research paper curse words

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The science of swearing.

• Communication
• Language Development
• Personality/Social

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Why would a psychological scientist study swearing? Expertise in such an area has different practical significance inside and outside the community of psychological science. Outside the scientific community, expertise on taboo language is justification for frequent consultation about contemporary issues that are perennial: Is swearing harmful? Should children be allowed to swear? Is our swearing getting worse? One of us has been interviewed over 3,000 times by various media with respect to the questions above, as well as those about the use of taboo words in television, advertising, professional sports, radio, music, and film. In addition to consultation with mass media, expert testimony has been needed in cases involving sexual harassment, fighting words, picket-line speech, disturbing the peace, and contempt of court cases.

Considering the persistent need for an expert to consult for the above issues, it is odd that swearing expertise is weighted so differently when swearing is viewed from the perspective of psychological science. While hundreds of papers have been written about swearing since the early 1900s, they tend to originate from fields outside of psychology such as sociology, linguistics, and anthropology. When swearing is a part of psychological research, it is rarely an end in itself.

Kristin Janschewitz

It is far more common to see strong offensive words used as emotionally arousing stimuli — tools to study the effect of emotion on mental processes such as attention and memory.

Why the public-versus-science disconnect? Is swearing, as a behavior, outside the scope of what a psychological scientist ought to study? Because swearing is influenced so strongly by variables that can be quantified at the individual level, psychological scientists (more than linguists, anthropologists, and sociologists) have the best training to answer questions about it. Another explanation for the relative lack of emphasis on this topic is the orientation of psychological science to processes (e.g., memory) rather than life domains (e.g., leisure activities), a problem described by Paul Rozin. Arguably, a more domain-centered approach to psychological study would better accommodate topics such as swearing and other taboo behaviors.

Regardless of the reason for the relative lack of emphasis on swearing research per se inside psychological science, there is still a strong demand from outside the scientific community for explanations of swearing and associated phenomena. To give the reader a sense of the work that we do as psychological scientists who study swearing, let’s consider some of the common questions we’re asked about swearing.

Is swearing problematic or harmful?

Courts presume harm from speech in cases involving discrimination or sexual harassment. The original justification for our obscenity laws was predicated on an unfounded assumption that speech can deprave or corrupt children, but there is little (if any) social-science data demonstrating that a word in and of itself causes harm. A closely related problem is the manner in which harm has been defined — harm is most commonly framed in terms of standards and sensibilities such as religious values or sexual mores. Rarely are there attempts to quantify harm in terms of objectively measurable symptoms (e.g., sleep disorder, anxiety). Psychological scientists could certainly make a systematic effort to establish behavioral outcomes of swearing.

Swearing can occur with any emotion and yield positive or negative outcomes. Our work so far suggests that most uses of swear words are not problematic. We know this because we have recorded over 10,000 episodes of public swearing by children and adults, and rarely have we witnessed negative consequences. We have never seen public swearing lead to physical violence. Most public uses of taboo words are not in anger; they are innocuous or produce positive consequences (e.g., humor elicitation). No descriptive data are available about swearing in private settings, however, so more work needs to be done in that area.

Therefore, instead of thinking of swearing as uniformly harmful or morally wrong, more meaningful information about swearing can be obtained by asking what communication goals swearing achieves. Swear words can achieve a number of outcomes, as when used positively for joking or storytelling, stress management, fitting in with the crowd, or as a substitute for physical aggression. Recent work by Stephens et al. even shows that swearing is associated with enhanced pain tolerance. This finding suggests swearing has a cathartic effect, which many of us may have personally experienced in frustration or in response to pain. Despite this empirical evidence, the positive consequences of swearing are commonly disregarded in the media. Here is an opportunity for psychological scientists to help inform the media and policymakers by clearly describing the range of outcomes of swearing, including the benefits.

Is it bad for children to hear or say swear words?

The harm question for adult swearing applies to issues such as verbal abuse, sexual harassment, and discrimination. When children enter the picture, offensive language becomes a problem for parents and a basis for censorship in media and educational settings. Considering the ubiquity of this problem, it is interesting that psychology textbooks do not address the emergence of this behavior in the context of development or language learning.

Parents often wonder if this behavior is normal and how they should respond to it. Our data show that swearing emerges by age two and becomes adult-like by ages 11 or 12. By the time children enter school, they have a working vocabulary of 30-40 offensive words. We have yet to determine what children know about the meanings of the words they use. We do know that younger children are likely to use milder offensive words than older children and adults, whose lexica may include more strongly offensive terms and words with more nuanced social and cultural meanings. We are currently collecting data to better understand the development of the child’s swearing lexicon.

We do not know exactly how children learn swear words, although this learning is an inevitable part of language learning, and it begins early in life. Whether or not children (and adults) swear, we know that they do acquire a contextually-bound swearing etiquette — the appropriate ‘who, what, where, and when’ of swearing. This etiquette determines the difference between amusing and insulting and needs to be studied further. Through interview data, we know that young adults report to have learned these words from parents, peers, and siblings, not from mass media.

Considering that the consequences of children’s exposure to swear words are frequently cited as the basis for censorship, psychological scientists should make an effort to describe the normal course of the development of a child’s swearing lexicon and etiquette. Is it important to attempt to censor children from language they already know? While psychological scientists themselves do not establish language standards, they can provide scientific data about what is normal to inform this debate.

Has swearing become more frequent in recent years?

This is a very common question, and it’s a tough one to answer because we have no comprehensive, reliable baseline frequency data prior to the 1970s for comparison purposes. It is true that we are exposed to more forms of swearing since the inception of satellite radio, cable television, and the Internet, but that does not mean the average person is swearing more frequently. In our recent frequency count, a greater proportion of our data comes from women (the reduction of a once large gender difference). We interpret this finding as reflecting a greater proportion of women in public (e.g., many more women on college campuses) rather than a coarsening of women. Our forthcoming research also indicates that the most frequently recorded taboo words have remained fairly stable over the past 30 years. The Anglo-Saxon words we say are hundreds of years old, and most of the historically offensive sexual references are still at the top of the offensiveness list; they have not been dislodged by modern slang. Frequency data must be periodically collected to answer questions about trends in swearing over time.

Thus, our data do not indicate that our culture is getting “worse” with respect to swearing. When this question arises, we also frequently fail to acknowledge the impact of recently-enacted laws that penalize offensive language, such as sexual harassment and discrimination laws. Workplace surveillance of telephone and email conversations also curbs our use of taboo language.

Do all people swear?

We can answer this question by saying that all competent English speakers learn how to swear in English. Swearing generally draws from a pool of 10 expressions and occurs at a rate of about 0.5 percent of one’s daily word output. However, it is not informative to think of how an average person swears: Contextual, personality, and even physiological variables are critical for predicting how swearing will occur. While swearing crosses socioeconomic statuses and age ranges and persists across the lifespan, it is more common among adolescents and more frequent among men. Inappropriate swearing can be observed in frontal lobe damage, Tourette’s disorder, and aphasia.

Swearing is positively correlated with extraversion and is a defining feature of a Type A personality. It is negatively correlated with conscientiousness, agreeableness, sexual anxiety, and religiosity. These relationships are complicated by the range of meanings within the diverse group of taboo words. Some religious people might eschew profanities (religious terms), but they may have fewer reservations about offensive sexual terms that the sexually anxious would avoid. We have yet to systematically study swearing with respect to variables such as impulsivity or psychiatric conditions, (e.g., schizophrenia and bipolar disorder). These may be fruitful avenues along which to investigate the neural basis of emotion and self-control.

Taboo words occupy a unique place in language because once learned, their use is heavily context driven. While we have descriptive data about frequency and self reports about offensiveness and other linguistic variables, these data tend to come from samples that overrepresent young, White, middle-class Americans. A much wider and more diverse sample is needed to better characterize the use of taboo language to more accurately answer all of the questions here.

Amazingly interesting.

There are some new swear words in the younger generation. Probably they define a loose, age-specific, “cloud grouping.” What do you think about “new” swear words?

My father, a tee-totling christian could swear louder and longer than anyone I knew… without using a swear-word. I.e. “carn-sarn-nit,” “yellow-bellied-wood-pecker,” “son-of-a-biscuit-eater,” “crim-a-nelly,” on and on. Hmm. We knew he was swearing, he knew he was swearing.

As a long-time teacher and professor I have noted a few things on both sides: The swear words addiction reminds me of youngsters in locker rooms when they first begin boasting with smutty words and innuendos to show off their “sophisticated masculinity.” It then rubs off as they get older onto others who look upon them as more sophisticated than the younger students. Later, even some professors use these words to show they are “with it.” My judgment? If you were really that learned and sophisticated, you would not need to use those words in public (sometimes with a tongue-in-cheek attitude). Many today would like less pollution of dirty language and anger–because there is always an element of anger in these words, even if it is hidden. And people using the word conservative as a slander should realize that many of these “conservatives” are so innovative that they have succeeded not only in doing good for the public with their successful modern ideas and products but steer clear of anger and hate and harm to others with their “labels.” Pandering to the lowest level is not productive. It only gives fuel to more smut.

“like less pollution of dirty language and anger–because there is always an element of anger in these words, even if it is hidden.”

That is not objective at all. Where is this hidden element of anger you assert is always there? The article shows that it substitutes aggression among other positive effects. How can you conclude that it hides anger if the evidence shows it substitutes violence and reduces stress? I think you are steering a little bit away from measurable evidence here on this.

I do agree though with many people not needing to swear, but that could be from so many other reasons. Perhaps they have other methods and habits of stress management? Maybe the group of friends they are with also happen to swear less? Maybe the geographical area swears less? Who knows. But I still don’t see any evidence supporting your assertion of ever-present hidden anger in certain choices of vocabularity disregarding so many other variables. I’ll defend my friends any day of the week if people levy accusations against them for their choices of vocabularity. There are so many other clearly measurable bad things than to waste time with that.

Profanity is the diction of the indolent, unburdening the perpetrator of lexical exertion. The syntactic versatility of the curse is boundless, conveniently obeying regular rules of inflection. Like a furtive vandal, the obscenity nestles effortlessly anywhere into any sentence, destroying its nuance. Hardly a brain cell need be inducted to create an offending phrase. Rather than expend energy selecting the precise noun, verb, or adjective that accurately embodies intent, the debauchee resorts to the makeshift swear. A profane Marc Antony hovering over the bloodied corpse of Caesar, rather than expressing Shakespeare’s poetic portent “Woe to the hand that shed this costly blood” might otherwise say, “Screw the bastard who did this crap.” The image conveyed by the profane Marc Antony, one of illegitimate men being raped for defecation, is a less accurate, less poignant depiction than the original, which inspires desire for revenge against the murderer whose callous hand spilled the blood of the mighty Caesar. Swearing ruins language and stains those engaging in it with the mark of sloth and doltishness.

For this research, I think it is important to understand, not only the meaning of the word, but also the sound of it. The shape and movement words bring into our minds can affect the way we feel about it. Many people can easily become desensitized to the words, whereas others might cringe to them the same way they cringe to certain undesirable sounds.

It would be an interesting study to see the effects of different sounds on the brain and its relation to language.

Nice point about the sounds…tone, texture, rhythm, etc. I been thinking bout this for a long-a## time…

It would be interesting to study whether people who are more sensitive to sound are also more negatively effected by swear words.

Has there ever been a study of honesty versus swearing? I was recently told by an acquaintance that people who swear are more honest. I don’t see how there could be a correlation, but she insists it was studied and its true.

Based on personal experience, I’d have to say yes. People I know that curse like a Scottish Sailor on a drunken holiday are really stand up people that you can put your trust in. I cuss like a loon, but I’d give you the shirt off my back, open my home to you for shelter, put food in your mouth if you were hungry, and never put up a false pretense. I’ve never heard of such a study myself and I’m about to go look into it after typing this because it sounds intriguing. However, I can say, that based off myself, and experiences with other avid samplers of the verbally profane (lol), that we’re pretty damn honest. 😀 Maybe it’s because we don’t shy away from profanity that we don’t shy away from much else, including being straight with people. 🙂

I think a lot of what you have said is true. I too think that a lot of people who have strong beliefs or ideas just say it as it is. They don’t seem as vulnerable and are maybe more literal in their thinking therefore speaking from the heart so to speak. People that swear often do not even realize that they swear as much as they do because they are true to themselves and just speaking the truth with no inhibitions. I am not saying that everyone should talk like this, but maybe they are just expressing their true self. We are all different and are unique in our own skin. We all need to be true to ourselves. I agree with your point of view.

You said: “They’re not vulnerable. They’re literal. They swear more than they think they do. Therefore, they are speaking from their heart” That makes completely no sense. If they were speaking from their heart, then they would not “be literal”, instead, they would be loving and kind and compassionate instead; and likewise, if they were speaking from their heart, they would be vulnerable, and they would also speak important things, instead of repetitive trash.

It’s an assumption that those words are “trash”, which seems to be based on a prejudice you have against the words and I am wondering where your idea that they are “trash” has come from? I make no such judgement either way myself, being (probably inappropriately) objective on the matter. If they are “repetitive”, this rather misses their point that they will be the ‘same old words’ and that underlines why they are used. You speak of “speaking about important things” but what are you giving importance to and why? Where has your judgement that swear words are thereby not “important” come from? In fact they form a vital part of the language. It’s also possible to use swear words in a kind and compassionate way, and even a loving way, because they are words used between friends (and the closer they are, the more ‘severe’); however this may not be true for yourself because they are not used in this way in some generations that misuse the words by using them in anger and therefore carry a different association. It’s also possible to be very nasty as well as to talk complete trash without using swearing. Therefore, the presence of swearing neither shows “trash” and nor does the lack of swearing show kindness or compassion. It is possible to talk trash with or without swearing, and possible to be kind or compassionate or to be angry and disrespectful with or without swearing. You say swear words are designated in the dictionary as swear words – the use of the word “the” suggests that there is one dictionary; however there are different dictionaries and they designate different words as swearing because some words that continue to be listed as swearing in some dictionaries, in another dictionary are now merely slang. This suggests a change in the language whereby some words have ceased to be swear words, although I don’t know whether you still think they are swearing because you speak of them being designated by “the dictionary”. When people speak “from the heart”, that does not necessarily mean they are vulnerable. Some vulnerable people are indeed in a worse position because of their vulnerability and thus not able to voice their feelings therefore would not be using swearing and might also avoid much else as well perhaps with certain people. Their lack of swearing, indeed lack of conversation, might mean they are vulnerable rather than their ability to speak from the heart demonstrating a lack of vulnerability.

So you mentioned you do not know where children learn swear words?? Are you serious? At home for most of them. The others learn from kids when they get to school. Did you not have kids and learn this? lol

Research may show that the person swearing is more trustworthy, but I would like to see the study on intelligence in those who swear a blue streak. Speaking for myself, I lose a great deal of respect for a person that uses that type of language when there are so many other words that would work much better. Personally, I find it less trustworthy, also.

If there is a study were can we view it or read there findings? I find this hard to believe.

I found this article in a Google search. I was trying to find the supposed study showing how people who swear tend to be more trust worthy. Haven’t found it yet but I will continue to look. I do see where some truth would come from it. Not so much as oh this person cusses like a sailor there for he/she won’t steal my purse, but more from a standpoint of I can trust them to tell me if these pants make my butt look big. Simply because people who tend to swear also tend not to care about what others think about them so therefore they have less of reason to tell white lies.

This is an interesting article, though I started to question the research design after reading, “…we have recorded over 10,000 episodes of public swearing by children and adults, and rarely have we witnessed negative consequences. We have never seen public swearing lead to physical violence.”

Having incited such violence personally, using utterances primarily constructed with swear words, and having witnessed the same in close proximity on more occasions than I am proud to admit, it strikes me as though the research may have had biases that tainted the results.

Swearing at Disney world be expected to result in fewer negative outcomes than f-bombs tossed strategically at a bar, a ballgame, or family reunion.

For as long as I remember, I have considered that folks who use swearwords had not developed sufficient vocabulary to say what they had in mind.

