interesting news if you’re the Malcolm Tucker of your friendship group.
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This article originally appeared on The Debrief.