Researchers are working to understand why swearing may help in a number of circumstances, with a major focus on pain, and how it can more effectively be used in a clinical setting. If you stub your toe or slam your finger in a door, there’s a good chance the first thing out of your mouth is a four-letter word. But although swearing is a near-universal feature of language, it is still considered taboo by many.
Olly Robertson is not one of them. “It’s something that we all share, and it is really magical. It holds so much power over us as societies,” said Robertson, a psychology researcher at the University of Oxford.
“It does something for us.” One of those things is an increase in pain tolerance. Swearing is “ a drug-free , calorie-neutral, cost-free means of self-help”, said Richard Stephens, a researcher and senior lecturer in psychology at Keele University in England.
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