Is there ANYWHERE conservative trolls will NOT go? This was an article clearly describing explorations into the social mechanics of the use of profanity and it consequences, with what was obviously an exhortation for more investigation into the phenomenon, not liberal propaganda(note how this word is spelled correctly). Tomorrow’s child is without a doubt attempting to make readers feel they are somehow remiss to even have read this, in a most puerile, opinionated way that, given even the misspelling of the words “venereal” and “propaganda” achieve little but generate disdain for a squandered intellect. All that, without a single profanity. And I haven’t even begun to describe his family tree. Terrific article. Needs expansion. Try to ignore the trolls. Leave those clodhoppers to me.

Thanks, James. Have just read the article today and the comments. Keep fighting the good fight against the trolls. For the Trolls out there – We’re just trying to understand the mechanics of how humans work rather than lay on guilt, etc.

You are guilty of the same logical fallacy. Ad hominems are common known in politics as “mudslinging.” Also evident by pointing out spelling errors

“appeal to hypocrisy” because it distracts from the argument by pointing out hypocrisy in the opponent.

well about the swearing vs honesty thing if swearing has a direct correlation to a type A personality one of the defining traits of a type A personality is honesty

I totally disagree with this finding, if it really is a finding. Half the time the person swearing is swearing because they are covering up a lie, or trying to prove a point that is unrealistic. I notice that people tend to swear just to relieve anxiety and stress. Believe me, my daughter swears like a sailor and so did one of my sisters. I doesn’t matter if you swear or not, honesty is in the person’s upbringing and natural character in my opinion. To heck with Behavioral Studies.

I spent 45 years in engineering on the shop floor where swearing was the norm, I never got used to it. I compared it to picking your nose in public, i.e. your not doing anybody any harm, but it is bad manners and repulsive. I havn’t observed any relationship between IQ, honesty, temper or manners in the frequency of swearing. I don’t get that it helps someone to stand pain as some of the biggest babies (adults) would come out with a string of cursing at the slightest twinge. It will probably become socially unacceptable though time. As well as the example above, if the words were substituted with a loud hand clap, I think that would have a similar effect. i.e. a nuisance and unnecessary. Sorry to be a prig, but I’m right!

Given that, of the 2 words seen as the most obscene in English – 1 dates back to at least 1290 and the other to around 1470, I don’t see swearing being replaced by hand clapping anytime soon. As these two words are between 3 and 4 times older than the US they clearly fulfil some type of linguistic need, which must be worthy of a level of attention above the tut-tuttery and value judgements of some of the posters here. The earliest recorded use of the c-word was a street name in Oxford, Gropec@&£ Lane. This was apparently a commonly used street name in medieval England. Apparently, so named because of the prostitution which was rife. This name was actively used until Victorian times when use of what they saw as obscene language came to be frowned upon in polite society – the source of much of our current attitudes towards swearing, not to mention their legacy of sexual hypocrisy which was partially responsible for this stance on linguistic mores . There were at least 3 streets of this name in London, one of which was euphemistically renamed as Threadneedle Street – now the location of the Bank of England. More research on this rich and interesting linguistic heritage and the role that it seems to have played in human history would seem to be more than justified.

Matt Van Wagner, love your comment.

As far as exploiting my limited vocabulary, that’s taurine fecal matter! According to HBO dramas, ancient Rome and the American frontier West were scenes of far more potty-mouth than contemporary society. In France, higher class women fart at the dinner table, giggle, and say, “Je m’excuse!”, say ‘merde’ without batting an eye; near as i can tell, the filthiest expletive one can utter is ‘punaise’ meaning ‘gnats’ or bedbug… although ‘putard’ [prostitute] and its slang derivative ‘petang’ [whore] may be a close second. [this information is several decades dated] I suspect the use of Anglo-Saxon rooted vocabulary is directly related to the social mores of particular times and places, more than any intrinsic meaning or sound of the words themselves… Cheese and crackers, got all muddy! Squeamish people probably can’t help themselves – that’s just the way they were raised!

My sister-in-law is a devout christian and considered the “f”g-word, or effg….vile and disgusting and refused to come to our home after one such incident. I was frustrated with the thoughtless of the people above us (rented apartment (flat)stomping up and down, the young 20-someting daughter who should have been living on her own,) and turned to hubby and bottom line mentioned those f*g tenants, a woman, her daughter and the woman’ grandmother. SIL strode upstairs and read the three women, the riot act. She barely tolerates s*t, damn, hell from my hubby.

I don’t see anything wrong cursing once in a while to show my frustration and the pain I suffer from. She LOATHES it. Having read a Toronto Star, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, article from Reuters by Star Reporter, Katelyn Verstaten, I thought, ‘Ah, someone who feels the way I do. If my SIL has a rather irrational approach to a famly member getting easily and emotionally reactive by swearing, then pehaps it is SHE who needs he counseling.

@Dr. Sharlene Peters: What I find interesting is you say “My father, a tee-totling christian could swear louder and longer than anyone I knew… without using a swear-word. I.e. “carn-sarn-nit,” “yellow-bellied-wood-pecker,” “son-of-a-biscuit-eater,” “crim-a-nelly,” on and on. Hmm. We knew he was swearing, he knew he was swearing”.

What I proffer is that a child of any age wouldn’t say “carn-sarn-it” (or any of those other words you said your father used) to a friend for shock value, or to a parent to show rebellion, but WOULD use the “F” word for the same purpose. So if a word doesn’t bring forth shock, is not profane or obscene, then it’s not swearing. At least IMHO.

Re: some of the comments, I can swear up a storm when I’m angry but I also swear in everyday speech. I do have bipolar disorder so there might be some impulse control issues. And on a question of intelligence, I don’t believe that has anything to do with it. I am working towards finishing my M.S. and then my PhD and I can make a sailor blush if I were so inclined. I promise you there are plenty of intelligent people who swear on a regular basis.

So science doesn’t really have a lot to do with what lay people believe. It is systematic. Orderly. Not impulsive. It is not speculation. It is just like you learned in school–do some research on the topic you are targeting, forming a hypothesis, designing an experiment to test that hypothesis, then doing it and finally analyzing the data, drawing a conclusion and writing up your findings. So FairBairn– you say people who swear when they are hurt are babies. The swearing helps bear the pain. Remember the part where the author mentioned that children start this fairly young? They don’t use words that are as strong as older people, but I’m sure you’ve seen a kid say “Shoot!” when she’s stubbed her toe. It’s cathartic. Applying “common sense”… well, yeah, no, that’s problematic for a number of reasons.

Dear right wing people who do not like swearing:

1. Not liking something does not make it go away.

2. Not liking swearing does not make it untrue that there is a correlation between wearing and honesty.

3. Today’s world, apparently, has less swearing than the world in the past, not more. Read the article: the authors say “…our data do not indicate that our culture is getting “worse” with respect to swearing”.

4. “To heck with Behavioral Studies”? Really? Have you no understanding at all of the concept of science, or of its methodology?

I never used to swear. I have always leaned way to far on the soft heart scale, far to passive when i believe you need to balance between a harder heart, and softer one, somewhere in the middle. I never have to worry about the balancing act because my tendencies for compassion, and a soft heart i dont think i can lose , so i just try to be as hard as i can , and the balance takes care of itself. I know exactly why I swear. I swear because it is the only way I can find, and feel the aggression I need to meet the aggression that life throws at me. I not talking about people Im talking about the thing that you wake up to every morning trying to bring you down. Swearin has really made a difference in my aggression of spirit. You have to be harder then life or life will break you.

A certain person spying on me told me that she herself has been studying my own behavior in what she herself has called a “Bad Mouth” study. She told me that she has noticed me starting to cuss recently and asked me why. I told her that the reason is because I am not being cushioned by the presence of my own fiancé. She told me that that same answer of mine to her same question has tempted her to bring my own fiancé to me to determine whether or not I really would stop cussing at that point. She also told me, however, that she, in order to determine the continued results of her own study, would have to keep spying, on not only me but also my own husband.

I’m curious on how & why ppl use words such as Jesus Christ & the F*** words in negative, stressful situations? Isn’t the F-bomb related to sex which is something adults find pleasurable yet it’s used in negative situations? Wouldn’t it make more sense to say something like evil, crap or sh*t that have more negative connotations behind the definition? I guess there must be more rationale behind the use of profanity in language….so much more than I thought of. It would be interesting to see more studies about the use of profanity.

Interesting article, but in my opinion it is not always a good approach to omit certain findings from similar scientific studies done from a different area of specialization, as they can lend credence to the psychological study done here. Neurolinguistics, for example, could give some useful background on just why it is that aphasics swear more prolifically than other psychosociological groups. When I was in college working towards my BA in linguistics I had a work study job with a professor of neurolinguistics, whose team was developing the first ‘talking computer’, for use by stroke victims, aphasics and victims of other language disorders. While I was there, it was discovered by accident, that we actually use a completely different part of our brain to swear than we do for ‘normal’ speech. A nurse was bringing hot coffee to a patient in the hospital where we worked; he had had a severe stroke and was unable to speak at all. The nurse accidentally spilled the hot coffee all over him… and he let out a blue streak like none you’ve ever heard! That incident opened up an area of study in neurolinguistics that has helped many patients, mute for whatever medical reasons, to relearn how to produce speech by repurposing the pathways the brain normally reserves for swearing. The original patient was taught to speak again after a prolonged period of no doubt frustrated silence, using those neuropathways… His family was beyond grateful and he himself was thrilled to no end. To get back to my original point, what I believe is that overspecialization in a given area of science can sometimes put the blinders on, even to the extent of reinventing the wheel sometimes. Better to cull from several areas of study, to round out your psychological findings and to give them a broader context. Oh! And by the way, the F word came to us from the Latin form, probably through the Norman rule of England for over 200 years. The slang term may be from the agricultural tool used to cultivate hard soil, the farmer’s fuck. Popular use arrived in America via the British pop rock bands of the ‘sixties… Not sure about the C word; have to look that one up in my dusty linguistics textbooks! But the description provided by 2manyprojex definitely has a ring of truth to it (see the March, 2014 comment above). I love this stuff!

“Why the public-versus-science disconnect?”

Was this a rhetorical question raised for effect to draw attention to the fact the disconnect certainly seems to exist? This is an interesting question that exceedingly relevant in politics. Why such a large disconnect between the folk psychologies of average American communities and the formal communities of the softer sciences known as psychology and sociology? I think a Chomskian (or Freireian, if you prefer) response might simply point out that it’s not politically expedient for the masses to possess genuine critical thinking skills, and rather to encourage simple worldviews such as Judeo-Christian or jingoistic mythologies.

The subject of this article is interesting, as are some of the questions. However, I’ll admit the reason I’m here is because I expected to find more of the unrealistic information that Matt Van Wagner and Cora referenced in posts above. The second and third paragraphs under “Is Swearing Problematic of Harmful?” were cited (although heavily paraphrased) in an article I was reading, and it had a link to this page. If you want to seriously pursue the topic scientifically, you’re going to have incorporate some real-life experiences (ie. life domains, leisure activities, social activities). For anyone to say, “We have never seen public swearing lead to physical violence. Most public uses of taboo words are not in anger; they are innocuous or produce positive consequences (e.g., humor elicitation).” I’m not being facetious when I say that makes me wonder if you’ve been home-schooled your entire life and led a dramatically sheltered life (ie. no life domains). After obscene gestures and racial epithets, swearing is likely the biggest precursor (no pun intended) to violence. In addition, to the examples given in the above post, there’s road rage. I went to a public school in a middle=class, suburban area, but I’ve seen swearing escalate to violence many times. Do all people swear? In my experience yes, although frequency varies greatly from person to person. I don’t swear much, but I definitely have. For myself, and for most of what I’ve seen in life, swearing is a barometer of someone’s anger. There are exceptions of course – like Tourette Syndrome. I’ve also heard an occasional “Oh, H— Yeah!”, but for every one of the positive swears, I’ve heard 100 negative ones. Cursing ‘seems’ one of very universal themes – as it seems whenever people learn a new language – the first words they want to learn are the swear words. I’ve got so much more to say, but besides the fact that nobody may want to hear what I have to say, I noticed this article is 3 years old.

Kudos to the people whose entitled moral ground makes them think they know more and better than a Behavioral Science PhD. Do they really think the world revolves around their own moral values? If it doesn’t fit with how we want and what we want, it’s hokey. Well, it’s not.

As for the article. Well written and informative, as much as should be. I don’t see a bias, unless uncertainty and reluctance to make unfounded correlations is now called bias. I would be interested to know how the research progresses.

Reference anger to infantile expression shows a lack of connection to our language. I do not choose to revert to anal attachment to feces, when I am frustrated. To pout and holler ‘feces’ shows a lack of higher cognizance to what is obviously frustrating me. Likewise, I do not choose to use a word for intercourse, inviting people who I do not even like to intercourse. That sex and hatred are so intertwined speaks volumes of our inability to differentiate between the two. To reference a woman as a female breeding dog and then teach her to be proud to insult herself, defies all logic. I could get more into profanities, if they made more sense, raising themselves out of poop, piss, sex, into words that make logical sense.

Exactly, Mac

Well, Mac your remarks were hilariously forthright and candidly serious. Your colorful discourse was quite amusing to me, although you appear to be quite sincere with no intention of being comical. I like. Thank you for sharing. 🙂

Here is a great explanation on how context makes all the difference. And how in the wrong context, swear words will increase stress levels/negative emotions:

http://harvardsciencereview.com/2014/01/23/the-science-of-swearing/

Of course saying words with negative associations, are going to give rise to negative feelings (and stress). This does not apply to light-hearted situations in which the swear words are being used for dramatic effect. A cleverly placed swear word in a funny situation can be very amusing. However, a mother calling her child a ‘piece of s****’- does not make that child feel trusting (and I hope they don’t believe their mother is being honest).

I’m mildly offended that one would even insinuate that because an individual swears they are less honest, less intelligent or capable, or viewed as irresponsible, irrational, etc. I “swear a blue streak” all day, but I know that it should be restricted in certain venues or circumstances. Just because an individual curses, they shouldn’t be judged. There is no credible evidence to back up your preconceived notions. We don’t hide who or what we are. Perhaps those who are more reserved with their use of language are fraudulent, and limit themselves as to who or what they can be due to fear of judgement. Cry babies. Get over it. I grew up in a home with parents who swear. What happened? My repertoire is just more extensive and colorful than some. I’m not a drug addict, alcoholic, convict, neglectful or abusive in my parenting, nor do I believe that my integrity has at all in any manifestation been compromised. That said… i’m pretty sure we all learned that language is subjective. It’s not the word itself that bothers an individual but rather their interpretation of it. Cry me a river….seriously, people.

Hi Kristin and Timothy, Enjoyed your piece about the benefits of swearing on Mind Body Green site. When I was going to school I had a woeful stammer in my speech and had great difficulty conversing socially and answering questions at school. Found that when I swore before starting to recite a poem especially in class it got the first word out easier especially if the poem began with a broad consenant. If the poem began with a vowel it made it that bit easier to start the recitation. I had to swear under my breath of course as swearing might not go down well if expressed loudly. Stammer is hardly noticeable nowadays. Thanks for your inspirational findings. Regards. Pat.

I guess I like a more ‘civilized society”,where people use language in respect to others. It seems that the ME generation prefers to use the F”’k word because they like to shock, saying “look at me”, rather than showing respect for you. It’s become a normal word in some groups without regard for others. I cringe at the sound of it, or any of the other curse words that people use. It is offensive in mixed company . I know there are similar words in other languages and as long as those of us don’t appose them it will always be so’

I just don’t have to like it, please show some respect.

I was wondering what y’all feel like a bad word is and what your own definition on a bad word.

I am a student at medina valley isd writing a paper for my dual credit

I personally feel that when someone swears, they are displaying the fact that they do not have a good vocabulary. Most of the people in my school swear just for fun. For example, one of the sentences I overheard in the lunch-line contained at least 10 swears, in like a 20 or so word sentence. This problem has to stop. I’m pretty sure that my school has a “no swearing” rule, but almost no one follows it.

