Why Do People Swear?

I recently came across an article suggesting a link between higher-than-average intelligence and swearing. Since this contradicts what is called in linguistics the poverty of vocabulary (POV) hypothesis, I decided to investigate this further.

The POV hypothesis says that if a person is lacking in vocabulary, he or she is likely to fill in the conversational gaps with curse words. Based on my experience with a wide variety of people throughout my life, this always made sense to me. Regarding the research suggesting a link between high intelligence and swearing, it is based on a research study showing a correlation between high general-vocabulary scores and high taboo-word scores. Timothy Jay, professor emeritus of psychology at the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts, says, “People that are good at language are good at generating a swearing vocabulary.” To his credit, he adds, “Having the strategies to know where and when it’s appropriate to swear and when it’s not is a social cognitive skill.” In other words, he’s speaking of social intelligence, which includes knowing your “audience.” I would say this is qualitatively different from people who indiscriminately pepper their conversation with swear words, especially F-bombs; those who do that give strong confirmation of the POV hypothesis. However, I’m not suggesting that we selectively swear in order to show how intelligent we are!

There are at least five suggested benefits of swearing in an article by Sandee LaMotte:

1. A possible link between swearing and intelligence. See above.

2. A possible link between swearing and honesty. Some researchers have found that people who curse more also lie less on an interpersonal level. While I understand the desire for honesty, I would not recommend swearing to emphasize it; do we really need to swear in order to make people more likely to believe us? Won’t that make them less likely to believe us when we don’t swear?

3. Profanity improves pain tolerance. For example, “People on bikes who swore while pedaling against resistance had more power and strength than people who used ‘neutral’ words.” Similarly, if you pinch your finger in a door, you “may well feel less pain” if you shout an obscenity than a “neutral” word. These situations may make us want to swear, and I admit I have done so in situations similar to pinching a finger in a door, but I’m not proud of it.

4. Swearing is a sign of creativity. This is somewhat similar to the supposed link between swearing and intelligence; it is largely based on research with people who have had strokes and/or who have dementia, but I find the link to creativity very tenuous, at best. I would add that two of my brothers prayed before they developed dementia (very strong in my family history) that they would not dishonor God if they developed it; they both did develop dementia, but I never heard either of them swear during it. I have already prayed the same for myself.

5. Throwing expletives rather than punches. In other words, verbally assaulting rather than physically assaulting someone. While I would say there may be limited value in this, verbal assaults can quickly escalate into physical ones.

The aforementioned article is focused, frankly, on excusing profanity. I came across another article (by John-Erik Jordan), however, that treats the phenomenon of swearing in a different manner by asking why people swear. Here’s the link: https://www.babbel.com/en/magazine/why-do-we-swear

1. Catharsis. In other words, swearing provides an emotional release.

2. Insult, abuse, and exclusion. Unlike LaMotte (in the first article), Jordan does not try to excuse “throwing expletives” at people. Instead, he says that curse words “crank up the mean factor.” And it bears repeating: verbal assaults (and non-verbal ones, like giving someone the finger) can quickly escalate into physical ones.

3. Group solidarity. I have noticed this repeatedly throughout my life: swearing can be a form of bonding. It reminds me of when my son and three of his best friends in high school used to greet each other by saying, “Hey, stupid.” No, “stupid” is not a swear word, but it is akin to what Jordan mentions.

4. Style and emphasis. As Jordan puts it, “Swear words add emotion and urgency to otherwise neutral sentences.” Another way to put this is what I would call “shock value.”

Jordan’s article is insightful because rather than trying to excuse swearing, he gives underlying reasons why people do it. On a fundamental level, I think that most people understand that swearing can be offensive to others; at a minimum, understanding your “audience,” which I mentioned earlier, should be a high priority when choosing whether to swear or not.

Here are a couple of Bible verses related to this issue. Ephesians 5:4 says, “Nor should there be obscenity, foolish talk or coarse joking, which are out of place, but rather thanksgiving.” Colossians 3:8 tells us: “But now you must also rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips.” I have written more about this topic here: https://keithpetersenblog.com/2022/09/08/watch-your-language/

As Christians, let’s not use taboo words–and I certainly include myself in this. There are plenty of other words which we can use to express ourselves instead. Even though we will offend other people at times regardless of our intentions, at least we won’t offend them unnecessarily with careless profanity.