I'm not a person who uses many swear words.
There's room for a few colorful exclamations, like
"Sweet fancy Moses!"
or "Great googly moogly!"
or a good hearty "Holy shmoley!"
or my dad's personal favorite "Diddly-dip-dee-dang-dang!"
or my mom's colorful "Hell's bells!" with all its redneck splendor.
or this:
But beyond that, I'm pretty much tapped out. I've made an effort to keep it that way (...although admittedly the track record on that definitely isn't spotless). Who needs to rack up more bad words when there are so many other splendid options to use instead?
Enter, stage left, a recent study published in the journal Language Sciences which concluded that people who know more swear words may also have a larger non-swear vocabulary.
The researchers asked people to say as many swear words as they could come up with in 60 seconds. Then, they asked them to name as many animals as possible in 60 seconds. People who were able to spit out more bad words were also able to rattle off more animals. The researchers concluded that "The ability to generate taboo language is not an index of overall language poverty. A voluminous taboo lexicon may better be considered an indicator of healthy verbal abilities.”
So, being able to swear like a sailor goes hand in hand with having a wider overall vocabulary and better verbal skills? Really?
I have some issues with the study:
1. They allowed anything that sounded remotely foul to count toward the swear word vocabulary size, as long as it was generally recognizable as being in the English language. Somehow that feels like cheating. Remember the data showing that several rappers have a vocabulary larger than William Shakespeare, but for the sake of word total they allowed things like "pimp, pimps, pimping, and pimpin" to count as 4 separate entries? This study's counting method feels similarly skewed in favor of sloppy creativity rather than solid real words.
2. Since when are animal names the prime litmus test for vocabulary size? What if my specialty is naming architectural styles, or streets in Phoenix, or types of trees, and despite having a broad vocabulary it doesn't happen to run very deeply into zoology?
3. They tested in a setting with time pressure. This is the biggest issue of all, actually. Have you ever noticed that there are some people who can unleash an unchecked torrent of words about whatever crosses their mind, while other people have to pause and collect their words into an organized bundle before they speak? Maybe that has nothing to do with the content of their brains, and everything to do with the filter system they pass their words through before saying them out loud.
I wonder if the unfiltered folks have an easier time popping out words (swear words or animal names or anything else) rapid-fire during a timed test, because they just spit out whatever comes to mind. Meanwhile, perhaps the people with a filter go slower because they're trying to produce a sensible, meaningful, organized, efficient list.
In other words, the time-pressured test would favor people who can comfortably just blurt stuff out. Regardless of true vocabulary size or "healthy verbal abilities," the filtered thinkers would be at a disadvantage.
I think they should demand a #$@& retest.
There's room for a few colorful exclamations, like
"Sweet fancy Moses!"
or "Great googly moogly!"
or a good hearty "Holy shmoley!"
or my dad's personal favorite "Diddly-dip-dee-dang-dang!"
or my mom's colorful "Hell's bells!" with all its redneck splendor.
or this:
But beyond that, I'm pretty much tapped out. I've made an effort to keep it that way (...although admittedly the track record on that definitely isn't spotless). Who needs to rack up more bad words when there are so many other splendid options to use instead?
Enter, stage left, a recent study published in the journal Language Sciences which concluded that people who know more swear words may also have a larger non-swear vocabulary.
The researchers asked people to say as many swear words as they could come up with in 60 seconds. Then, they asked them to name as many animals as possible in 60 seconds. People who were able to spit out more bad words were also able to rattle off more animals. The researchers concluded that "The ability to generate taboo language is not an index of overall language poverty. A voluminous taboo lexicon may better be considered an indicator of healthy verbal abilities.”
So, being able to swear like a sailor goes hand in hand with having a wider overall vocabulary and better verbal skills? Really?
I have some issues with the study:
1. They allowed anything that sounded remotely foul to count toward the swear word vocabulary size, as long as it was generally recognizable as being in the English language. Somehow that feels like cheating. Remember the data showing that several rappers have a vocabulary larger than William Shakespeare, but for the sake of word total they allowed things like "pimp, pimps, pimping, and pimpin" to count as 4 separate entries? This study's counting method feels similarly skewed in favor of sloppy creativity rather than solid real words.
2. Since when are animal names the prime litmus test for vocabulary size? What if my specialty is naming architectural styles, or streets in Phoenix, or types of trees, and despite having a broad vocabulary it doesn't happen to run very deeply into zoology?
 |
| Sharkstallion, the Great White Hork. |
I wonder if the unfiltered folks have an easier time popping out words (swear words or animal names or anything else) rapid-fire during a timed test, because they just spit out whatever comes to mind. Meanwhile, perhaps the people with a filter go slower because they're trying to produce a sensible, meaningful, organized, efficient list.
 |
| Because for some people, rattling off a random list like "Baboon...Goldfish...Hyena...Tree frog...Orca...Dungbeetle" feels just as psychotically disorganized as eating a KitKat like this. |
I think they should demand a #$@& retest.
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