Swearing isn’t a matter of what is being said, but what people intend when they say them. Excuse the profanity, but “Sh*t” and “Crap” are used on the same level, for the same purposes. It is in a manner similar to using the word “angry” in place of “mad.” There is very little difference, besides the syllable being uttered. Thus, it isn’t the word that is the problem: only the people who place a stigma toward it.

Swear words are designated in the dictionary as swear words. When they are used, you, by definition, are swearing. If used in a different context, of course, they are not swearing, but that does not excuse the offensive nature of swear words.

This is supposed to be a psychology oriented site, yet the authors of the article seem to be focusing with predilection on the linguistic aspect of the issue. By the time I read the passage where the authors claim we do not know how our children learn to swear, though, I was looking for a disclaimer announcing this is only for entertainment and that it is a fake news site.

Not only do they offer very little data in support of their claims, their claims defy rational logic, which is probably the reason we find no significant data in the article, other than the claim that the authors were interviewed 3,000 times regarding this issue, which is obviously not true.

This kind of articles explain why according to recent studies, a vast majority of the population of America does not trust scientists and science journalists. What is even more depressing is the fact that the authors teach in our colleges and universities, which seems to account for the state of profound ignorance of our society.

On that note, as a personal observation, I noticed that most of the swearing is done by individuals that are poorly educated on the subjects they discussed, and that swearing it is used as a cover for their lack of knowledge, as a form of defense mechanism against those who expose them for making false claims.

Through my Sophomore year of High school, I never cussed. My friends did, and I didn’t find it offensive, but I simply abstained, assuming that this way when I cussed, it would get their attention. A higher shock value, you know? Yeah, that didn’t happen. I found it to be a burden, as it lessened some humor, so I took it up my senior year. No one noticed.

They all assumed that I wasn’t cussing. Even when I dropped a swear word or two, they didn’t notice. It was the strangest thing, as their assumptions that I didn’t cuss simply censored my speech automatically.

Just an amusing anecdote.

It would be really nice if any of the studies the authors consulted were cited in this article. It is really difficult to trust the veracity of the information here if none of it is backed up.

Why do people think that cursing is “speaking from the heart?” If they were speaking from their heart, the they would be ***loving and kind and compassionate; ***vulnerable, ****speak important things, instead of repetitive trash.

I realize that this is now a few years old but it has given me a laugh. My SO says I insult her when I swear at her, I don’t understand her, I AM INTENDING to insult her because she has frustrated me by doing something that I have asked at least a dozen times for her not to do! So, swearing can be a safety valve to let off steam when you experience stressful events most significantly from those close to you. Before people think I am a brain challenged moron, I am an Oxford qualified pathologist and to be frank, I like swearing. Some of the people responding here are straight from Victoiana and I shoukd know as I am living with one!

I am doing a research on “curse/wishing ill/imprecation” in a religious context and came across this site. In other cultures, people, especially older folks, will utter ill wishes upon someone else when he/she gets upset, like “may you die of hunger!, may you never see happiness in your life!, may your hands get cut!, etc”. Most of these have no religious connotations but the underlying emotional outburst by the speaker seems to stem from the root words of “curse” in major world religions. I have specific questions. While the word “curse” has been replaced by “profanities, swearing, etc”, do people in American still curse/wish ill upon others, the old way? Thank you.

Sexual anxiety is positive. Ask any father of three daughters.

After seeing so much profanity on the Social sites. I got curious and wound up here. After reading the article and comments, I was struck that Communication Theory wasn’t mentioned.

To put it simply, there are 3 things that are basic. You need a sender, a receiver and a medium to communicate a subject matter. In my case, the medium is the internet.

When the communication is sent there is a context. The receiver evaluates the message and responds. The use of the internet as the medium is important to the context by veiling the sender and receiver. With face to face there is the advantage of seeing facial expressions as tone of speech.

As already stated the message can be good or bad. Since the message is written, you know the sender had time to think of the words they will use.

All of this causes me to conclude the profanity used in the internet social media is mostly pejorative.

Thank you for this input. I have been working on some research on swearing which was participated by college students. One area that I want to find out is whether those who swear try not to swear and why/why not. This might answer our question if swearing should be avoided or not as perceived by those who swear. However, this could be not enough, so it is also a good thing to consider why some people do not swear which might also answer the same queation.

This article is helpful to understand the teen psychology. Though, swearing words sound bad but their effects are very positive in anger management at least, and what I observed. Those teens are less illusive and avoid fanaticism.

Here in this neck of the woods (do woods have necks?) we generally swear for one of two reasons: firstly, in casual speech, to indicate that we are capable of looking after ourselves, so don’t mess with us; like the wearing of tattoos by people wanting to look tough, same sort of idea. Second type of swearing is more emotionally driven (eg by anger or frustration) and expresses how close we are to losing self-control (or we’ve already lost it), so again, tells people: don’t mess with us or it will turn out badly. I started swearing after about ten years as a senior research scientist, as a way of releasing the build-up of stress from the demands of the job and from having to deal with belligerent members of the public who thought they knew better than someone who had studied their particular area of expertise more carefully than those members of the public could ever do. So my advice to people who are criticising the original authors here is to go do a PhD on the subject area and call back when you’ve finished. That’s not elitism, it’s just that unless you’ve spent the best part of your life studying a particular subject, why do you think you know better than someone who has? Sheesh!

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About the Authors

Timothy Jay is a professor of psychology at Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts. When he’s not studying taboo words, he serves as a psycholinguistics consultant for school systems and legal cases. He can be contacted at [email protected];

Kristin Janschewitz is an assistant professor at Marist College. Her research interests include taboo language, emotion regulation, and cognitive control. She can be contacted at [email protected].

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Building the perfect curse word: A psycholinguistic investigation of the form and meaning of taboo words

• Published: 02 January 2020
• Volume 27 , pages 139–148, ( 2020 )

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Taboo words represent a potent subset of natural language. It has been hypothesized that “tabooness” reflects an emergent property of negative valence and high physiological arousal of word referents. Many taboo words (e.g., dick, shit) are indeed consistent with this claim. Nevertheless, American English is also rife with negatively valenced, highly arousing words the usage of which is not socially condemned (e.g., cancer, abortion, welfare ). We evaluated prediction of tabooness of single words and novel taboo compound words from a combination of phonological, lexical, and semantic variables (e.g., semantic category, word length). For single words, physiological arousal and emotional valence strongly predicted tabooness with additional moderating contributions from form (phonology) and meaning (semantic category). In Experiment 2 , raters judged plausibility for combinations of common nouns with taboo words to form novel taboo compounds (e.g., shitgibbon ). A mixture of formal (e.g., ratio of stop consonants, length) and semantic variables (e.g., ± receptacle, ± profession) predicted the quality of novel taboo compounding. Together, these studies provide complementary evidence for interactions between word form and meaning and an algorithmic prediction of tabooness in American English. We discuss applications for models of taboo word representation.

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Introduction

Throughout much of the USA, public displays of cursing constitute a crime punishable by fines or incarceration (Hudson, 2017 ). No other subset of English has the power to compel a parent to symbolically wash their child’s mouth out with soap or to ameliorate pain when dropping a pan on your foot. Many of us learned early in life to regard cursing as a forbidden or punishable behavior. Nevertheless, taboo words represent a frequent, expressive, and utilitarian element of our daily lives. Much remains to be learned about the structure and representation of taboo words. Toward this end, we examined prediction of (1) lexical tabooness for single words and (2) quality of combinations of novel compound taboo words (e.g., shitrocket).

The relationship between words and their referents is generally considered arbitrarily symbolic, and this property of natural language has significant implications for tabooness. Use of the word excrement, for example , is both descriptive and permissible in many contexts, whereas shit is not. This shit/excrement example marks a distinction between taboo-word usage and taboo actions. Often, but not always, this relationship between the signifier (word) and the signified (act) is highly correlated. Here we make specific reference to taboo word use.

Semantic features of English taboo words

Researchers have hypothesized various semantic classifications for American English taboo words. Jay ( 1992 ) proposed weakness of body or spirit , social deviations , animal names , ethnic slurs , body parts , and body processes and products as overarching categories of taboo words. Four alternative categories suggested by Bergen ( 2016 ) include praying, fornicating, excreting , and slurring. Furthermore, Fromkin et al. ( 2011 ) note the disproportionate amount of sexual and abusive words related to the female body relative to the male body . These particular classifications motivated our current design to include an aggregated set of semantic predictors of tabooness that included gender (male and female), body parts and products, body acts and processes, religious and spiritual terms, disease, and mental and somatic state terms. Additionally, we included socioeconomic status and monetary terms as exploratory measures.

Structural features of English taboo words

In addition to semantic distinctiveness, taboo words are marked by constraints on phonological form and morphosyntactic use. Taboo English words often flexibly assume different grammatical classes, metaphorical usage, infixation, compounding, and lexical hybridization (Bergen, 2016 ; Jay, 2009 ). Many believe that taboo words are also marked by word length (i.e., “four-letter words”). This word-length effect could derive from the prediction of Zipf’s Law that highly frequent words spontaneously shorten over time (e.g., automobile→car). Confirmation of this phenomenon is, however, challenging, given that most word-frequency corpora based upon news and subtitles underestimate the prevalence of taboo words (Brysbaert & New, 2009 ; Janschewitz, 2008 ; Jay, 1980 ) and that highly taboo words represent only a small subset of the English lexicon.

Bergen ( 2016 ) noted a propensity among taboo words to manifest sound-symbolic features such as closed-syllable structures (e.g., consonant-vowel-consonant) and the presence of more stop consonants (e.g., c o ck , shi t , d i ck ) than would be predicted by chance within a random sample of words. Specifically, phonaesthesia is a potential driver of taboo word structure. Many taboo terms (e.g., cunt, shit, twat, fuck) are composed of sequences of hard consonants nested within short, closed syllable structures, conferring a subjectively unpleasant sound structure that colors its referent as analogously foul.

What imbues taboo words with tabooness? A hypothesis

Janschewitz ( 2008 ) advanced the hypothesis that tabooness is an emergent property of negative valence and high physiological arousal. Here we offer a nuanced perspective on Janschewitz ( 2008 ), arguing for moderating roles of phonology and semantic category. Figure 1 illustrates the relationship between arousal, valence, and tabooness for a corpus of 1,195 English words. Highly taboo words tend to cluster at the higher end of arousal and negative valence. There are, however, exceptions to this trend, including words that denote socially stigmatized concepts (e.g., cancer), as well as taboo words that are not particularly negatively valenced or highly arousing (e.g., damn).

Valence by arousal scatterplot. Note: Each data point reflects one of 1,206 English words plotted a two-dimensional plane bounded by arousal (x-axis) and valence (y-axis). Red asterisks reflect words rated z>1.96 on tabooness (see Method )

It is challenging to confirm causal claims regarding the direction of effect for valence/arousal and tabooness. Words could assume negative valence and high arousal because their use is forbidden. Alternatively, negative valence and high arousal could lead to words becoming forbiddden. One way to isolate this temporal relation would be through an analysis of etymology and historical word usage. Consider, for example, the arc of a word such as abortion . A transition from socially acceptable to taboo over time along with a punctuated increase in the frequency of usage would support the Janschewitz ( 2008 ) hypothesis. Although such a historical linguistic analysis is beyond the scope of the current investigation, we revisit this hypothesis as a future direction in the General Discussion .

Compounding as a source of new taboo words

Compounding represents a novel source of tabooness in English. A recent example of this phenomenon occurred in February 2017 during heated political discourse where Pennsylvania State Senator, Daylin Leach, challenged US President Donald Trump by tweeting, “Why don't you try to destroy my career you fascist, loofa-faced, shit-gibbon!” This distinctive insult garnered the interest of both the popular press and language researchers (Tessier & Becker, 2018 ). In a follow-up article in Slate , Zimmer ( 2017 ) subsequently traced the etymology of shitgibbon to writer David Quantic’s critiques of British pop music in the 1980s. Zimmer’s article specifically highlighted the unanswered question of why certain compounds such as shitgibbon are so effective. We hypothesize that word form and meaning interact in taboo words. In two experiments to follow, we examined factors that predict tabooness for single words and the quality of novel taboo compounds.

Experiment 1: Prediction of tabooness for single words

Participants.

We enlisted 190 participants from Mechanical Turk (Amazon Inc.) to provide subjective ratings of tabooness and concreteness for subsets of the corpus (i.e., each participant rated approximately 500 words), including only experienced raters with Master-Level status. Sex distribution was roughly comparable (93F/97M), with a mean age of 38.56 years ( SD = 10.05, range = 22–66). We excluded participants (n = 11) who failed to complete > 70% of the survey, or who completed the survey more than 2 standard deviations faster or slower than the mean duration. Participants provided electronic informed consent and were forewarned that they would encounter offensive terms during the course of the experiment.

Stimuli and corpus development

We first compiled a base corpus of high-frequency English words by querying the SUBTLEX word frequency database (Brysbaert & New, 2009 ), applying a minimium frequency threshold of > 5 per million words. We then cross-referenced the list with concreteness ratings from Brysbaert et al. ( 2013 ), eliminating all entries without published concreteness values. SUBTLEX contains relatively few taboo entries. We supplemented this corpus with stimuli drawn from the Janschewitz ( 2008 ) corpus and an additional set of socially stigmatized, high-arousal terms (e.g., welfare) generated by laboratory members. After concatenating the three corpora, we eliminated repeated items and obscure entries (e.g., British English slang). These trimming procedures yielded 1,194 total words that we subsequently coded on numerous psycholinguistic variables.

Corpus coding and data analysis

The dependent variable in the multiple regression was tabooness as rated by Mechanical Turk participants on a 1–9 Likert scale. Footnote 1 We predicted tabooness from a linear combination of 23 variables. Table 1 outlines each of the predictors, which varied on scale (continuous vs. categorical), category (semantic vs. phonological), and subjectivity (objective letter counts vs. subjective affective norms).

Phonological measures were derived using a Python script that queried syllabification from Merriam Webster’s online dictionary and converted each word to Klattese, a machine-readable version of the International Phonetic Alphabet. Errors were manually transcribed.

We obtained valence and arousal ratings from the Warriner, Kuperman, and Brysbaert ( 2013 ) database, assigning missing values (N = 47) by adapting Warriner et al.’s rating scale instructions and administering to MTurk raters (N = 50). We manually derived an interaction term by multiplying the valence and arousal ratings for each word. Concreteness ratings were obtained from Brysbaert et al. ( 2014 ) with missing values imputed using MTurk rater responses using adapted scale instructions (see Online Supplemental Material). We manually coded total number of morphemes per word. We obtained word frequency values and dominant part of speech using SUBTLEX. Polysemy values were then obtained from WordNet using dominant part of speech. Eight items were missing from SUBTLEX and WordNet (Miller, 1995 ). We determined part of speech and senses for these items (e.g., spaz, bro, jism) by cross-referencing Wiktionary.org .

We marked dichotomous semantic distinctions (e.g., female vs. other) using two rounds of coding. In the first round, the authors convened and nominally coded each word’s semantic category by consensus. Footnote 2 A second round of confirmatory coding was completed by blinded raters (N = 5). Rater agreement was 84.74%. We eliminated ten words with limited rater agreement between coding rounds.

Statistical design and data analysis

We first checked parametric linear regression assumptions within the original set of predictors using the “car” package of R (Fox et al., 2018 ). All assumptions were violated. Consequently, we completed factor reduction using a two-part procedure. We first conducted a Principal Components Analysis (PCA) to determine the optimal number of latent factors. Using an eigenvector threshold of > 1, we specified six orthogonal latent factors. Within these factors, we employed a threshold of ± .30 as the minimum correlation for group membership. We extracted the factor loadings as new variables and entered all factors and lone variables as orthogonalized predictors in a standard parametric least-squares multiple-regression predicting tabooness. Table 2 reflects the varimax-rotated factor matrix.

