Swearwords are useful,” argues Melissa Mohr, author of Holy Sh*t, a History of Swearing. Yes, they can be offensive, but when we’re angry, in pain, surprised, or even joyful, swearwords (‘fuck’, ‘shit’, ‘damn’ and so many more) tend to be the ones we reach for. These special words are stored in the brain’s limbic system, the part of the brain that also deals with emotion. This makes them easy to access quickly and easy to remember. In some people suffering from degenerative brain conditions like Alzheimer’s, swearwords are retained long after other language has been lost. Saying swearwords aloud can even increase our tolerance to pain. In a well-known experiment, volunteers who swore aloud while holding their hand in ice-cold water could bear the pain longer than those who didn’t swear.
Heaven and earth
So, what gives swearwords their power? Mohr points out that “we swear about what we care about,” and so the way we swear depends on our historical context. She chose Holy Sh*t as the title for her book precisely because, over the centuries, swearing has been inspired by two main concerns: religion (represented by the word ‘holy’), and the body (represented by the word ‘shit’). The relative power of religious swearwords, such as ‘God’, ‘damn’ and ‘bloody hell’ and those related to the body like ‘shit’, ‘fuck’ and ‘cunt’, depends on the period of history. For example, in Mediaeval England, words describing the body and its functions were not at all taboo, whereas religious swearwords were much more shocking than they are now. By the 20th century, apart from in strongly religious communities, body-related swearwords had become more offensive than religious ones.
Racial SLURS
But now, in an internet age, when social media is full of religious OMGs and bodily WTFs, do swearwords still have the power to shock? Mohr suggests that in English today, the truly taboo topics are neither religious nor to do with the body but rather are derogatory epithets about identity, especially race. The most offensive word in the English language today is probably ‘nigger’. In fact, the word is considered so offensive, especially in the US, that it’s usually expressed as ‘the N-word’. This N-word is one of a small group of so-called ‘fighting words’ that according to US law have the potential (when used in certain contexts) to cause injury or provoke violence. Although the First Amendment of the US constitution enshrines the right to freedom of speech, fighting words are not included.
Future trends
Mohr points out that racial slurs like the N-word have not yet evolved the range of linguistic forms that older swearwords have; for example, ‘nigger’ is still only used as a noun or adjective but not as a verb or interjection. That might change in the future, she suggests. And, regarding topics that might become increasingly taboo and so inspire the swearwords of the future, Mohr thinks that aging and illness are likely candidates.
Melissa Mohr talked to Speak Up to explain more about how swearwords evolve linguistically, why they are so powerful, and why that power changes over time.
Melissa Mohr (American accent): Swearwords go through this process where they start out getting their power from their referent. So, ‘fuck’, for example, got its power because people started to become embarrassed about having sex in front of people. It was a taboo and that’s why it got its power. And so, at first, when you said ‘fuck’, you just meant ‘have sex’. But then its use expanded and expanded and now you can say it’s an adjective, an interjection, a noun, verb... everything. And as words get used in these ways, their power kind of declines. And so, that hasn’t started yet with racial slurs.
political tool
According to Mohr, swearwords can be a powerful tool in political communication.
Melissa Mohr: Politicians can get a lot of mileage out of swearing if they do it, I guess, correctly. And, by correctly, [I mean] it has to sound natural, it can’t be like they planned this in written in the middle of their speech they’re gonna say ‘fuck’. And so, for example, Trump does that really well and it’s effective because for hundreds of years people have associated swearing with telling the truth. If you’re somebody who calls a spade a spade, you use these rough direct words and so people get the sense that you’re saying what you mean. And so for example for Trump that worked very well.
god’s body
In Mediaeval England, there was a strong taboo against religious swearing, especially against mentioning God’s body. By contrast, words that might be offensive today, like ‘shit’ and ‘arse’, were not regarded as swearwords and even appeared in translations of the Bible. Mohr explains why.
Melissa Mohr: In the Middle Ages the taboo words were religious in origin and this has to do with, obviously, the place of religion in Mediaeval life, it was central. And it also has to do with Catholic ideas of God’s body, that in Catholic tradition God’s body is tangible, you know, you eat it in the Eucharist and it’s sort of very present. And so the very worst words that you could say revolve around tearing up God’s body. So OMG, if you said “Oh my God”, that would be pretty bad, but if you said “By God’s Bones” that would be really bad because Mediaeval Catholics thought that that actually was sort of ripping apart Christ’s body as he sits in Heaven. So the reason that words like ‘cunt’ and ‘shit’ and ‘arse’ were not bad in the Middle Ages is that people had very little privacy, and so if you’re seeing this all the time it’s not taboo. And it was only beginning in the Renaissance, but then reached the high point in the Victorian era, when everything literally was covered up, that these words were at the height of their power.