My earliest memory is of sitting on the pavement outside my childhood home while Tony Hilsden, the local juvenile delinquent, tutored me in the lexicon of profanity. “No, not ‘can’t’. It’s ‘cunt’.”
I was four years old and the reason it sticks in my mind is that my mother caught him doing it, sent him packing, and told me to forget everything I’d just learned. That, of course, became an impossibility the instant I realised its forbidden nature. So began my initiation into the social taboo of “bad” language.
We all go through the same proscription by some or other authority figure. And yet most of us emerge as proficient swearers, able to construct whole sentences, should the occasion demand, out of F-words and S-words and C-words, and a whole alphabet of curses that, despite near universal recognition, are deemed unfit to print.
Indeed some people struggle to describe the world, or their feelings, without extensive recourse to such words, while there are standup comedians and celebrity chefs who build careers out of using little else. However, in spite of their widespread circulation and occasional profitability, these words remain marginal, suspect, unacceptable in polite society.
It’s not so much about what they describe – the words “sex”, “rectum” and “vagina”, for example, do not require asterisks – but more about what they represent: the unsayable. We know this because the nature and type of unsayable words changes across time and cultures. Blaspheming – the mere mention of God or Jesus – was once beyond the bounds, as was the word “bloody”.
So, what’s the point of unsayable words that we regularly say? According to Emma Byrne, author of Swearing Is Good for You, profanities are a fundamental part of our language, performing a vital role in our development. She comes at swearing from the perspective of evolutionary psychology and with a vocabulary of which Tony Hilsden would have approved.
Citing several not always entirely relevant scientific studies, she makes the case that taboo words act as a kind of pressure valve, allowing us to let off steam rather than, say, punch somebody’s lights out.
Apparently research shows that swearing also helps productivity, creates greater unity, eases pain and is so deeply embedded in our brains that profanities are often the last bits of language that stroke victims can use.
“In fact,” writes Byrne, “I don’t think we would have made it as the world’s most populous primate if we hadn’t learned to swear.”
It was at this stage of the book that I mumbled something that may have eased my own pain but didn’t necessarily help with my productivity as a reviewer.
Byrne’s contention is that without swearing we would have to rely on biting and gouging and throwing faeces to maintain social order, but you don’t need a PhD in psychology to know that if someone describes someone else with a swearword in, say, a road rage incident, the risk of violence goes up, not down.
In terms of disputes, swearing can just as often be a trigger as a defuser. As Byrne goes on to note: “In order to swear you need an understanding of the psychology of others … to be able to anticipate how your words are likely to make someone feel.”
Byrne seems to suggest from this that swearing is a sign of empathy. But it’s perhaps more accurate to say that swearwords mean what we want them to mean. Used as expletives, they are little more than meaningless fillers. However, if there is a defining characteristic of swearwords it must surely be their flexibility.
As Stephen Wildish shows in How to Swear: An Illustrated Guide, “fuck” can be an adjective, a verb and a noun, all in the same sentence. It can also be offensive, funny, descriptive, ironic, literal, metaphorical and much else besides, depending on linguistic and social context.
To enter into the vernacular, this is one of those elegantly designed amusements intended to be read while wiping your arse. A book of lavatorial language made for the smart lavatory.
Wildish suggests some questionable rules. For example, he draws a provocative distinction between “bollocks” and “bullshit”. The former, he argues, is spoken out of ignorance (Mount Everest is in Peru) whereas the latter (falsely claiming to have climbed Everest) is about mendacity.
Both books attempt to be profound about the profane – Byrne uses psychology and neurology; Wildish employs grammar and irony – and both writers indulge in the obvious humour of their subject.
However, both books are constructed from conceits on which the authors fail to deliver. As Byrne admits in her conclusion: “There’s no way to know for sure that any of this [the idea that swearing provided a peaceful alternative to violence for our primitive ancestors] happened”.
And the notion, advertised in the blurb, that you’d learn to swear from reading How to Swear is, frankly, bullshit. Or is it bollocks? Still, they’re entertaining and informative and, if nothing else, remind you of the mysterious pleasure of using words that are not meant to be said.
• Swearing Is Good for You by Emma Byrne is published by Profile Books (£12.99); How to Swear: An Illustrated Guide by Stephen Wildish is published by Ebury Press (£9.99). To order a copy for £11.04 and £8.49 respectively, go to guardianbookshop.com or call 0330 333 6846. Free UK p&p over £10, online orders only. Phone orders min p&p of £1.99