Factor one (“word length”) reflects a linear combination of number of phonemes, and number of syllables. Factor two (“emotion*arousal”) represents valence and the arousal-by-valence interaction term. Factor three (“concreteness”) reflects perceptual salience, which tends to be higher for nouns than verbs. Factor four (“arousal”) represents arousal. Factor five (“syllable structure”) represents a combination of consonant clusters, presence of codas, ratio of stop consonants per syllable, and total number of syllables per word. Factor six (“obstruence”) represents the phonetic distinction of cessation of airflow created by the articulation of stops and fricatives.

Table 3 summarizes the linear model predicting tabooness from a combination of 14 decorrelated factors. Figure 2 displays a correlation plot reflecting all bivariate relations among predictors. The overall model was statistically significant, accounting for 43% of the variance of tabooness (r 2 = .43, adjusted r 2 = .43, p < .001). Individual predictors ordered by their weighted contribution to the model include: Emotion*Arousal (factor 2), Male, Arousal (factor 4), Female, Body Parts, Concreteness (factor 3), Disease, Body Acts, and Obstruence (factor 6). Included in Table 3 is the relative weight of each predictor calculated using the “lmg” method as implemented within the R package “relaimpo” (Groemping & Matthias, 2018 ).

Correlation plots. Note: Non-significant bivariate correlations in panel A are presented as blank cells. In panel B, the Pearson correlation approximates point biserial correlation and was used to represent the bivariate associations

Interim discussion

Tabooness was moderately predicted (r 2 = .43) from a linear algorithm of nine variables. Arousal and valence contributed the greatest weight to the model, although a range of additional predictors were also statistically significant. Taboo words are slightly more abstract than concrete and more often connote body parts, bodily acts, gender, and/or disease. Obstruence was the only statistically significant word form/phonological predictor of tabooness, accounting for minimal variance (lmg < 0.01). There was no evidence for contributions of syllable structure or word length to support intuitions of phonaesthesia or the “four-letter-word” designation. One possible reason for the lack of an observed word length effect is the inclusion of compound words (e.g., cocksucker). We examine this specific subset of the taboo lexicon further below.

Experiment 2: Interactivity between form and meaning in taboo compounding

We examined a potential source of emergent tabooness when combining extant taboo words (e.g., shit) with common nouns (e.g., gibbon) to form novel compounds (e.g., shitgibbon). Participants evaluated the subjective quality of novel taboo and common noun combinations via Likert-scale ratings (e.g., ass-rocket [plausible] vs. ass-arm [implausible]). We examined the quality of novel taboo compound words when participants made unconstrained judgments (i.e., rate the extent to which this word combines with any curse word to form a new curse word), and an exploratory measure of combinations to specified anchors (i.e., fuck, shit). We then conducted a multiple regression to examine prediction of the quality of taboo-word compounding.

Participants included a combination of neurotypical young adults (n = 25) from Temple University who completed the study in the laboratory supplemented with MTurk raters (n = 115). For the final analyses, we excluded 17 participants who showed minimal variability in their responses (see rationale to follow). Participants completed ratings for the quality of common nouns combined with any possible taboo word (i.e., unconstrained). Footnote 3 The final sample included 87 adults with a mean age of 35.6 ( SD = 8.5, range = 18–46); sex distribution was 45F/42M. Participants were nominally financially compensated and provided written informed consent. Participants were additionally forewarned that they would be making judgments of taboo words.

We initially searched the MRC Psycholinguistic Database (Coltheart, 1981 ) for common nouns, limiting output by part-of-speech (i.e., noun only) with a minimum concreteness threshold of > 560 on a 100–700 scale. From this initial list (N = 1,026) we eliminated homophones, polysemes, and low-frequency nouns using a frequency threshold of 5 per million via the SUBTLEX US database (Brysbaert & New, 2009 ). Finally, we eliminated common nouns that form existing taboo compounds (e.g., hat, hole , head). These procedures netted a corpus of frequent and concrete English nouns (N = 487). Table 4 reflects psycholinguistic attributes of the stimulus set. This corpus is freely available for use via the Open Science Framework ( https://osf.io/uc8k4 ).

Experimental procedures

Participants evaluated plausibility of each common noun (e.g., door) as part of a taboo compound (e.g., assdoor). We obtained these ratings via Qualtrics software (Qualtrics Inc., Provo UT) using a Likert-scale format. In the primary analysis, participants rated the quality of novel taboo words with no specified comparison anchor. That is, participants were free to choose any taboo word they felt paired well with a given common noun in either initial (e.g., assdoor) or final position (e.g., doorass). Likert scales ranged from 1 (very poor) through 4 (neutral) to 7 (outstanding). Footnote 4 Stimuli were fully randomized. The software automatically prompted participants to complete all choices. Participants were given unlimited time to complete the survey, with most completing within 20 min.

Phonological predictors included length in letters, length in syllables, and orthographic neighborhood density (Marian, Bartolotti, Chabal, & Shook, 2012 ). Two independent raters coded the following phonological variables: syllable complexity (ratio of syllables with consonant clusters to total number of syllables), number of closed syllables (similarly normalized for length), and consonant obstruence (ratio of the total number of stop and affricate consonants to length in syllables). Rater agreement was 96.8% for the phonological predictors. Two additional independent raters coded membership in the following semantic categories: animate, manufactured artifact, receptacle, body part, vehicle, human dwelling, profession. Initial rater agreement was 95.5%. Raters then reconvened and resolved item-level disagreements.

Stimuli with ratings for valence, dominance, and physiological arousal drawn from Warriner, Kuperman, and Brysbaert ( 2013 ) were included as semantic predictors.

We conducted an item-level multiple regression with each word as an independent observation. The dependent variable was quality of emergent profanity as gleaned from the average rating for each item across participants.

We eliminated data from participants who completed the survey either with restricted variability (e.g., all 1’s or 4’s) and/or or too rapidly (n = 17). Table 5 summarizes results of the regression.

The model was statistically significant [F(20,460) = 8.59, p < .001], accounting for 24.03% of the variance in the tabooness judgments (r 2 = .27, adjusted R 2 = .24). Statistically significant phonological predictors included syllables-per-word (B = -.22, p < .05) and consonant obstruence (B = .18, p < .01), confirming that participants judged shorter words with more stop consonants as better candidates for novel taboo terms. In addition to word form, participants were sensitive to semantic variables including emotional valence (B = -.13, p < .01), physiological arousal (B = .12, p < .01), body part (B = .28, p < .05), receptacle (B = .23, p < .05), animacy (B = .66, p < .01), and profession (B = -.79, p < .01).

The five strongest candidates for taboo compounding per rated quality included: sack, trash, pig, rod, and mouth. The five least acceptable candidates were fireplace, restaurant, tennis, newspaper, and physician.

English is rife with taboo terms formed through combinatorial processes with religious terms (e.g., goddamn) and other extant taboo words ( Hughes, 1998 ; Mohr, 2013 ). In this experiment, we investigated this idiosyncratic propensity for common noun compounding. There are many such examples in common usage today (e.g., shithead, asshat, clusterfuck), and compounding appears to be a legitimate source of new words. We explored why some common nouns form effective new curse words (e.g., shithead), whereas others (e.g., shitarm) do not. It has been suggested that taboo words tend to denote negative concepts while simultaneously having phonological structures that mark sound-symbolic patterns of aggressive and/or unpleasant sounds (Bergen, 2016 ). We hypothesized that both of these factors (form and meaning) interact to predict the quality of emergent taboo speech, and this was indeed the case.

The data suggest that taboo compounding is a non-random process and that the quality of novel taboo compounding is to an extent predictable by a simple linear model. This compounding process did, however, differ in several important respects relative to the single-word regression data in Experiment 1 . First, participants endorsed shorter words, words with many similar sounding neighbors, and words with higher levels of obstruance (e.g., abrupt stoppage of air during articulation) as superior candidates for taboo compounding. Second, prediction was optimized by a linear combination of these formal factors with semantic variables such as whether a word denoted a profession, dwelling, or receptacle.

It is unclear how the linguistic rules governing taboo word compounding (e.g., catdick) diverge from non-taboo compounding (e.g., catfish). We know of no previous neuropsychological reports of excessive cursing characterized by either the production or the spontaneous generation of noun compounds. Morphological decomposition of non-taboo compound words (cat + fish = catfish) is a well-studied phenomenon in language disorders such as aphasia (Rastle & Davis, 2008 ). However, the extent to which the constituent morphemes of taboo compound words are similarly dissociable remains an open question.

General discussion

We conducted two experiments examining whether tabooness can be algorithmically predicted from the form and meaning of a particular word. The data suggest that American English follows a recipe for tabooness both for single words and to a lesser extent for compound words. Several factors are strongly associated with tabooness. These include physiological arousal and negative emotional valence, as well as semantic factors such as gender, body relations, and disease. There was less evidence for an effect of word length among single words, possibly because of the inclusion of a diverse range of compound words (e.g., cocksucker, motherfucker), all of which counter viability of the “four-letter-word” phenomenon.

Following Janschewitz ( 2008 ), we focused on an interaction between high arousal and negative emotional valence. These factors do appear to play a deterministic role in predicting tabooness, but there exists a range of additional moderating variables. Figure 1 illustrates overlap between taboo words and non-taboo words that share space within the negative-valence and high-arousal quadrant. Words such as welfare , abortion , and sodomy have all the necessary ingredients for tabooness, and indeed appear as some of the more taboo terms in our distribution. Yet, unlike words that are universally regarded as taboo, this particular class of descriptive terms is acceptable within certain public settings (e.g., scientific and/or instructional discourse). By tracing etymology and usage statistics over time, it may be possible to observe an arc as negatively valent and highly arousing words shift from descriptive to taboo.

Concluding remarks and future directions

Our findings suggest several promising future directions for the psychology and neurology of taboo-word processing. One application involves populations who experience excessive and/or uncontrolled taboo-word usage as a result of neurological etiologies, including severe expressive aphasia, Tourette Syndrome, traumatic brain injury (TBI), and the behavioral variant of frontotemporal degeneration (bvFTD). There are some commonalities but also many differences in the respective neuropathologies that underlie coprolalia and the excessive use of profanity in these populations. Hemispheric differences in valence, arousal, propositional/non-propositional language representation, theory of mind, and general cognitive control are all possible etiologies of excessive taboo-word usage. These variables likely interact with premorbid individual differences in both receptive and expressive use of taboo words. For people who experience debilitating social consequences of uncontrolled taboo-word usage, algorithmic prediction of tabooness may hold promise for tailoring intervention. Rather than punish or prohibit the output, a focus on precipitating factors (e.g., modulating arousal, sensitivity to listener attitudes) may improve communicative outcomes.

Open Science Statement

Stimuli, computer scripts, and scale wording are freely available for download and use at https://osf.io/uc8k4

Tabooness rating instructions are available in online Appendix A (accessible via the Open Science Framework at https://osf.io/uc8k4 )

Semantic coding instructions are available in online Appendix B ( https://osf.io/uc8k4 )

We also conducted an exploratory analysis anchoring ratings to two specific taboo words, fuck (Condition 2) and shit (Condition 3). These results are summarized in Table 5 and Appendix D ( https://osf.io/uc8k4 )

Scale instructions for combinatorial tabooness are available in online Appendix C ( https://osf.io/uc8k4 ).

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Reilly, J., Kelly, A., Zuckerman, B.M. et al. Building the perfect curse word: A psycholinguistic investigation of the form and meaning of taboo words. Psychon Bull Rev 27 , 139–148 (2020). https://doi.org/10.3758/s13423-019-01685-8

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The brain science of cursing: how swear words work to inflict and relieve pain.

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Swearing has become a normal part of society’s universal conversation. Whether you’re in the nosebleeds cheering on your favorite team and a hearty “f--- yeah!” helps to get the crowd rallying together, or you’re running to answer the phone and stub your toe along the way, something about yelling “damnit!” makes it easier to stomach the sharp pain in your pinky toe.

The cathartic practice of swearing is born from a general pool of 10 expressions, which are exercised at a rate of 0.5 percent of a person’s daily 80- to 90-word output, according to the Association for Psychological Science . It has become a natural part of human speech development. In fact, through childhood and adolescent trial-and-error we test words to see where the line of appropriateness is drawn in certain social circles.

Throwing out the word “motherf-----” in a business meeting is out of place compared to happy hour in your local bar. All curse words were not created equal and should be carefully tailored for each befitting situation. Lacing the word f--- into a sentence immediately escalates the meaning of the phrase and should not be held to the same standards as using the less provocative “crap” in the conversation, according to psychologist Dr. John Grohol .

F--- can be traced back to the 16th century Norwegian word “fukka” and Swedish “focka,” meaning “to copulate,” or have sexual intercourse. It’s a harsh word that’s adapted a wide array of meanings used outside of its translational definition. Profanity precedes a long history, each word with its own etymology found hundreds of years ago derived from different nationalities, cultures, and regions, all molded into the exclusive club of expletives.

The Freedom of F U (Speech) :

The First Amendment in the Bill of Rights stands as one of the coveted founding tenets of America’s democratic society. But — and this is a big but — there’s a little legal loophole the Supreme Court calls “ unprotected speech ,” which explains an instance where speech can be restricted. Slander, libel, and words of instigation, also known as “fighting words,” are all examples of language bearing power to inflict harm on others. It's one of the most basic human lessons and laws of the land — hurting others is illegal.

This is where it gets tricky. In 1964, former Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart attempted to define profanity. He famously explained he could not describe it, “But I know it when I see it” ( Jacobellis v. Ohio ). He exemplified the difficult society has providing a universal definition that captures how every person interprets what is to be considered offensive. Studies on how people react to certain curse words and taboo phrases were categorized with visceral or social reactions, according to the Harvard Science Review .

Neuroscientists from Weill Medical College of Cornell University searched the brain to understand how swearing reverberates inside the intricate wiring of our minds using the neuroimaging technique PET (positron emission tomography) scans. By 1999, they found the amygdala, which is responsible for processing emotion and memory, was highly active when exposed to swear words.

But because the amygdala is also connected to the memory function part of the brain, repetition decreases the activity. Basically, if you grew up hearing your older brother or sister slinging some curse words around their friends, the likelihood of curse words shocking you in other social circles lowers. The emotional potency of the curse is diluted as it's used more and more. So save your s--- for when you really need it.

The amygdala is part of the limbic system, which is emphatically involved in interpreting and expressing emotions — intrinsic to cursing. Swear words are an important component of human beings’ emotional language. But, going back to legalities, obscenity is considered a type of unprotected speech because offensive words constitute a form of harm, especially for the vulnerable and young.

Sticks and Stones

Does the childhood rhyme hold any merit? It turns out psychological studies reveal context is everything. Verbal harassment and aggression causes clear negative and harmful psychological effects, while the isolated cursing is much less detrimental. A study published by the American Psychological Association found when children are victims of obscene telephone calls, there was little difference in the amount of damage caused from having a few curse words thrown into the conversation and not having any at all.

When it comes down to it, cursing isn’t all about verbally drilling fear into a perceived attacker. Flip the coin and you'll see it has its positives, too. Take pain, for starters. Dropping the F-bomb and other expletives are more than just an expression of agony, but also a way to alleviate it.

To test the theory, researchers measured how long college students could keep their hands immersed in cold water and compared their time to how many curse words they dished out in the challenge. They were allowed to repeat an expletive, chant, or neutral word of their choice. When participants cursed, not only did they report less pain than those who abstained from swearing, but they also lasted in the water for 40 seconds longer.

Researchers speculate the brain circuits linked to emotion, such as those found in the amygdala, have evolved over the years. Inside that almond-shaped group of neurons is a defense reflex that turns on when a person is suddenly injured or trapped. The lash out of language is the mind’s interpretation of verbal fighting designed to intimidate their attacker. It dulls the pain and soothes the fear as adrenaline follows closely behind the “ass----” aspirin you just swallowed.

But it’s more than just a way to defend ourselves; cursing has become a way to express happiness, sadness, stress, fear, surprise, and to vent emotional buildup. Expletives have become an undeniable part of how we create camaraderie, defiance, and identify with others. Its emotional usefulness in relieving pain has allowed taboo speech to weave itself into our everyday with no f---s given.

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Swearing as a Response to Pain: Assessing Hypoalgesic Effects of Novel “Swear” Words

Richard stephens.

