The cursing expert discusses the state of profanity

Society is cursing. Words that are once too blue to speak publicly, are becoming more and more common. “Language is only part of the whole transition to a more free lifestyle,” said Timothy Jay, a retired professor of psychology at Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts at North Adams, Mass.

Dr. Jay spent his career studying the utilize of profanity, from what motivates her to the ways in which she satisfies, signals the meaning and offends. Although he officially retired, he still edits the study of profanity, and recently presented an expert opinion in the ongoing legal dispute in Michigan, or the sentence “Let’s Go Brandon” (euphemism used to slander the former president Joseph R. Biden Jr.) should be reasonably interpreted as ” blasphemous. ” (This should not, except Dr. Jay.)

Dr. Jay assumes that the increasingly free nature of the spoken word comes partly from the way of communication on social media. One testPublished in 2014 by other researchers in this field, they discovered that the curses of words on Twitter, currently known as X, appeared in 7.7 percent of posts, and vulgarisms were represented by about 1 to 10 words on the platform. The study showed that compared to the speed of 0.5 to 0.7 percent in the spoken language.

If these data disturb you, Dr. Jay has several thoughts about the recovery of profanity. F*@%-free February, someone?

TIS’s interview was condensed and edited for clarity, and some of the languages ​​that Dr. Jay admitted that he regularly uses in the golf course was scrubbed.

Why do social media contribute to more free utilize of the language?

People are distant, so they can be aggressive without any physical retaliation. In general, you are anonymous, so there are no personal consequences. It is also part of a larger change into a more free lifestyle. What children currently have at school would be shameful during my time.

Is this a problem – not clothes, swearing?

Our culture is constantly developing and will continue to evolve. One of the places is the way women are increasingly attacked online and harassed.

So you don’t really think this development as positive or negative?

Slang is to confront the authorities and create a code identifying one as a member of the group. Incorrect utilize of slang means that you are an outside person. Slang must change over time.

The casuality of the language coexists with the randomness of clothing styles, behaviors in the workplace, musical lyrics, television content, table manners, etc., which generally trained a more relaxed state war around the world, especially noteworthy in the 1960s.

You say that the words that people once avoided, now they say regularly.

Over the years, I asked people to argue the curses of words on a scale from one to 10 of them were the worst. Five would be “damn” or “hell”. It was the middle range. One hundred years ago you could not utilize them on the radio; Now they are in comic stripes in the newspaper.

What are the rank as 1?

“Sugar.”

What about other alternatives for long -term words of curse? Can I run a few with me?

Start doing.

“Fuck” – satisfying?

Not for me.

I hear how many people say “turning” or “damn”. Which one do you prefer?

I like “FRICKIN” – I used “Close the wiped door!”

What do you like about it?

This is a similarity to … [expletive].

So if something is similar to phonetically, it makes it satisfying?

This is how it feels throughout the body-autonomous reaction of the nervous system to listening to someone who says [expletive] or speaking [expletive] myself. It raises your pulse, heart rate, breathing, all above using a failed word, such as a “calendar”. We recorded leather conductivity tests that showed that tabo words evoke a more emotional reaction than non -nonboo words. The word wakes us up, knowing that we are going to say it and will still arouse us.

Do these words cause physical aggression?

My research group recorded over 10,000 people who publicly curse. Over once, these applications change into aggression or violence. The most curses are free, conversational and quite harmless. At the same time, we are more sensitive to language issues related to sexual harassment, discrimination with racial-ethnic-ethnic sex, verbal abuse and hazardous language than in the past.

What attracts us to a specific word?

This is personal. The psychological history with listening and speaking a word mainly in childhood, and then the consequences of reusing this word, evokes feelings related to this word.

This is social, which means that the words are emotionally essential not only depend on the psychological relationship of the speaker with the word, but also on the value and valence of the word in the speaker’s community.

And this is physical.

Does this suggest that euphemisms may not satisfy, and therefore we cannot limit our curse?

The key to breaking the habit is the awareness that you do it and then try to circumvent it.

So you can change the pattern if you want?

Yes. If you think about how the memory works, you did the fact that you activated the modern word in your brain. And so, by activating “Freakin” or “Sugar”, you do it more essential.

In other words, you can reduce the strength of the curse with practice and Strengthen the bait of euphemism.

Yes, but you must be aware of both elements and that one of them has natural significance.

I recently watched my grandson, a skier with a tycoon when he left the course. And I just said: “Dang”. He is 18 years senior and I try not to swear around him. But I have to think about it, especially when I play golf.

Where do you retire, do you feel that cursing tests are in good hands?

I gave a speech to a group of international scholars about curses and curse in Cologne, Germany, in 2015, two years before retiring. I was 65 at the time, and most of the speakers were 30 and 40 years senior. I realized that the modern generation still studied taboos in a way that I was a pioneer in the seventies. It is high time to move to the side and let them have glory.