Health
A Swearing Expert Discusses the State of Profanity
Cursing is coursing through society. Words once too blue to publicly utter have become increasingly commonplace. “Language is just part of the whole shift to a more casual lifestyle,” said Timothy Jay, a professor emeritus of psychology at the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts in North Adams, Mass.
Dr. Jay has spent a career studying the use of profanity, from what motivates it to the ways in which it satisfies, signals meaning and offends. Although officially retired, he has continued to edit studies on profanity and he recently offered an expert opinion in an ongoing legal dispute in Michigan over whether the phrase “Let’s go Brandon” (a euphemism used to denigrate former President Joseph R. Biden Jr.) should be reasonably interpreted as “profane.” (It should not, Dr. Jay opined.)
Dr. Jay posits that the increasingly casual nature of the spoken word derives in part from the way people communicate on social media. One study, published in 2014 by other researchers in the field, found that curse words on Twitter, now known as X, appeared in 7.7 percent of posts, with profanity representing about 1 in every 10 words on the platform. That compared to a swearing rate of 0.5 to 0.7 percent in spoken language, the study found.
If that data troubles you, Dr. Jay has some thoughts on how to dial back the profanity. F*@%-free February, anyone?
This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity, and scrubbed of some of the vernacular that Dr. Jay conceded he regularly uses on the golf course.
Why does social media contribute to more casual use of language?
People are remote, so they can be aggressive without any physical retaliation. By and large, you’re anonymous, so there’s no personal consequence. It’s also part of a larger shift to a more casual lifestyle. What kids are wearing to school these days would have been disgraceful in my day.
Is that a problem — not the clothes, the swearing?
Our culture is constantly evolving and will continue to evolve. One place it is a problem is the way that women are increasingly attacked online and harassed.
So you don’t really see this development as positive or negative?
Slang is made to confront authority and to create a code that identifies one as an in-group member. Misuse of slang means you are an outsider. Slang must change with time.
The casualness of language coexists with the casualness of clothing styles, workplace behaviors, music lyrics, television content, table manners, et cetera, which have trended in general to a more relaxed state post-World War II, especially notable in the 1960s.
You’re saying that curse words that people once avoided they now say regularly.
For years, I asked people to rank swear words on a scale of one to 10 of which words were the worst. A five would be “damn” or “hell.” That was the middle range. A hundred years ago you couldn’t have used them on the radio; now they’re in the comic strips in the newspaper.
What ranks as a 1?
“Sugar.”
What about other alternatives to longstanding curse words? Can I run a few by you?
Go ahead.
“Fudge” — satisfying?
Not to me.
I hear a lot of people say “flipping” or “freaking.” Which one do you prefer?
I like “frickin’” — I’ve used, “Shut the frickin’ door!”
What do you like about that?
It’s similarity to … [expletive].
So if something is phonetically similar, that makes it satisfying?
It’s how it feels in your entire body — an autonomic nervous-system reaction to hearing someone say [expletive] or saying [expletive] yourself. It raises your pulse, heart rate, breathing rate all above the use of a nonoffensive word such as “calendar.” We recorded skin-conductance tests that demonstrated that taboo words produce a more emotional reaction than nontaboo words. The word arouses us in knowing that we are going to say it and continues to arouse us even after speaking.
Do these words provoke physical aggression?
My research group has recorded over 10,000 people swearing in public. Not once have we seen these usages turn into aggression or violence. Most swearing is casual, conversational and pretty harmless. At the same time, we are more sensitive to language issues surrounding sexual harassment, racial-ethnic-gender discrimination, verbal abuse and threatening language than in the past.
What draws us to a particular word?
It’s personal. One’s psychological history with hearing and saying a word mainly in childhood, and then the consequence of using the word again, brings about the feelings previously associated with the word.
It’s social, meaning the words that are important emotionally not only depend on the speaker’s psychological relationship with the word but also the value and valence of the word within a speaker’s community.
And it’s physical.
Does that suggest that euphemisms may not satisfy, and that therefore we can’t curb our cursing?
The key to breaking a habit is being aware that you do it and then trying to circumvent that.
So you can change the pattern should you wish to?
Yes. If you think about how memory works, what you’ve done is you’ve activated the new word in your brain. And so by activating “freakin’” or “sugar,” you’re making that more salient.
In other words, with practice, you can diminish the potency of the curse word and strengthen the lure of the euphemism.
Yes, but you have to be aware of both pieces and that one of them has natural salience.
Recently, I was watching my grandson, a mogul skier, when he went off course. And I just said, “dang.” He’s 18 years old, and I try not to swear around him. But I have to think about it, especially when I play golf.
From where you sit in retirement, do you feel that swearing research is in good hands?
I gave a keynote speech to a group of international scholars meeting on swearing and cursing in Cologne, Germany, in 2015, two years before I retired. I was 65 years old at the time and most of the speakers were in their 30s and 40s. I realized that there was a new generation continuing to study taboo words in a manner that I pioneered in the 1970s. It was about time to step aside and let them have the glory.
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A new report by the American Heart Association (AHA) included some troubling predictions for the future of women’s health.
The forecast, published in the journal Circulation on Wednesday, projected increases in various comorbidities in American females by 2050.
More than 59% of women were predicted to have high blood pressure, up from less than 49% currently.
The review also projected that more than 25% of women will have diabetes, compared to about 15% today, and more than 61% will have obesity, compared to 44% currently.