1 School of Psychology, Keele University, Keele, United Kingdom

Olly Robertson

2 School of Psychology, Keele University, Keele, United Kingdom

3 Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom

Associated Data

The pre-registration document and full datasets can be found in the Open Science Framework https://osf.io/fg2a9/ .

Previous research showing that swearing alleviates pain is extended by addressing emotion arousal and distraction as possible mechanisms. We assessed the effects of a conventional swear word (“fuck”) and two new “swear” words identified as both emotion-arousing and distracting: “fouch” and “twizpipe.” A mixed sex group of participants ( N = 92) completed a repeated measures experimental design augmented by mediation analysis. The independent variable was repeating one of four different words: “fuck” vs. “fouch” vs. “twizpipe” vs. a neutral word. The dependent variables were emotion rating, humor rating, distraction rating, cold pressor pain threshold, cold pressor pain tolerance, pain perception score, and change from resting heart rate. Mediation analyses were conducted for emotion, humor, and distraction ratings. For conventional swearing (“fuck”), confirmatory analyses found a 32% increase in pain threshold and a 33% increase in pain tolerance, accompanied by increased ratings for emotion, humor, and distraction, relative to the neutral word condition. The new “swear” words, “fouch” and “twizpipe,” were rated as more emotional and humorous than the neutral word but did not affect pain threshold or tolerance. Changes in heart rate and pain perception were absent. Our data replicate previous findings that repeating a swear word at a steady pace and volume benefits pain tolerance, extending this finding to pain threshold. Mediation analyses did not identify a pathway via which such effects manifest. Distraction appears to be of little importance but emotion arousal is worthy of future study.

Introduction

Swearing, defined as the use of taboo language conveying connotative information ( Jay and Janschewitz, 2008 ), is a near-universal feature of language ( van Lancker and Cummings, 1999 ). Research has shown that repeating a swear word can be an effective way of increasing tolerance for the physical pain of an ice water challenge ( Stephens et al., 2009 ; Stephens and Umland, 2011 ; Robertson et al., 2017 ) and the social pain associated with ostracism ( Philipp and Lombardo, 2017 ).

In explaining how swearing brings about these pain reducing effects, one theory posits that swearing brings about a stress-induced analgesia ( Stephens and Umland, 2011 ; Philipp and Lombardo, 2017 ) via increased autonomic arousal. Consistent with this theory, several studies have shown that swearing provokes an autonomic response, assessed via increased heart rate ( Stephens et al., 2009 ; Stephens and Umland, 2011 ) and increased skin conductance ( LaBar and Phelps, 1998 ; Jay et al., 2008 ; Bowers and Pleydell-Pearce, 2011 ). It is the emotion-provoking aspect of swearing that is thought to underlie this increase in autonomic arousal ( Stephens and Allsop, 2012 ).

It would be of theoretical interest to further assess the importance of emotional arousal as a means by which swearing brings about pain relief. A novel way to assess this would be to test whether a newly made-up “swear” word, chosen because it has potential to elicit an emotional response, produces similar pain reducing effects as swearing.

An alternative theory explaining how swearing brings about pain reducing effects is via attention modulation ( Wiech et al., 2008 ). It is established within the framework of the descending pain inhibitory system that cognitive processes, including distracting attention away from a pain stimulus, can reduce perceived pain ( Edwards et al., 2009 ). The precise mechanism appears to be a combination of inhibiting sensory and emotional brain regions, while at the same time acting in an excitatory capacity on the periaqueductal gray region of the brain where endogenous opioids such as endorphins are produced ( Sims-Williams et al., 2017 ).

One property of swearing that may usefully distract one’s attention from pain is if the word is perceived as humorous or novel. That swearing can be perceived as funny has been shown by Engelthaler and Hills (2018) , who had 821 participants rate 5000 English words for humor. The word “fuck” was rated in the top 1% of funniest words. Similarly, swearing is perceived as a novel unit of language, evidenced by findings estimating that swear words make up less than 1% of all speech ( Jay, 2009 ). Given that human attention appears biased toward detecting stimuli that occur less frequently over those occurring more frequently ( Horstmann and Herwig, 2016 ), it would be of theoretical interest to further assess the importance of attention modulation as a means by which swearing brings about pain relief. A novel way to assess this would be to test whether a newly made-up “swear” word, chosen because it has potential to elicit distraction through humor, novelty, or some other aspect, produces similar pain reducing effects as swearing.

The aim of this research study was to generate two new “swear” words, defined as non-pre-existing words that can be used in place of swear words, and to assess the pain-relieving effects of repeating these new words in the context of a cold pressor (ice water) pain challenge. The study provided an opportunity to explore some of the properties of swear words that underlie their psychological effects. Including new “swear” words enabled isolation of some of the properties of swear words in the absence of learned associations that true swear words have been theorized to possess ( Jay, 2009 ).

The new “swear” were generated by an agency working for Nurofen. They were selected for the experiment by a panel consisting of the lead author, a lexicographer, an independent scientist with expertise in swearing, and two lay members. The selection process for the new “swear” words is described later. The cold pressor experiment included the two new words, “fouch” and “twizpipe,” alongside a conventional swear word, “fuck,” included partly as a research replication paradigm. There was also a neutral word control condition to provide a reference against which to assess the effects of the conventional and new swear words. This was a word to describe a table in line with previous similar studies (e.g., Stephens and Umland, 2011 ). Key aspects of this study were pre-registered on aspredicted.org (#21777) (see Supplementary Materials ). Hypotheses (i) to (vii) were included on the pre-registration document and should be considered confirmatory, although please note that, in error, we specified one-way unrelated ANOVAs rather than one-way related ANOVAs. Hypothesis (viii) was not included on the pre-registration document and consequently should be considered exploratory.

It was hypothesized: (i) that emotion ratings would be greater for “fouch” vs. neutral word; (ii) that humor and distraction ratings would be greater for “twizpipe” vs. neutral word; (iii) that emotion, humor, and distraction ratings would be greater for “fuck” vs. neutral word; (iv) that cold pressor pain onset latency (pain threshold) would be increased for “fuck,” “fouch,” and “twizpipe” vs. neutral word; (v) that cold pressor pain tolerance latency would be increased for “fuck,” “fouch” and “twizpipe” vs. neutral word; (vi) that pain perception would be decreased for “fuck,” “fouch” and “twizpipe” vs. neutral word; (vii) that change from resting heart rate would be increased for “fuck” and “fouch” vs. neutral word; and (viii) that the effects of swearing on pain tolerance would be mediated by one or more of the emotion rating, humor rating, or distraction rating scores.

Materials and Methods

Participants.

We recruited 102 male and female adults from around Keele University who were offered payment of £8 cash (which two participants declined). Exclusion criteria included first language other than English, having a chronic pain condition, a heart condition, circulatory problems, high or low blood pressure, diabetes, epilepsy, Raynaud’s syndrome, having taken analgesic medications within 12 h, recent serious injury, and history of fainting in the last 12 months. Ten participants were excluded at the data analysis stage due to: a first language other than English ( n = 4), missing cold pressor data due to experimenter error ( n = 3), and withdrawal without completing the protocol ( n = 3). The remaining sample of 92 individuals (59 females; 32 males; 1 preferred not to say) with mean age 27.8 years ( SD = 9.0) was put forward for analysis (see Supplementary Materials ). The sample size was guided by a power calculation based on previous research on the hypoalgesic effects of swearing that yielded medium to large effect sizes ( dz range: 0.62–1.12; Stephens et al., 2009 ; Stephens and Umland, 2011 ; Stephens and Allsop, 2012 ). Based on a conservatively estimated small to medium effect size of dz = 0.30, we calculated that 90 participants would be required for a within-subjects comparison of an experimental word versus a control word, with alpha set at 0.05 and power set at 80%. This study was carried out in accordance with the ethical recommendations of the British Psychological Society. The protocol was approved by the Keele University Psychology Faculty Research Ethics Committee. All subjects gave written informed consent in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki.

Cold Pressor

A 185 mm × 335 mm × 215 mm (height) Grant TM water bath with circulating pump was maintained at 3–5°C by adding crushed ice between trials. This size of bath enabled the full open hand to be immersed in water of a depth of approximately 120 mm. There was a 3-minute maximum time limit, assessed via a handheld stopwatch, which was not explicitly communicated to the participants; 20 participants reached this maximum on at least one trial, while 10 participants reached it on all four trials. A container of water at room temperature was present. The water in the ice water and room temperature baths was refreshed daily.

This was assessed throughout the procedure using a BIOPAC Systems Inc., MP36 four-channel data acquisition unit in combination with BIOPAC Student Lab 4.1 software. Pre-gelled disposable electrodes (type EL503) were placed at the medial surface of the right leg just above the ankle bone (ground), at the medial surface of left leg just above the ankle bone (live), and at the anterior forearm just above the wrist on the same side of arm as the palm of the preferred hand (neutral). Digital markers were dropped on to the heart rate recordings at the start and end of the 30 s resting heart rate measurement period and at the start and end of each ice water immersion. Mean heart rate (beats per minute) was calculated within the BSL Student Lab software and checked visually. No filters were applied; where the data were too noisy for automatic detection, manual peak-to-peak counts were carried out for the first 30 s of the epoch and mean heart rate was calculated for this period. Five epochs of heart rate were used in analyses: resting heart rate, and heart rate during the four experimental cold pressor immersions. Change from resting heart rate data are reported to maintain consistency with previous studies assessing effects of swearing on pain perception. The data reported are considered sustained measures of heart rate based on the criteria suggested by Jennings et al. (1981) .

Pain Threshold and Pain Tolerance

Pain threshold was measured in seconds. A digital marker was dropped on to the heart rate recording when the participant indicated that they perceived pain. Pain tolerance was measured in seconds; tolerance was assessed by the total time the participant submerged their hand in the ice-cold water.

Manipulating Vocalizations

Four manipulations of vocalization were employed: swearing (“fuck”); two new “swear” words; and a neutral word, which was a word chosen by the participants that describes a table (e.g., “solid”). The new “swear” words were selected by a panel comprising the lead author as chair, along with Dr. Emma Byrne, a freelance science writer who has written a popular science book entitled “Why Swearing is Good for You” ( Byrne, 2017 ), Jonathon Green, a lexicographer and author of several slang dictionaries ( Green, 2010 , 2008 ), and two lay members of the public with no language qualifications beyond A-levels. During a 2-hour meeting a long list of 60 candidate new “swear” words, created by an advertising agency (as described earlier), was considered. Unsuitable words were discarded until two remained. A steer was provided that one of the new “swear” words should carry emotional resonance, while the other should offer distraction, possibly via humor. Discussion ran to members of the panel shouting the words from outside the room, as well as discussing when or how they might use the words. A consensus was eventually reached in nominating “fouch” as the new “swear” word with potential to invoke emotion, and “twizpipe” as the new “swear” word with potential to invoke distraction via humor. For each cold pressor trial undertaken, the participant was asked to repeat the pertinent word (“fuck,” “fouch,” “twizpipe,” or neutral word) at a normal speech volume and a steady pace, once every 3 s.

Perceived Pain Scale

Developed by Borg (1998) , this single item questionnaire asks participants to rate how strongly they perceived the pain of a stimulus (here the ice water immersion) on a scale from 0, anchored “Nothing at all,” to 12, anchored “Absolute maximum.” Additional anchors are at 0.5: “Extremely weak”; 1: “Very weak”; 2: “Weak”; 3: “Moderate”; 5: “Strong”; and 7: “Very strong.” Possible scores range from 0 to 12, with a higher score indicative of a greater level of perceived pain. This scale has been previously used to assess effects of swearing on pain perception ( Stephens et al., 2009 ; Stephens and Umland, 2011 ).

Pain Catastrophizing Questionnaire

Developed by Sullivan et al. (1995) , this 13-item questionnaire (e.g., “I think the pain will be awful”) is answered on a 5-point Likert scale anchored from “Not at all,” scored 0, to “All the time,” scored 4. Possible scores range from 0 to 46, with a higher score indicative of a greater level of pain catastrophizing. In our sample this questionnaire showed good reliability, Cronbach’s α = 0.903, N = 92.

Fear of Pain Questionnaire Version 3

Developed by McNeill and Rainwater (1998) , this 30-item questionnaire asks participants to rate how fearful they find each example (e.g., “breaking your leg”) on a 5-point Likert scale anchored from “Not at all,” scored 1, to “Extreme,” scored 5. Possible scores range from 30 to 150, with a higher score indicative of a greater level of fear of pain. In our sample this questionnaire showed good reliability, Cronbach’s α = 0.913, N = 91. Please note that one participant accidentally omitted to complete the Fear of Pain Questionnaire.

Word Ratings

Participants rated each word after the trial in which they used it on three dimensions: emotion (“Repeating the word made me feel an emotion along the lines of excitement, anger or fear”); humor (“Repeating the word was funny/humorous”); and distraction (“Repeating the word distracted me from thinking about other things”). Ratings were made on Visual Analog Scales (VAS), each consisting of a 100 mm horizontal line anchored at its left side with “Not at all” and at its right side “A lot.” These were scored by measuring the distance of the mark from the left-hand end of the VAS (mm). The possible range of scores was 0–100 with a higher score indicating greater ratings of emotion, humor, and distraction. Although not specifically validated to assess these constructs, using a VAS has been found to be a reliable and valid psychometric method in the context of quality of life ( DeBoer et al., 2004 ).

A one-way repeated measures experimental design was applied with four conditions defined by repeating each of the following word-types during cold pressor hand immersion: conventional swear word (“fuck”); new swear word#1 chosen because it promotes emotional resonance (“fouch”); New swear word#2 chosen because it is distracting/humorous (“twizpipe”); and neutral word control condition (a word to describe a table). A cold pressor ice-water hand immersion task was utilized. The dependent variables were: pain onset latency (time from submersion to feeling of pain); pain tolerance latency (total submersion time); pain perception (Borg rating scale completed after each immersion); heart rate (gathered using BIOPAC); and word ratings (each word was rated for emotion, humor, and distraction). Scores on the Pain Catastrophizing Questionnaire and Fear of Pain Questionnaire Version 3 were compiled for the purposes of descriptive data. Condition order was randomized to counter order effects using the Microsoft Excel random number generation command “ = RAND().”

Student research assistants were engaged for the data collection under supervision of the authors. In order not to give away the aim of the research to participants, recruitment materials referred to the study with the title “Psychological effects of vocal expressions, including swearing, while immersing the hand in ice water.” Participants attended the research laboratory individually. On arrival they were asked to read an “Information for Participants” sheet, offered the opportunity ask any questions and, when satisfied, asked to sign a consent form as a verifiable record of informed consent. Participants were asked to nominate a word that can describe a table, which was to be the neutral word control condition. Next, they were fitted with adhesive electrodes in three locations: at the wrist of the preferred arm, and the inner part of each ankle. To record resting heart rate, participants sat quietly in a chair for 5.5 min, with resting heart rate recorded as the mean heart rate for the final 30 s of this period. Participants were then asked to complete the Pain Catastrophizing Questionnaire and the Fear of Pain Questionnaire.

After this, participants were asked to immerse their non-preferred hand in the room temperature bath for 3 min. This enabled a standardized starting temperature for the ice water immersions. The instruction for the ice water immersion were: “In a moment I would like you to fully immerse your non-preferred hand into this ice water bath. While it is submerged please repeat the word [INSERT AS APPROPRIATE] at normal speech volume and a steady pace, once every 3 s. While you have your hand in the water, I would like you to do TWO more things. First, please tell me when it becomes painful, but don’t take your hand out yet unless you have to. Second, please try and keep your hand in the water for longer, taking it out when the pain becomes unbearable.” Timing began when the hand was fully immersed and stopped when the hand was fully removed from the water.

Immediately after each cold pressor submersion, participants immersed the non-preferred hand in the room temperature bath for 3 min prior to the next cold pressor trial. The Perceived Pain Scale and word ratings were administered at this juncture. After all four trials were complete a paper towel was made available, and participants were thanked and debriefed. Please see Figure 1 .

Diagram of the study procedure.

