I don’t know when I started swearing. I think I was in about fourth grade and it felt super naughty and adventurous to blurt out the F-word in front of my friends. These days, I’m a total potty mouth who infuses every profane word in the book in a good portion of my sentences not because I have a small vocabulary or lack intelligence but because sometimes nothing expresses how you’re truly feeling better than a curse word. And incidentally, a new study has determined that people who swear more make better friends, so I have even less of a reason to feel bad about it.
- This was a multi-level study, so you know it’s the real deal. The study was performed by Maastricht University in the Netherlands, the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology and Stanford and the University of Cambridge. The findings? Potty mouthed-people have great interpersonal skills.
- Why would this be the case? Research determined that those who pepper their sentences with profanity tend to be way more honest and have a high sense of personal integrity not only in how they carry themselves but how they interact in society too.
- Swearing is a stress reliever. There’s nothing better than screaming a loud “F**k!!!” when something goes wrong. It really lets off steam and makes you feel almost immediately better. That’s another reason swearers are such great friends — they’re way less likely to hurt themselves or others when stressed or under pressure. And, since they’re less stressed in general, they’re more likely to be reliable since they’re chilled.
- People who swear a lot are even MORE intelligent. According to psychologists Kristi Janschewitz and Timothy Jay, who worked together on a paper entitled “The Pragmatics of Swearing,” people who curse a lot really understand the nuances of language. “People who use taboo words understand their general expressive content as well as nuanced distinctions that must be drawn to use slurs appropriately,” they wrote. “The ability to make nuanced distinction indicates the presence of more rather than less linguistic knowledge.” I knew it!!
- We’re just the best. The conclusion of the study was that people who curse a lot are just more trustworthy, genuine, honest… I could go on and on, but I think you get the point. It’s just another reason to let your F-bombs fly when you’re feeling frustrated!
