Cocktails and Records

Some time ago I was in the pub with a work colleague. I bored him about about the most underrated bands in world (that would be Teenage Fanclub, The Go-Betweens and XTC I say somewhat predictably) and in return he told me about linguist Steven Pinker.

Having a minor interest in both linguistics and evolutionary theory, I dutifully wrote down his name in my diary and suprised both of us by actually reading The Language Instinct, Pinker’s book on how language is biologically innate. I’ve just now finished reading a cheapy Penguin excerpt called ‘The Seven Words You Can’t Say on Television’ from his most recent book The Stuff of Thought. It’s all about swearing so obviously I found it even more interesting.

Here are some of Steven Pinker’s thoughts which particularly captivated me. Look away now if you don’t like cussing.

1. The historical root of cursing in English is religious, or rather the time when religious threats actually meant something. For example, the modern day equivalent of ‘Go to hell’ for those who don’t necessarily believe in a nether-world of searing flames, agonising thirst, terrifying ghouls and blood curdling shrieks might be ‘I hope you suffer a stroke and spend your life drooling and twisted in a wheelchair’.
2. Scumbag originally meant condom. This might be obvious to everyone else but I’ve been in the dark all this time.
3. Unlike most other words, swear words are stored in the right side of the brain. This side is thought to store memorized chunks (like song lyrics) and to be more involved in producing negative emotions.
4. The word ‘fuck’ is one of the most flexible words around. It functions as a noun, an adjective, a verb and an adverb, yet isn’t really any of them. It also works in completely ungrammatical phrases like ‘Fuck you’, ‘What the fuck?’ and ‘Abso-fucking-lutely’. No other words have quite such unique characteristics.
5. Here’s a great Yiddish curse: ‘May all of your teeth fall out but one, so you can have a toothache.’
6. The English language practically encourages you to swear. By offering no neutral terms for words like flatulence or feces for example, you’re forced to choose between very formal stuffy words or swearing. So it’s not really my fault if I swear all the time…

Tags: language matters

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 17th, 2008 at 9:58 pm and is filed under Random. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.