Descriptive data appear in Table 1 . Analyses were performed using SPSS v24. As described in the pre-registration document, all dependent variables were checked for normality. Outliers were defined as values that were more than 1.5 times above or below the interquartile range, which is the default for SPSS box and whisker plots. It was not possible to eliminate outliers without removing an excessive number of cases (more than ten) and therefore some variables were Winsorised, following the method of Aguinis et al. (2013) , as shown in Table 1 . The Winsorization percentile column of Table 1 shows that the number of outliers varied across different variables, from 0 to 35%. This reflects that the number of outliers varied from 0–16 cases. Following Winsorisation, skewness and kurtosis coefficients were checked for all variables and found to be within the range: −1.302 to 1.123.

Descriptive data.

Manipulation Checks

A series of one-way repeated measures ANOVAs were carried out for the independent variable, Word, with the levels, “fuck” vs. “fouch” vs. “twizpipe” vs. neutral word, and for the dependent variables, emotion rating, humor rating, and distraction rating. Where Mauchley’s test indicated significant departures from sphericity, Huynh-Feldt corrections are reported. These ANOVAs found significant differences across the means for emotion rating, F (2.855,259.761) = 27.821, MSe = 205.330, p < 0.001, η p 2 = 0.234, for humor rating, F (3,273) = 16.106 MSe = 488.200, p < 0.001, η p 2 = 0.150, and for distraction rating, F (3,273) = 15.346 MSe = 383.886, p < 0.001, η p 2 = 0.144. These are depicted in Figure 2 .

Effect of experimental condition (word repeated) on the emotion, humor, and distraction rating scale scores.

Pairwise comparisons for emotion rating showed that fuck, F (1,259.8) = 71.701, p < 0.001, fouch, F (1,259.8) = 5.781, p = 0.017, and twizpipe, F (1,259.8) = 4.658, p = 0.032, gained significantly higher ratings than the neutral word. Pairwise comparisons for humor rating again showed that fuck, F (1,273) = 31.720, p < 0.001, fouch, F (1,273) = 11.356, p = 0.001, and twizpipe, F (1,273) = 39.513, p < 0.001, gained significantly higher ratings than the neutral word. However, for distraction rating, pairwise comparisons showed that fuck was rated significantly higher than the neutral word, F (1,273) = 39.343, p < 0.001, but that neither fouch nor twizpipe showed any difference compared with the neutral word, F (1,273) < 1.0.

Pain Outcomes

A series of one-way repeated measures ANOVAs were carried out for the independent variable, Word, with the levels, “fuck” vs. “fouch” vs. “twizpipe” vs. neutral word, and for the dependent variables, cold pressor pain threshold (pain onset latency), cold pressor pain tolerance latency, pain perception score, and change from resting heart rate. Again, where Mauchley’s test indicated significant departures from sphericity, Huynh-Feldt corrections are reported. These ANOVAs found significant differences across the Word types for pain onset, F (2.779,216.789) = 11.123, MSe = 158.739, p < 0.001, η p 2 = 0.125 and for pain tolerance, F (2.432,221.285) = 18.917, MSe = 559.518, p < 0.001, η p 2 = 0.172, but not for pain perception, F (3,246) = 1.651, MSe = 1.893, p = 0.178, η p 2 = 0.020, nor for change from resting heart rate, F (2.806,244.129) = 1.336, MSe = 34.159, p = 0.263, η p 2 = 0.015. Effects for cold pressor pain onset latency (threshold) and pain tolerance latency are depicted in Figure 3 .

Effect of experimental condition (word repeated) on pain onset latency (threshold) and pain tolerance latency (tolerance).

Pairwise comparisons for pain onset latency showed that these were longer for fuck compared with the neutral word, F (1,261.8) = 21.283, p < 0.001. However, pain onset latencies for fouch, F (1,261.8) < 1.0, and twizpipe, F (1,261.8) < 1.0, were not different to that for the neutral word. A similar pattern was present for pain tolerance, with longer pain tolerance latencies for fuck compared with the neutral word, F (1,221.3) = 27.865, p < 0.001, but again, pain tolerance latencies for fouch, F (1,221.3) < 1.0, and twizpipe, F (1,221.3) < 1.0, were not different to those for the neutral word.

A peer reviewer suggested running equivalence tests assessing whether the null effects for fouch and twizpipe were less than the smallest effect size of interest. These analyses were not specified in the pre-registration document and should be considered exploratory. We used the TOST procedure ( Lakens, 2017 ), setting the smallest effect size of interest at dz = 0.30, which was the conservatively small estimate of expected effect size entered into the power calculation upon which sample size was determined. For pain threshold, the TOST procedure indicated that the observed effect size for fouch ( dz = 0.07) was significantly within the equivalent bounds of dz = −0.3 and dz = 0.3, (or in raw scores: −4.37 and 4.37), t (91) = −2.2, p = 0.015. The same was the case for twizpipe (observed effect size dz = −0.12; equivalent bound raw scores: −4.24 and 4.24), t (91) = 1.69, p = 0.047. For pain tolerance, the observed effect size for fouch ( dz = 0.09) was also significantly within the equivalent bounds of dz = −0.3 and dz = 0.3, (raw scores: −8.14 and 8.14), t (91) = −1.97, p = 0.026. The observed effect size for twizpipe ( dz = −0.16) was not significantly within the upper and lower equivalent bounds of dz = −0.3 and dz = 0.3, (or in raw scores: −6.35 and 6.35), t (91) = 1.34, p = 0.092. However, while this default two-tailed TOST procedure was inconclusive, the effect of most interest was the one-tailed upper bound test assessing whether twizpipe might produce pain relieving effects above dz = 0.3. This upper bound TOST procedure found that twizpipe was within the dz = 0.3 limit, t (91) = 4.42, p < 0.001.

In exploratory analyses not specified in the pre-registration document, a series of tests of mediation were conducted using the MEMOREv2.0 SPSS MACRO command for within-subjects designs ( Montoya and Hayes, 2017 ). The aim was to assess whether the observed effect of swearing (“fuck” vs. neutral word) on pain tolerance was mediated by emotion, humor, or distraction, as measured using the rating scales. The default setting of applying 5,000 bootstrapped samples in the estimation of 95% CI around the indirect effect model was applied.

While swearing predicted both pain tolerance, β = 18.411, 95% CI = 11.216:25.605, and emotion, β = 17.891, 95% CI = 13.143:22.640, emotion did not predict pain tolerance, β = 0.266, 95% CI = −0.070:0.602. This analysis further found that the indirect effect of swearing on pain tolerance via emotion was not significant, β = 4.767, 95% CI = −0.093:4.282. This latter effect is an estimate of the extent to which swearing affects pain tolerance via the emotion rating scale score. Swearing also predicted humor ratings, β = 18.349, 95% CI = 11.698:24.998, but humor ratings did not predict pain tolerance, β = −0.035, 95% CI = −0.263:0.192. The indirect effect of swearing on pain tolerance via humor ratings was not significant, β = −0.645, 95% CI = −5.086:3.303. Finally, swearing was confirmed as predicting distraction ratings, β = 18.120, 95% CI = 12.525:23.714, but distraction ratings did not predict pain tolerance, β = −0.064, 95% CI = −0.340:0.212. The indirect effect of swearing on pain tolerance via distraction ratings was not significant, β = −1.164, 95% CI = −5.031:3.852.

This study contributes to the psychology literature on swearing in the context of pain ( Stephens et al., 2009 ; Stephens and Umland, 2011 ; Philipp and Lombardo, 2017 ; Robertson et al., 2017 ) as the first attempt to create new “swear” words and assess some of their psychological properties. Our experiment assessed the effects of repeating three different words – a conventional swear word (“fuck”) and two new “swear” words (“fouch” and “twizpipe”) - on pain perception and tolerance, compared with a neutral word control condition (a word to describe a table). We ran a well-powered experiment with a sample consisting of 92 native English speakers. We used an ice-cold water hand immersion task known as the cold pressor procedure. This provides a controlled stimulus that is painful but not harmful and yields scores for pain threshold (time at which pain is reported) and pain tolerance (time at which the hand is removed). We also recorded heart rate as well as ratings of pain perception, emotion, humor, and distraction. The order in which participants completed the conditions (“fuck,” “fouch,” “twizpipe,” and neutral word) was randomized to guard against order effects. Pain Catastrophizing and Fear of Pain scores were gathered to help understand sample characteristics. The scores were similar to our previous data ( Stephens and Umland, 2011 ) in which the overall mean score for Pain Catastrophizing was 25.30 ( SD = 9.64) and for Fear of Pain was 87.45 ( SD = 16.43). This indicates that our sample may be considered typical for these variables and, as such, that these variables are unlikely to have unduly influenced the pain outcomes.

Hypotheses (i) to (iii) were put forward as manipulation checks to ensure that the made-up “swear” words had the desired properties in terms of the emotion, humor, and distraction ratings. Hypothesis (i) that emotion ratings would be greater for “fouch” vs. neutral word was supported, and hypothesis (ii) that humor and distraction ratings would be greater for “twizpipe” vs. neutral word was partially supported in that the humor rating was greater for “twizpipe.” Interestingly, both made-up “swear” words showed higher ratings for emotion and humor compared with the neutral word. Hypothesis (iii) that emotion, humor, and distraction ratings would be greater for “fuck” vs. neutral word was supported. Our tests of hypotheses (i) to (iii) demonstrate that our manipulation of creating new “swear” words was successful in that “fouch” and “twizpipe” were able to evoke some of the properties of swearing, in terms of emotion rating and humor. This was not the case for distraction, however, since only “fuck” was found to have a raised distraction rating compared with the neutral word. Given that both new “swear” words had demonstrated potential to influence pain perception via increased emotion ratings and/or distracting a person from the pain via increased humor ratings, it seemed appropriate to continue with the analyses and test whether the new “swear” words had any effect on the pain outcomes. We also note that “fuck” was rated as humorous in this context, consistent with the findings of Engelthaler and Hills (2018) , who found the word “fuck” was rated in the top 1% of funniest words when 5000 English words were presented one at a time.

Hypotheses (iv) to (vii) were put forward as tests of whether the conventional swear word and the new “swear” words would show hypoalgesic effects and associated changes in heart rate, as found previously. Hypothesis (iv), that cold pressor pain onset latency (pain threshold) would be increased for “fuck,” “fouch,” and “twizpipe” vs. neutral word, was supported for “fuck” but not for “fouch” or “twizpipe.” Hypothesis (v), that cold pressor pain tolerance latency would be increased for “fuck,” “fouch,” and “twizpipe” vs. neutral word, was also supported for “fuck” but not for “fouch” or “twizpipe”. Together, these findings extend previous research on swearing and pain by replicating, in a pre-registered study, the beneficial effect of swearing on pain tolerance and showing that swearing has an additional beneficial effect on pain threshold (onset latency), a behavioral pain measure that has not previously been assessed.

Regarding the new “swear” words, our confirmatory analyses showed no beneficial effects for pain threshold and tolerance. On the suggestion of a peer reviewer, we ran exploratory equivalence tests assessing whether the effect sizes for these words were within a range considered to be negligible. These analyses confirmed the absence of a beneficial effect for pain threshold and tolerance beyond a smallest effect size of interest based on the conservatively small estimate of dz = 0.3 entered into the power calculation. That these new “swear” words had no effect on pain threshold and tolerance is not altogether surprising. While it is not properly understood how swear words gain their power, it has been suggested that swearing is learned during childhood and that aversive classical conditioning contributes to the emotionally arousing aspects of swear word use ( Jay, 2009 ; Tomash and Reed, 2013 ). This suggests that how and when we learn conventional swear words is an important aspect of how they function. Clearly, the new “swear” words utilized in the present study were not learned during childhood and so there was no possibility that this aspect could have had an influence. On the other hand, “fouch” and “twizpipe” were chosen because they had potential to mirror some properties of conventional swearing. Like the swear word, these words were rated as more emotion-evoking and humorous than the neutral word control condition. Nevertheless, these properties did not facilitate pain alleviation effects, suggesting that surface properties of swear words (such as how they sound) do not explain the hypoalgesic effects of swearing. An overall absence of pain alleviation effects for the new “swear” words in the present study would be expected based on Jay’s (2009) childhood aversive classical conditioning theory. There is little evidence for this theory other than a low powered experiment ( N = 26) finding that participants reporting a higher frequency of punishment for swearing as children showed an increased skin conductance response when reading swear words, compared with participants reporting a lower frequency of punishment for swearing ( Tomash and Reed, 2013 ). To investigate this theory further, future research should aim to verify the frequency with which such aversive classical conditioning events occur in childhood and assess the relationship between prior punishment for swearing and autonomic arousal in an adequately powered design.

Hypothesis (vi), that pain perception would be decreased for “fuck,” “fouch,” and “twizpipe” vs. neutral word, was not supported. We should not be surprised at the lack of differences for pain perception as this may indicate that participants base behavioral decisions of reporting pain onset and removing the hand on similar perceived pain levels, albeit levels that have been modified by repeating a swear word. On that basis we suggest that measuring subjective pain perception is of limited usefulness in future studies assessing hypoalgesic effects of swearing where behavioral measures such as the cold pressor procedure are employed.

Hypothesis (vii), that change from resting heart rate would be increased for “fuck” and “fouch” vs. neutral word, was not supported. The lack of heart rate differences across conditions is at odds with previous studies which have shown elevated heart rate for swearing versus a neutral word ( Stephens et al., 2009 ; Stephens and Umland, 2011 ). This may be due to the design of the present study in which participants completed four consecutive word repetition/cold pressor immersion conditions rather than two, as previously. Repeated presentations of similar tasks, as well as repeated exposure to aversive stimuli, have been found to result in blunted cardiovascular stress reactivity ( Hughes et al., 2018 ). Blunted cardiovascular stress reactivity refers to the reduction in cardiovascular response to acute physiological or psychological stress ( Brindle et al., 2017 ). It seems reasonable to suggest that repeated exposure to cold pressor-mediated acute pain may have induced cardiovascular blunting.

In the absence of clear autonomic responses to swearing, we assessed the exploratory hypothesis (viii) that the effects of swearing on pain tolerance would be mediated by one or more psychological variables, in the form of the emotion, humor, or distraction rating scores. However, none of the ratings showed evidence of mediation, with 95% confidence intervals for humor and distraction being approximately symmetrically balanced across the origin. The latter effect is of interest because swearing in the context of pain is often characterized as a deliberate strategy for distraction, and distraction is recognized as being an effective psychological means of influencing descending pain inhibitory pathways ( Edwards et al., 2009 ). While swearing was rated as distracting (more so than the other words) the level of distraction was not related to the pain alleviation effects. Thus, based on our evidence, distraction may not be important in explaining how swearing produces hypoalgesic effects. The analysis assessing whether emotion ratings mediate the effect of swearing on extending pain tolerance also showed no effect, although here the 95% confidence interval only narrowly crossed the origin. While offering no evidential support for a mediation effect, further study assessing mediation of hypoalgesic effects of swearing via emotional arousal, in the absence of changes in heart rate, might fruitfully demonstrate this as a viable mechanism. Such an effect would be in keeping with previous research finding pain relieving effects of emotional arousal ( Stephens and Allsop, 2012 ).

However, there is a caveat to this. At the study outset we theorized that swearing may increase emotional arousal without specifying the valence of that arousal. During peer review we were directed to literature linking emotion elicitation and pain modulation, and in particular, research by Lefebvre and Jensen (2019) who report that inducing a state of negative affect by asking participants to recall a time when they experienced a high degree of worry led to increased ratings of pain from pressure applied to the finger, relative to baseline. In addition, the same study found that inducing a state of positive affect by asking participants to recall a happy memory led to decreased ratings of pain. It is apparent that emotional modulation of pain can be explained by the two-factor behavioral inhibition system-behavioral activation system (BIS-BAS) model of pain ( Jensen et al., 2016 ). According to the BIS-BAS model, negative affect contributes toward pain-related avoidance behaviors and associated negative cognitions, thereby increasing the subjective experience of pain. Conversely, positive affect contributes toward approach behaviors and positive cognitions, thus decreasing the subjective experience of pain. One limitation of the present study is that the measure of emotion elicitation was not valenced. This may explain why emotion was not shown to be a mediating variable in the link between swearing and hypoalgesia. Future research should assess both positive and negative emotion arousal due to swearing.

