Why do we use swear words and how has it changed?

If you’re, erm, of a certain age, chances are you went through something in childhood that would horrify social services today; you’d repeat a word that a friend had taught you, or that you’d heard from an adult, in front of your mum, dad or gran, and next thing you knew you’d been marched off into the bathroom to get your mouth washed out with soap! With a mouthful of bubbles you’d promise to never do it again—but, here you are on the motorway, and you’re definitely not sticking to that promise!

Saying your first curse word might be a milestone, but, as we get older, swearing becomes part of the rich lexicon of language that we use to express ourselves, and while we might associate swear words with negative communication, only eight per cent of people actually swear to cause offence.

"There are many other reasons that we swear including positive uses like expressing excitement, emphasis, coping with shared adversity or to create a more informal environment," says Dr Karyn Stapleton, a Senior Lecturer in Communication at Ulster University. "And there’s cathartic swearing which provides a means of releasing strong emotions, or feelings like anger, pain or frustration."

Cathartic swearing fascinates scientists as it shows some really interesting facts about bad language. Studies at the UK’s Keele University revealed that when under stress, a person can think of considerably more swear words than someone asked to do the same task when relaxed, and it’s now suspected that rather than being controlled by the normal part of the brain that handles language (the left cortex), swear words are actually processed by the limbic system that normally controls emotional thoughts.

The emotional link with swearing is reinforced by physiological changes, akin to those we feel during stress, that happen when we swear—repeat a swear word a few times and your heart rate will increase and you’ll start to sweat. If you feel the need to put your hand on something painful, you’ll be able to hold it there roughly a third longer when swearing, and according to further research at Keele University, strength, self-confidence and your willingness to take risks all increase when you swear.

"In fact, we think we swear when we’re in pain to deliberately provoke our fight or flight response and create an analgesic response," says Dr Richard Stephens who conducted much of this research at Keele. Be warned though—the more you swear in general speech, the less effective the cathartic effects of swear words are when you really need them!

What makes a word offensive is also very interesting. "The three main categories of swear words are sexual, bodily functions or religion—and that’s not just in English, it’s observed across many languages," says Dr Robbie Love, Lecturer in English Language at Aston University in Birmingham. "So clearly, swearing is about taboo topics and words you might use to offend or abuse someone, and it’s like the brain has encoded these words with a special meaning so that it knows they are different in some way. I think there’s almost an innate human need to have some linguistic items that can be used to help us process intense moments."

However, exactly how offensive we might find a word can change over time. Back in 1939, the utterance of "frankly my dear I don’t give a damn" in the film of Gone With the Wind was seen as such an affront to decency that it incurred the film company a fine of $5000 (around $107,000 today)—today, it’s one of the few examples of bad language in this piece we don’t have to asterisk!

"Offensiveness levels change because all language evolves, but for swearing particularly there’s definitely a connection to cultural salience of certain themes," says Dr Love. "Blasphemy is an one example of this in the UK—as the proportion of atheists has increased and the power of Christianity has decreased fewer people might consider things like ‘damn’ or ‘oh my god’ as swearing—which is very different from in some other areas of world, or with other religions." 

According to the most recent study by media regulator OFCOM in 2020, traditional swear words are also offending us less—complaints about these have dropped by half, but complaints about racial or sexual slurs have more than doubled, possibly related to society’s increasing focus on inclusivity.

But with so many choice words to choose from, what determines the exact swear words we use? After all, not everyone who hits their finger with a hammer will come out with the same expletive! In her book Swearing is Good For You: The Amazing Science of Bad Language (Profile Books), research scientist Emma Byrne, explains that while men have traditionally sworn more than women, and in the past, men tended to favour the F word while women chose milder words like bloody, hell or b****r when they swore, the gap is closing and according to one 2019 study, on average women say the F word 546 times in every million words they speak—while men only use it 540 times!  

Your beliefs also play a role in how much you swear and the language you use, liberals swear more than those with more conservative views, and, someone with a high level of spiritual belief would be less likely to use a word with religious connotations.

In fact, in one famous study, on the language used by a group of women living in Ordsall, Greater Manchester the women studied had no qualms at all using words like b*****d, s*** and even the C word, but they wouldn’t use Jesus, Christ or God as they had strong religious beliefs.

Swear words also differ by country, in Germany, you can be fined for calling someone "a pig", which wouldn’t necessarily cause major offence in the UK and Australia even has a famous tourism campaign playing on the C word—one of the worst words you can say in the US and the UK!

Words also fall out of fashion. In his 2021 study, Dr Love compared the incidence of certain swear words in British conversations in the years 1994 and 2014 and found that the word bloody had declined in use by 80 per cent. It used to be our favourite swear word, but was overtaken by f**k and s**t! While he’s not sure exactly why this happened, "it’s possible that it’s associated with a certain generation and so younger people have stopped using it."

Generally though we’re swearing less than we used to, Dr Love’s research found the use of 16 common swear words declined by 27 per cent over the last twenty years. Admittedly that might not seem the case if you’re sitting on the bus with a group of young folk. According to a survey by the British Board of Film Classification, only 12 per cent of those aged 55-64 swear regularly compared to 46 per cent of 20-somethings.

"It’s hard to measure whether this is generational or, if individual people moderate their language over the life cycle—but, it’s possible that as we get older we might have fewer uses for swearing, we don’t need it to bond with co-workers for example, whereas someone younger who is making new friends, starting university or a first job may use swearing to show that they belong to a certain group. Also, older adults have often had to spend some time curbing their language around children—no matter how our own feelings about swearing change, we still don’t want to expose children to it," says Dr Love.

The last myth to dispel is that swearing frequently is a sign of low intelligence or poor vocabulary, linguists have found that using words like "er" and "um" are actually a greater sign of this than interspersing speech with the odd expletive.

Nor does swearing necessarily reflect badly upon you—Donald Trump was seen as more honest than other politicians by voters because he occasionally swore in his speeches!

"It really does come back to context. Words can do good and words can do harm—and you don’t need to use swear words to do either," says Dr Love. They do come in bloody handy sometimes though!