As a result of these risk factors, the prevalence of cardiovascular disease and stroke is expected to rise to 14.4% from 10.7%.
The prevalence of cardiovascular disease and stroke in women is expected to rise to 14.4% from 10.7% by 2050. (iStock)
Not all trends were negative, as unhealthy cholesterol prevalence is expected to drop to about 22% from more than 42% today, the report stated.
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Dr. Elizabeth Klodas, a cardiologist and founder of Step One Foods in Minnesota, commented on these “jarring findings.”
“The fact that on our current trajectory, cardiometabolic disease is projected to explode in women within one generation should be a huge wake-up call,” she told Fox News Digital.
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“Hypertension, diabetes, obesity — these are all major risk factors for heart disease, and we are already seeing what those risks are driving. Heart disease is the No. 1 killer of women, eclipsing all other causes of death, including breast cancer.”
Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death for women in the U.S. and around the world. (iStock)
Klodas warned that heart disease starts early, progresses “stealthily,” and can present “out of the blue in devastating ways.”
The AHA published another study on Thursday revealing one million hospitalizations, showing that heart attack deaths are climbing among adults below the age of 55.
The more alarming finding, according to Klodas, is that young women were found more likely to die after their first heart attack than men of the same age.
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“This is all especially tragic since heart disease is almost entirely preventable,” she said. “The earlier you start, the better.”
Children can show early evidence of plaque deposition in their arteries, which can be reversed through lifestyle changes if “undertaken early enough and aggressively enough,” according to the expert.
Moving more is one part of protecting a healthy heart, according to experts. (iStock)
Klodas suggested that rising heart conditions are associated with traditional risk factors, like smoking, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes, obesity and a sedentary lifestyle.
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Doctors are also seeing higher rates of preeclampsia, or high blood pressure during pregnancy, as well as gestational diabetes. Klodas noted that these are sex-specific risk factors that don’t typically contribute to complications until after menopause.
The best way to protect a healthy heart is to “do the basics,” Klodas recommended, including the following lifestyle habits.
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Klodas especially emphasized making improvements to diet, as the food people eat affects “every single risk factor that the AHA’s report highlights.”
“High blood pressure, high blood sugar, high cholesterol, excess weight – these are all conditions that are driven in part or in whole by food,” she said. “We eat multiple times every single day, which means what we eat has profound cumulative effects over time.”
“Even a small improvement in dietary intake, when maintained, can have a massive positive impact on health,” a doctor said. (iStock)
“Even a small improvement in dietary intake, when maintained, can have a massive positive impact on health.”
The doctor also recommends changing out a few snacks per day for healthier choices, which has been proven to “yield medication-level cholesterol reductions” in a month.
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“Keep up that small change and, over the course of a year, you could also lose 20 pounds and reduce your sodium intake enough to avoid blood pressure-lowering medications,” Klodas added.
“Women should not view the AHA report as inevitable. We have power over our health destinies. We just need to use it.”
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Nearsightedness (myopia) is skyrocketing globally, with nearly half of the world’s population expected to be myopic by 2050, according to the World Health Organization.
Heavy use of smartphones and other devices is associated with an 80% higher risk of myopia when combined with excessive computer use, but a new study suggests that dim indoor lighting could also be a factor.
For years, scientists have been puzzled by the different ways myopia is triggered. In lab settings, it can be induced by blurring vision or using different lenses. Conversely, it can be slowed by something as simple as spending time outdoors, research suggests.
Nearsightedness occurs when the eyeball grows too long from front to back, according to the American Optometric Association (AOA). This physical elongation causes light to focus in front of the retina rather than directly on it, making distant objects appear blurry.
The study suggests that myopia isn’t caused by the digital devices themselves, but by the low-light environments where they are typically used. (iStock)
Researchers at the State University of New York (SUNY) College of Optometry identified a potential specific trigger for this growth. When someone looks at a phone or a book up close, the pupil naturally constricts.
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“In bright outdoor light, the pupil constricts to protect the eye while still allowing ample light to reach the retina,” Urusha Maharjan, a SUNY Optometry doctoral student who conducted the study, said in a press release.
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“When people focus on close objects indoors, such as phones, tablets or books, the pupil can also constrict — not because of brightness, but to sharpen the image,” she went on. “In dim lighting, this combination may significantly reduce retinal illumination.”
High-intensity natural light prevents myopia because it provides enough retinal stimulation to override the “stop growing” signal, even when pupils are constricted. (iStock)
The hypothesis suggests that when the retina is deprived of light during extended close-up work, it sends a signal for the eye to grow.
In a dim environment, the narrowed pupil allows so little light through that the retinal activity isn’t strong enough to signal the eye to stop growing, the researchers found.
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In contrast, being outdoors provides light levels much brighter than indoors. This ensures that even when the pupil narrows to focus on a nearby object, the retina still receives a strong signal, maintaining healthy eye development.
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The team noted some limitations of the study, including the small subject group and the inability to directly measure internal lens changes, as the bright backgrounds used to mimic the outdoors made pupils too small for standard equipment.
Researchers believe that increasing indoor brightness during close-up work could be a simple, testable way to slow the global nearsightedness epidemic. (iStock)
“This is not a final answer,” Jose-Manuel Alonso, MD, PhD, SUNY distinguished professor and senior author of the study, said in the release.
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“But the study offers a testable hypothesis that reframes how visual habits, lighting and eye focusing interact.”
The study was published in the journal Cell Reports.
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