A further limitation might have been that participants did not consider themselves to be swearing when repeating the novel “swear” words. This remains unknown as we did not carry out a manipulation check asking participants whether they considered using these words was swearing. On the other hand, the novel “swear” words were selected by a panel of experts and laypeople briefed to choose words that could be used in similar ways to swear words, and which shared properties of swear words including emotional resonance and humor potential. It is also worth noting that “Fouch” begins with a fricative, defined as a sound created by forcing air through a narrow channel (here the lower teeth and upper lip) which some have associated with swearing, although other contest such a link ( Stack Exchange, 2014 ).

Additionally, maintaining the ice water temperature in the range 3–5°C might be considered too wide a variation, such that the physical intensity of the pain stimulus was not consistent across participants. In mitigation there was no systematic variation of the temperature across the four word conditions. As shown in Table 1 , the starting temperatures for each immersion were fairly consistent, with means ranging from 3.91 to 3.98 (SDs 0.50 to 0.53). This indicates that approximately 65% of immersions had starting temperatures within a 1°C range of 3.5–4.5°. Therefore, variation in temperature is unlikely to have biased the results.

A final limitation is that participants may have guessed the aims of the study and consequently demand characteristics may have influenced the results. In advertising the study as “psychological effects of vocal expressions, including swearing, while immersing the hand in ice water” we aimed to hide our predictions. Nevertheless, due to widespread media exposure for findings of previous studies conducted in the Keele Swear Lab we cannot rule out, nor quantify the extent to which, participant behavior was influenced by expectations of participants.

This is the first study to find that new, made-up “swear” words do not have similar pain alleviation effects to regular swearing. While the new “swear” words were shown to be similar to swearing in terms of eliciting raised emotion and humor ratings, these words were not effective in alleviating pain onset or pain tolerance. On the other hand, our study is the first to show that swearing raises pain threshold (the time at which pain onset is reported following presentation of a painful stimulus, here immersing the hand in ice-water) building on previous findings showing that swearing raises pain tolerance (the time at which the hand is removed from the ice-water). It is also the first study to investigate mediation via distraction, finding no evidence that distraction is involved in the mechanism by which swearing brings about pain alleviation. Instead, our data suggest that swearing brings about its effect on pain alleviation via another route, possibly emotion arousal. However, emotion was not found to mediate the pain alleviation effects of swearing, so this remains a theoretical possibility rather than one that was evidenced.

Author’s Note

A preprint of the first draft of this paper is available here: https://psyarxiv.com/cdvyf .

Data Availability Statement

Ethics statement.

The studies involving human participants were reviewed and approved by Keele University Psychology Faculty Research Ethics Committee. The patients/participants provided their written informed consent to participate in this study.

Author Contributions

RS and OR contributed to conception and design of the study. RS organized the database, performed the statistical analysis, and wrote the first draft of the manuscript. OR wrote sections of the manuscript. Both authors contributed to manuscript revision, read, and approved the submitted version.

Conflict of Interest

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Acknowledgments

The authors thank Rebecca Colclough, Alex Williams, Berkay Gokova, Meg Burkinshaw, Jody Ling, and Mia Tocan for their assistance with data collection.

Funding. This research was funded by Nurofen, a brand owned by RB UK Commercial Limited. The funder was involved in the creation of a long list of 60 novel “swear” words. The funder was not involved in the study design, collection, analysis, interpretation of data, the writing of this article or the decision to submit it for publication.

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The power of swearing: how obscene words influence your mind, body and relationships

Senior Lecturer in Interpersonal Communication, Ulster University

Neuropsychologist, University of Westminster

Professor, Södertörn University

Senior Lecturer in Psychology, Keele University

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Richard Stephens has prevously received research funding from Nurofen.

Catherine Loveday, Karyn Stapleton, and Kristy Beers Fägersten do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

University of Westminster and Keele University provide funding as members of The Conversation UK.

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Swearing was long dismissed as a topic of serious research because it was assumed to be simply a sign of aggression, weak language proficiency or even low intelligence. We now have quite a lot of evidence that challenges this view, prompting us to reconsider the nature – and power – of swearing.

You can listen to more articles from The Conversation, narrated by Noa, here .

Whether we are fans of swearing or not, many of us are likely to resort to it now and again. To estimate the power of swearing, and work out where it comes from, we recently carried out a review of more than 100 academic papers on the subject from different disciplines. The study, published in Lingua , shows that the use of of taboo words can deeply affect the way we think, act and relate to each other.

People often associate swearing with catharsis – the release of strong emotion. It is undeniably different from – and more powerful than – other forms of language use. Interestingly, for speakers of more than one language, the catharsis is nearly always greater when swearing in one’s first language than any languages learned subsequently.

Swearing arouses the emotions. This can be measured in autonomic responses such as increased sweating and sometimes increased heart rate. These changes suggest that swearing can trigger the “fight or flight” function.

Neuroscientific research suggests that swearing might be located in different parts of the brain from other speech regions. Specifically, it might activate parts of the “ limbic system ” (including features known as the basal ganglia and the amygdala). These deep structures are involved in aspects of memory and emotion processing which are instinctive and difficult to inhibit . This might explain why swearing can remain intact in people who have suffered brain damage and struggle to speak as a result.

Laboratory-based experiments also show cognitive effects. We know that swear words command more attention and are better remembered than other words. But they also interfere with the cognitive processing of other words/stimuli – so it seems swearing can sometimes get in the way of thinking, too.

This may, however, be worth it – at least sometimes. In experiments requiring people to submerse a hand in icy water, swearing produces pain relief. In these studies, vocalising a swear word leads to higher pain tolerance and higher pain threshold compared with neutral words. Other studies have found increased physical strength in people after swearing.

But swearing doesn’t just influence our physical and mental selves – it also affects our relationships with others. Research in communication and linguistics has shown an array of distinctive social purposes of swearing – from expressing aggression and causing offence to social bonding, humour and story-telling . Bad language can even help us manage our identities and display intimacy and trust as well as boosting attention and dominance over other people.

Digging deeper

Despite having such a noticeable effect on our lives, we currently know very little about where swearing gets its power. Interestingly, when we hear a swear word in an unfamiliar language, it seems just like any other word and will not produce any of these outcomes – there’s nothing particular about the sound of the word itself that is universally offensive.

So, the power does not come from the words themselves. Equally, it is not inherent in the word meanings or sounds: neither euphemisms nor similar sounding words have such a profound effect on us.

One explanation is that “aversive conditioning” – the use of punishment to prevent continued swearing – typically occurs during childhood . This may establish a visceral connection between language use and emotional response. While this hypothesis sounds correct, it is weakly evidenced by only a handful of studies that have investigated memories of childhood punishment for swearing. There are almost no empirical studies of links between such memories and adult responses to swearing.

To get to the bottom of why swearing has such a profound effect on us, we need to investigate the nature of people’s memories for swearing. What were their significant swearing incidents? Did swearing always bring about unpleasant consequences, such as punishment, or were there benefits too? What about people’s ongoing experiences of swearing throughout the lifespan? After all, our research shows that swearing can sometimes help people bond with one another.

We think it might be possible for swearing to show a similar memory pattern to that for music – we remember and like the songs best that we listened to during adolescence. That’s because, like music, swearing possibly takes on new meaning in adolescence. It becomes an important way to respond to the intense emotions we tend to have during this time, and an act that signals independence from parents and connection with friends. So, swear words and songs used during this time may become forever linked with important and highly memorable experiences.

Research also needs to examine whether there is a link between memories of swearing and the effects observed in experiments. This could show whether people with more positive memories respond differently to those with negative memories.

A final point to consider is whether swearing will start to lose its power if it becomes more socially acceptable and thus loses its offensiveness. For now, however, it certainly remains a faux-pas.

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University Writing Center

University writing center blog, i put this shit on everything: using profanity in writing.

by James White, Student Consultant, University Writing Center

As previously mentioned in an earlier post by one of our resident UWC badasses, George Carlin had a very famous routine that involved seven words that should never be said on television. Forty-four years later and one of the last words on his list was recently spoken on American Crime Story , marking one of the rare occasions that one of these “dirty” words was aired during primetime programming. Social media went insane, wondering if we have now entered a time in which these “dirty” words can finally be used more regularly.

Well, not quite.

You see, the FCC still restricts the use of many “dirty” words in most programming on television. Either that, or the network itself limits the amount of vulgar words used to maintain their image. But what about our written word? Is there anyone or anything preventing someone from writing and publishing work that’s riddled with every fucking swear word in the book, and then some? Only one thing prevents a writer from adding these vulgar words to their works:

Common sense.

When a writer pens their work, they have a particular purpose for their work, as well as an intended audience for said work. If you want to try to use these “ sentence enhancers ”, there is a methodology to doing so. Including swear words would be appropriate in a paper over a topic that you are truly passionate about, especially if its purpose is to persuade the audience to share in your opinion. However, you probably shouldn’t use swear words, like goddamn and fuck, in papers you would give to a spiritual professor. On the other hand, if you are taking ENG W-270 with Mike Hughes , the more motherfuckers you can add to your researched argument, the better off you’ll be.

Ultimately, be cautious when using swear words. Not all instructors approve of that kind of shit, and inappropriate use of the wrong word could lead to some very serious consequences. However, you if ever become so damn lucky to successfully use one of these words in a paper, make sure to brag your ass off. You’ll fucking deserve it.

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• 27 March 2024

Tweeting your research paper boosts engagement but not citations

• Bianca Nogrady

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Even before complaints about X’s declining quality, posting a paper on the social-media platform did not lead to a boost in citations. Credit: Matt Cardy/Getty

Posting about a research paper on social-media platform X (formerly known as Twitter) doesn’t translate into a bump in citations, according to a study that looked at 550 papers.

The finding comes as scientists are moving away from the platform in the wake of changes after its 2022 purchase by entrepreneur Elon Musk.

An international group of 11 researchers, who by the end of the experiment had between them nearly 230,000 followers on X, examined whether there was evidence that posting about a paper would increase its citation rate.

“There certainly is a correlation, and that’s been found in a lot of papers. But very few people have ever looked to see whether there’s any experimental causation,” says Trevor Branch, a marine ecologist at the University of Washington in Seattle and lead author on the paper, published in PLoS ONE last week 1 .

Every month for ten months, each researcher was allocated a randomly selected primary research article or review from a journal of their choice to post about on their personal account. Four randomly chosen articles from the same edition of the journal served as controls, which the researchers did not post about. They conducted the experiment in the period before Elon Musk took ownership of what was then known as Twitter and complaints of its declining quality increased.

‘Nail in the coffin’

Three years after the initial posts, the team compared the citation rates for the 110 posted articles with those of the 440 control articles, and found no significant difference. The researchers did acknowledge that their followers might not have been numerous enough to detect a statistically significant effect on citations.

The rate of daily downloads for the posted papers was nearly fourfold higher on the day that they were shared, compared with controls. Shared papers also had significantly higher accumulated Altmetric scores both 30 days and three years after the initial post. Calculated by London-based technology company Digital Science, an Altmetric score, says Branch, is a measure of how many people have looked at a paper and are talking about it, but it’s not a reliable indicator of a paper’s scientific worth. “It’s thoroughly biased by how many people with large followings tweet about it,” he says.

The findings echo those of information scientist Stefanie Haustein at the University of Ottawa, whose 2013 study 2 found a low correlation between posts and citations.

Haustein says the problem with using posts as a metric is that, even a decade ago, there was a lot of noise in the signal.

“We actually showed that a lot of the counts on Twitter you would get were bots, it wasn’t even humans,” says Haustein, who wasn’t involved in the new study.

She says the more recent departure of scientists from the platform has been the final nail in the coffin of the idea that posting could increase citations.

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-024-00922-y

Branch, T. A. et al. PLoS ONE 19 , e0292201 (2024).

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Haustein, S., Peters, I., Sugimoto, C. R., Thelwall, M. & Larivière, V. J. Assoc. Inf. Sci. Technol. 65, 656–669 (2014).

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50 Useful Academic Words & Phrases for Research

Like all good writing, writing an academic paper takes a certain level of skill to express your ideas and arguments in a way that is natural and that meets a level of academic sophistication. The terms, expressions, and phrases you use in your research paper must be of an appropriate level to be submitted to academic journals.

Therefore, authors need to know which verbs , nouns , and phrases to apply to create a paper that is not only easy to understand, but which conveys an understanding of academic conventions. Using the correct terminology and usage shows journal editors and fellow researchers that you are a competent writer and thinker, while using non-academic language might make them question your writing ability, as well as your critical reasoning skills.

What are academic words and phrases?

One way to understand what constitutes good academic writing is to read a lot of published research to find patterns of usage in different contexts. However, it may take an author countless hours of reading and might not be the most helpful advice when faced with an upcoming deadline on a manuscript draft.

Briefly, “academic” language includes terms, phrases, expressions, transitions, and sometimes symbols and abbreviations that help the pieces of an academic text fit together. When writing an academic text–whether it is a book report, annotated bibliography, research paper, research poster, lab report, research proposal, thesis, or manuscript for publication–authors must follow academic writing conventions. You can often find handy academic writing tips and guidelines by consulting the style manual of the text you are writing (i.e., APA Style , MLA Style , or Chicago Style ).

However, sometimes it can be helpful to have a list of academic words and expressions like the ones in this article to use as a “cheat sheet” for substituting the better term in a given context.

How to Choose the Best Academic Terms

You can think of writing “academically” as writing in a way that conveys one’s meaning effectively but concisely. For instance, while the term “take a look at” is a perfectly fine way to express an action in everyday English, a term like “analyze” would certainly be more suitable in most academic contexts. It takes up fewer words on the page and is used much more often in published academic papers.

You can use one handy guideline when choosing the most academic term: When faced with a choice between two different terms, use the Latinate version of the term. Here is a brief list of common verbs versus their academic counterparts:

Although this can be a useful tip to help academic authors, it can be difficult to memorize dozens of Latinate verbs. Using an AI paraphrasing tool or proofreading tool can help you instantly find more appropriate academic terms, so consider using such revision tools while you draft to improve your writing.

Top 50 Words and Phrases for Different Sections in a Research Paper

The “Latinate verb rule” is just one tool in your arsenal of academic writing, and there are many more out there. But to make the process of finding academic language a bit easier for you, we have compiled a list of 50 vital academic words and phrases, divided into specific categories and use cases, each with an explanation and contextual example.

Best Words and Phrases to use in an Introduction section

1. historically.

An adverb used to indicate a time perspective, especially when describing the background of a given topic.

2. In recent years

A temporal marker emphasizing recent developments, often used at the very beginning of your Introduction section.

3. It is widely acknowledged that

A “form phrase” indicating a broad consensus among researchers and/or the general public. Often used in the literature review section to build upon a foundation of established scientific knowledge.

4. There has been growing interest in

Highlights increasing attention to a topic and tells the reader why your study might be important to this field of research.

5. Preliminary observations indicate

Shares early insights or findings while hedging on making any definitive conclusions. Modal verbs like may , might , and could are often used with this expression.

6. This study aims to

Describes the goal of the research and is a form phrase very often used in the research objective or even the hypothesis of a research paper .

7. Despite its significance

Highlights the importance of a matter that might be overlooked. It is also frequently used in the rationale of the study section to show how your study’s aim and scope build on previous studies.

8. While numerous studies have focused on

Indicates the existing body of work on a topic while pointing to the shortcomings of certain aspects of that research. Helps focus the reader on the question, “What is missing from our knowledge of this topic?” This is often used alongside the statement of the problem in research papers.

9. The purpose of this research is

A form phrase that directly states the aim of the study.

10. The question arises (about/whether)

Poses a query or research problem statement for the reader to acknowledge.

Best Words and Phrases for Clarifying Information

11. in other words.

