So firstly, this was fun and liked it and I admire its enthusiasm. Any book that tries to break down the taboo veil surrounding swearing is good in my book. I do not understand the fixation that some people have about swearing, and I probably never will. But this book does a really good job laying out a general overview of, as the title tells you, why swearing is good for you.
This is actually why I’m only giving it three and a half stars, because as always seems to be the case with these pop science books, I wanted more detail, more oomph. More evidence. More science and psychology. But really it’s just an overview of other people’s science; so as long as you know that going in, you’ll have a good time. And Emma Byrne is a fun author! She swears while she’s telling us about swearing and the history of studying swearing in neuroscience, psychology, animal studies, foreign languages, etc.
To overview an overview, we learn that: Swearing is a natural pain reliever, prevents violence in societies that use it (both human and animal), varies from culture to culture depending on the taboos of that culture, and is very often the only remnants of language in people with brain damage because our urge to swear comes from a different place in our brains. We also learn that in other primates that learn language, they spontaneously develop swearing on their own. This was the most fascinating part of the book to me. Washoe the chimpanzee developed a taboo around being dirty (related to excretion) and began using the word dirty as a way to demean or tease others. She also developed slurs! She used the word “monkey” to refer to primates who couldn’t sign. They once documented her calling a macaque she didn’t like “dirty monkey,” which was Very Bad to her. I find this fascinating. Those words do not have much impact to English speakers, but to her they were the equivalent of calling someone a stupid shithead.
There was also a chapter in the book covering Tourette’s, which was subtitled “Why this chapter shouldn’t be in this book,” that I also found fascinating. She included it because the perceptions people generally hold about people with the syndrome are linked directly with swearing, but really the two are tangentially related. Only about 25% of people with TS develop tics related to swearing, along with other physical and verbal tics, and the importance of those tics has nothing do with the way non-TS people use swearing. There’s also a chapter about gender and swearing, and swearing in the workplace (often used to develop camaraderie! and people who can’t learn the lingo are often excluded and don’t remain at that workplace for long).
All in all, would recommend, but it most just whetted my appetite for other books about swearing and language and science and shit. Maybe I should finally get to that audiobook copy of What the F I downloaded a couple of years ago . . . (a book which she cites as one of her sources).
[3.5 stars]
Read Harder Challenge 2018: A book of social science.
