A British linguistics expert says that swearwords are increasingly used for emphasis and to build social bonds, rather than to insult, and that swearing is more widely acceptable today.
According to an article by the Guardian online, swearing has become more acceptable over the past two decades because it is “increasingly used for other purposes than to insult people”.
The article, posted in response to BBC presenter, Mishal Husain, who swore a total of seven times in under a minute while interviewing home secretary, James Cleverly, suggests that the two most commonly used swear words in the UK are “f*ck” and “sh*t”.
Husain, was questioning the home secretary after he was accused of saying that a person or place was a “shit-hole”.
Dr Robbie Love, lecturer in English Language at Ashton University, states that “Swearing, as with all language use, is entirely context dependent and context specific. It’s what you do with the word and the various functions, as far as performed, that informs the perception of how acceptable it is.”
He continued, suggesting that research found that “people commonly swore in casual conversation to express surprise, to create humour, to show solidarity with their peers, or to abuse someone”.
However, when Husain was questioning the home secretary, she used the term “shit-hole” in the context of asking Cleverly if he had said it, rather than using the swear word for impact.
Love suggested that Husain’s use of the word so frequently in such a short time “might be part of a strategy to rattle James Cleverly, and not to euphemistically replace that term to force him to acknowledge the reality of that word. But I’m not sure if anybody would genuinely be offended by hearing that word in that context.”
Although swearing is becoming more widely accepted, additional research conducted by Love shows, surprisingly, that the amount of swearing fell by 27.6% over a 13-year period from 1994 – 2014 and that swear words change in popularity and use.
For instance, Love found that “trends in the type of swear words used have changed over the last few decades, with ‘bloody’ being the most common curse word in the 1990s and the f-word taking precedent in the 2010s”.
Interestingly, Love also suggests that the “strong social conditioning around swear words makes them more psychologically arousing and more memorable than other words, and something different happens in the brain when saying them compared to euphemistic equivalents, such as saying “f***” compared to ‘the f-word’.”
Research analysed by Cambridge University supports Love’s views around swearing building social bonds and claim that “psychologists have learned that people who frequently curse are being more honest” because “just as they aren’t filtering their language to be more palatable, they’re also not filtering their views”.
We would love to hear your views on the notion of swearing becoming more widely acceptable – do you think it is a good thing? Or, are you offended by the crudeness of some swear words?
Let us know in the comments below!
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