Introduces a synopsis or the rephrasing of a statement for clarity. This is often used in the Discussion section statement to explain the implications of the study .

12. That is to say

Provides clarification, similar to “in other words.”

13. To put it simply

Simplifies a complex idea, often for a more general readership.

14. To clarify

Specifically indicates to the reader a direct elaboration of a previous point.

15. More specifically

Narrows down a general statement from a broader one. Often used in the Discussion section to clarify the meaning of a specific result.

16. To elaborate

Expands on a point made previously.

17. In detail

Indicates a deeper dive into information.

Points out specifics. Similar meaning to “specifically” or “especially.”

19. This means that

Explains implications and/or interprets the meaning of the Results section .

20. Moreover

Expands a prior point to a broader one that shows the greater context or wider argument.

Best Words and Phrases for Giving Examples

21. for instance.

Provides a specific case that fits into the point being made.

22. As an illustration

Demonstrates a point in full or in part.

23. To illustrate

Shows a clear picture of the point being made.

24. For example

Presents a particular instance. Same meaning as “for instance.”

25. Such as

Lists specifics that comprise a broader category or assertion being made.

26. Including

Offers examples as part of a larger list.

27. Notably

Adverb highlighting an important example. Similar meaning to “especially.”

28. Especially

Adverb that emphasizes a significant instance.

29. In particular

Draws attention to a specific point.

30. To name a few

Indicates examples than previously mentioned are about to be named.

Best Words and Phrases for Comparing and Contrasting

31. however.

Introduces a contrasting idea.

32. On the other hand

Highlights an alternative view or fact.

33. Conversely

Indicates an opposing or reversed idea to the one just mentioned.

34. Similarly

Shows likeness or parallels between two ideas, objects, or situations.

35. Likewise

Indicates agreement with a previous point.

36. In contrast

Draws a distinction between two points.

37. Nevertheless

Introduces a contrasting point, despite what has been said.

38. Whereas

Compares two distinct entities or ideas.

Indicates a contrast between two points.

Signals an unexpected contrast.

Best Words and Phrases to use in a Conclusion section

41. in conclusion.

Signifies the beginning of the closing argument.

42. To sum up

Offers a brief summary.

43. In summary

Signals a concise recap.

44. Ultimately

Reflects the final or main point.

45. Overall

Gives a general concluding statement.

Indicates a resulting conclusion.

Demonstrates a logical conclusion.

48. Therefore

Connects a cause and its effect.

49. It can be concluded that

Clearly states a conclusion derived from the data.

50. Taking everything into consideration

Reflects on all the discussed points before concluding.

Edit Your Research Terms and Phrases Before Submission

Using these phrases in the proper places in your research papers can enhance the clarity, flow, and persuasiveness of your writing, especially in the Introduction section and Discussion section, which together make up the majority of your paper’s text in most academic domains.

However, it's vital to ensure each phrase is contextually appropriate to avoid redundancy or misinterpretation. As mentioned at the top of this article, the best way to do this is to 1) use an AI text editor , free AI paraphrasing tool or AI proofreading tool while you draft to enhance your writing, and 2) consult a professional proofreading service like Wordvice, which has human editors well versed in the terminology and conventions of the specific subject area of your academic documents.

For more detailed information on using AI tools to write a research paper and the best AI tools for research , check out the Wordvice AI Blog .

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Anthropogenic Coal Ash as a Contaminant in a Micro-meteoritic Underwater Search

Patricio A. Gallardo 1

Published October 2023 • © 2023. The Author(s). Published by the American Astronomical Society. Research Notes of the AAS , Volume 7 , Number 10 Citation Patricio A. Gallardo 2023 Res. Notes AAS 7 220 DOI 10.3847/2515-5172/ad03f9

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Patricio A. Gallardo https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9731-3617

• Received October 2023
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Meteorite composition ; Micrometeorites ; Interdisciplinary astronomy

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Chemical composition for spherules recovered from the search area of CNEOS 2014-01-08 in the Pacific Ocean has been recently released. A three-order of magnitude difference from CI-chondrites has been identified for elements beryllium, lanthanum and uranium in five samples. The lack of consensus regarding atmospheric survival and precision of path estimates motivate an examination of possible contaminants. Contents of nickel, beryllium, lanthanum and uranium are examined in the context of a known anthropogenic source of contamination, and found to be consistent with coal ash as suggested from a publicly available coal chemical composition database (COALQUAL). The meteoritic origin is disfavored.

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Original content from this work may be used under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence . Any further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the title of the work, journal citation and DOI.

1. Introduction

An expedition to locate micrometeoritic fragments in the search area of CNEOS 2014-01-08 has been announced and conducted in the South Pacific Ocean (Loeb 2022 and Loeb et al. 2023 , L23 hereafter). A magnetic sled was used to retrieve magnetic material. Round objects in the ranges from hundreds of microns to millimeter scales have been reported. It has been suggested that the high concentration of beryllium, lanthanum and uranium in five samples (named BeLaU for short) could be anomalous as compared to CI-chondrite abundances ( L23 ). However, few comparisons to contaminants have been conducted to discard the null hypothesis of terrestrial contamination. The lack of consensus regarding the atmospheric survival and precision in the determination of the path of CNEOS 2014-01-08 (Vaubaillon 2022 ; Brown & Borovička 2023 ) motivate a discussion of possible sources of contamination from terrestrial sources.

Multiple reports during the past century have discussed anthropogenic contaminants in samples containing magnetic spherules from microns to millimeter scales in size (Handy & Davidson 1953 ; Oldfield et al. 1978 ; Goldberg et al. 1981 ; Deuser et al. 1983 ; Locke & Bertine 1986 ; Wik & Renberg 1991 ). Most notably, in 1976, another naval expedition in the Gulf of Mexico found large numbers of magnetic spherules from anthropogenic sources in seawater (Doyle et al. 1976 ). Chemical composition analyses revealed consistency with coal fly ash, a waste product of the combustion of coal in power plants and steam engines.

In this document, the chemical composition of the five spherules labeled BeLaU in L23 is analyzed in light of a known source of contamination from anthropogenic origin such as coal fly ash. Iron content is compared to previously published data from a naval expedition, which collected magnetic spherules as presented in Doyle et al. ( 1976 ) and to the iron contents in fly ash retrieved from a real power plant as in Hock & Lichtman ( 1983 ). The contents of beryllium, lanthanum, uranium and nickel are compared to expected abundances using publicly available measurements from coal quality data maintained by the USGS as in Palmer et al. ( 2015 ). This document is organized as follows: Section 1 gives a brief summary of the expedition, findings, and a description of this work. Section 2 discusses the methods used to compare abundances. Section 3 describes the results. Section 4 concludes.

2.1. Iron Composition

The iron content of coal ash has been documented in the context of coal quality control and commercial iron sourcing. Although typical values for the iron content in coal ash range 20%, with a variance of several tens of percent (Myers et al. 1973 ), higher values can be obtained if the ash is magnetically selected (Murtha & Burnet 1978 ). Spherule size is another source of bias as discussed in Czech ( 2022 ). Iron content in a real power plant was presented in Hock & Lichtman ( 1983 ), where samples were collected at the plant smokestack, reporting 35% iron concentration with a standard deviation of 30%.

In one report from a naval expedition (Doyle et al. 1976 ), seawater was microfiltered and the resulting spherules were magnetically identified. In this experiment, spherules were identified as athropogenic fly ash via their composition. Due to the similarity of the experiment presented in Doyle et al. ( 1976 ) and in Loeb ( 2022 ), the iron content reported in Doyle et al. ( 1976 ) is used to compare the range of iron abundances, considering that a variation of several tens of percent is expected from practical ash.

2.2. Beryllium, Lanthanum, Uranium and Nickel Content

Publicly available coal quality data COALQUAL summarized in Palmer et al. ( 2015 ) is used to obtain the range for the concentrations of five elements: nickel, beryllium, lanthanum and uranium in coal ash. Coal quality databases report trace abundances according to the formula

The abundance reported in Table 1 in Doyle et al. ( 1976 ) has a mean value of 68%, while the iron abundance in the BeLaU sample has a mean of 51%. In consistency with Hock & Lichtman ( 1983 ).

3.2. Nickel

Nickel content has been pointed out as a discriminator between coal ash and meteoritic material (Handy & Davidson 1953 ). Table 1 in Doyle et al. ( 1976 ) found nickel concentrations of order 0.04% in fly ash. The nickel concentrations in L23 are of order 200 ppm (0.02%) or lower. Which puts the nickel content in the same order of magnitude of Doyle et al. ( 1976 ).

In addition, COALQUAL data as described in Section 2 is used as a comparison. Figure 1 (bottom right) shows in green the concentrations of the five BeLaU samples, the histogram shows the expected nickel concentration from the COALQUAL database. Nickel content is in consistency with ash from coal.

Figure 1.  Beryllium, lanthanum, uranium and nickel concentrations in BeLaU (green) samples. Histogram shows frequencies obtained from COALQUAL. Concentrations are within expectation for all elements.

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3.3. Beryllium, Lanthanum and Uranium

Figure 1 shows in green the concentrations for the five BeLaU samples, with the expected histogram (in black) of the concentrations from coal ash for beryllium, lanthanum and uranium. COALQUAL data shows that all samples are in the expected range, in consistency with coal ash, and with: Headlee & Hunter ( 1953 ), and Zielinski & Finkelman ( 1997 ).

4. Conclusion

A compositional comparison of five samples collected from the Pacific Ocean has been presented. The content of iron and nickel have been compared to a previous report of an ocean expedition, which collected water samples using microfilters and collected spherical magnetic objects. The contents of beryllium, lanthanum, and uranium were compared to a publicly available database of coal composition.

Iron content is found to be consistent from previous reports of coal ash contamination. Nickel, beryllium, lanthanum, and uranium concentrations are found to be consistent with expectations from coal ash from a coal chemical composition database. Fly ash resolves the three-order of magnitude difference from comparisons to CI-chondrites. The meteoritic origin is disfavored.

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Title: aios: llm agent operating system.

Abstract: The integration and deployment of large language model (LLM)-based intelligent agents have been fraught with challenges that compromise their efficiency and efficacy. Among these issues are sub-optimal scheduling and resource allocation of agent requests over the LLM, the difficulties in maintaining context during interactions between agent and LLM, and the complexities inherent in integrating heterogeneous agents with different capabilities and specializations. The rapid increase of agent quantity and complexity further exacerbates these issues, often leading to bottlenecks and sub-optimal utilization of resources. Inspired by these challenges, this paper presents AIOS, an LLM agent operating system, which embeds large language model into operating systems (OS) as the brain of the OS, enabling an operating system "with soul" -- an important step towards AGI. Specifically, AIOS is designed to optimize resource allocation, facilitate context switch across agents, enable concurrent execution of agents, provide tool service for agents, and maintain access control for agents. We present the architecture of such an operating system, outline the core challenges it aims to resolve, and provide the basic design and implementation of the AIOS. Our experiments on concurrent execution of multiple agents demonstrate the reliability and efficiency of our AIOS modules. Through this, we aim to not only improve the performance and efficiency of LLM agents but also to pioneer for better development and deployment of the AIOS ecosystem in the future. The project is open-source at this https URL .

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Research Identifies Characteristics of Cities That Would Support Young People’s Mental Health

Survey responses from global panel that included young people provide insights into what would make cities mental health-friendly for youth

As cities around the world continue to draw young people for work, education, and social opportunities, a new study identifies characteristics that would support young urban dwellers’ mental health. The findings, based on survey responses from a global panel that included adolescents and young adults, provide a set of priorities that city planners can adopt to build urban environments that are safe, equitable, and inclusive. 

To determine city characteristics that could bolster youth mental health, researchers administered an initial survey to a panel of more than 400, including young people and a multidisciplinary group of researchers, practitioners, and advocates. Through two subsequent surveys, participants prioritized six characteristics that would support young city dwellers’ mental health: opportunities to build life skills; age-friendly environments that accept young people’s feelings and values; free and safe public spaces where young people can connect; employment and job security; interventions that address the social determinants of health; and urban design with youth input and priorities in mind. 

The paper was published online February 21 in  Nature .

The study’s lead author is Pamela Collins, MD, MPH, chair of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health’s Department of Mental Health. The study was conducted while Collins was on the faculty at the University of Washington. The paper was written by an international, interdisciplinary team, including citiesRISE, a global nonprofit that works to transform mental health policy and practice in cities, especially for young people.

Cities have long been a draw for young people. Research by UNICEF projects that cities will be home to 70 percent of the world’s children by 2050. Although urban environments influence a broad range of health outcomes, both positive and negative, their impacts manifest unequally. Mental disorders are the leading causes of disability among 10- to 24-year-olds globally. Exposure to urban inequality, violence, lack of green space, and fear of displacement disproportionately affects marginalized groups, increasing risk for poor mental health among urban youth.

“Right now, we are living with the largest population of adolescents in the world’s history, so this is an incredibly important group of people for global attention,” says Collins. “Investing in young people is an investment in their present well-being and future potential, and it’s an investment in the next generation—the children they will bear.” 

Data collection for the study began in April 2020 at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. To capture its possible impacts, researchers added an open-ended survey question asking panelists how the pandemic influenced their perceptions of youth mental health in cities. The panelists reported that the pandemic either shed new light on the inequality and uneven distribution of resources experienced by marginalized communities in urban areas, or confirmed their preconceptions of how social vulnerability exacerbates health outcomes. 

For their study, the researchers recruited a panel of more than 400 individuals from 53 countries, including 327 young people ages 14 to 25, from a cross-section of fields, including education, advocacy, adolescent health, mental health and substance use, urban planning and development, data and technology, housing, and criminal justice. The researchers administered three sequential surveys to panelists beginning in April 2020 that asked panelists to identify elements of urban life that would support mental health for young people.

The top 37 characteristics were then grouped into six domains: intrapersonal, interpersonal, community, organizational, policy, and environment. Within these domains, panelists ranked characteristics based on immediacy of impact on youth mental health, ability to help youth thrive, and ease or feasibility of implementation. 

Taken together, the characteristics identified in the study provide a comprehensive set of priorities that policymakers and urban planners can use as a guide to improve young city dwellers' mental health. Among them: Youth-focused mental health and educational services could support young people’s emotional development and self-efficacy. Investment in spaces that facilitate social connection may help alleviate young people’s experiences of isolation and support their need for healthy, trusting relationships. Creating employment opportunities and job security could undo the economic losses that young people and their families experienced during the pandemic and help cities retain residents after a COVID-era exodus from urban centers.  

The findings suggest that creating a mental health-friendly city for young people requires investments across multiple interconnected sectors like transportation, housing, employment, health, and urban planning, with a central focus on social and economic equity. They also require urban planning policy approaches that commit to systemic and sustained collaboration, without magnifying existing privileges through initiatives like gentrification and developing green spaces at the expense of marginalized communities in need of affordable housing.

The authors say this framework underscores that responses by cities should include young people in the planning and design of interventions that directly impact their mental health and well-being. 

“ Making cities mental health friendly for adolescents and young adults ” was co-authored by an international, interdisciplinary team of 31 researchers led by the University of Washington Consortium for Global Mental Health, Urban@UW, the University of Melbourne, and citiesRISE. Author funding is listed in the Acknowledgements section of the paper.

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Distribution of Market Power, Endogenous Growth, and Monetary Policy

Yumeng Gu, Sanjay R. Singh

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2024-09 | March 28, 2024

We incorporate incumbent innovation in a Keynesian growth framework to generate an endogenous distribution of market power across firms. Existing firms increase markups over time through successful innovation. Entrant innovation disrupts the accumulation of market power by incumbents. Using this environment, we highlight a novel misallocation channel for monetary policy. A contractionary monetary policy shock causes an increase in markup dispersion across firms by discouraging entrant innovation relative to incumbent innovation. We characterize the circumstances when contractionary monetary policy may increase misallocation.

Article Citation

Gu, Yumeng, and Sanjay R. Singh. 2024. “Distribution of Market Power, Endogenous Growth, and Monetary Policy,” Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco Working Paper 2024-09. Available at https://doi.org/10.24148/wp2024-09