Futuo! How the Romans Swore

[Valin]

The Atlantic

A new book details obscenity's amazingly intricate history -- and how it influences us today.

Olga Khazan

May 30 2013

 

You do it. I sure as hell do it. News anchors accidentally do it -- sometimes on their first day of work. The Russians did it so much they recently banned it.

 

Cursing is perhaps the only vice that's as frowned-upon as it is widespread. Sure it's crude and ugly, but swearing helps us express our emotions. What can be better than the catharsis of a four-letter word, rapidly muttered, when you spill your latte at that little milk counter at Starbucks? Or more satisfying than an anguished f-bomb at the realization that the dinner-party duck totally did just burn?

 

According to the new book, Holy Sh*t! A Brief History of Swearing by Melissa Mohr, swearing is also practical -- it helps us endure pain. (Your hand can tolerate an ice bath longer if you repeat "sh*t," rather than "shoot," while doing it, she writes.) Profanities are even stored in a different part of the brain, far from the cerebral cortex, where most language and your Master's thesis lives, and down in the limbic system, with the blood pressure and heart rate.

 

(Snip)

 

*These days, some say cable TV and the Internet makes expletives too common -- thus polluting our virgin ears. (Though still others say the proliferation of obscenity also dulls its effect -- we're looking at you, Lena Dunham.) And maybe that's true.....(Snip)

 

* I agree. I mean I can say...Gosh I am very disturbed and angry with you, or I can say F**K You! But if people are dropping F bombs all the time, the term loses its power. Ok, fine, then another word/phrase needs to be found.