In almost every context of our world, we hear people using "swear" words these days. Our southern neighbours might call it "cussing!" They're uttered by our political leaders, star athletes, favourite actors and musicians, and parents. We hear them on the radio, television, YouTube, and TikTok. But in school, a whisper of one of those 4-letter favourites can have us sitting in the naughty chair with a promise of a stern lecture from the principal at the very least. Want to get the ire of almost any teacher? Swear at them!
Ask any 7-year-old what the bad words are, and they'll say "stupid," "shut up," and "poo." That's the context that they've been taught. In my first year of teaching, a 7-year-old told her very large and aggressive father that I had used the "F-word" in class. This raised quite a bit of ire (and confused terror for me) until it was finally understood that the child was referring to the words "shut" and "up" used apart in two consecutive sentences. Children's understanding of what constitutes a bad word also grows. Frequently, these words refer to socially unacceptable topics - sex, toileting, and annoyance (in the case of "skibidi toilet"). Using these words as a young person declares independence, power, and stature in their social groups and for themselves.
Make no mistake, though, the words to which we, teachers, recoil in horror serve a purpose. They work because they physically have explosive power out of our mouths, and they immediately communicate a feeling!
Did you know that swear words have sounds in common across languages internationally? Swear words rarely have approximant sounds (l, r, w) and almost exclusively contain plosives or affricates (p, t, k, d, ch). There is a reason for that! These sounds involve a sudden release of air. Cursing is like shooting a bullet out of a gun. It is fast, immediate, and a powerful explosive. In addition, science is now showing that the uttering of an expletive can produce pain-reducing positive side effects, and the more taboo the word is, the more likely it is to be effective in reducing pain.
(see https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S002438412200170X?via%3Dihub#!)
Given that data, it seems a little more counter-intuitive to consider these specific words - bad!
I once had the opportunity to see this pain-reduction property in practice. As a volunteer firefighter, I was among the first on the scene of a particularly horrible car accident. The patient that I was working with had a broken femur and was in critical condition, with fatality a very real possibility. My mentor and partner took the lead. Jason was incredibly skilled in both patient care and mentoring. I am forever grateful for the chance to work with him and learn. Jason got up on the stretcher, putting his knees on either side of the patient, making it impossible for the patient to see what was happening with his legs. He faced the patient and said, "This is going to hurt more than you've ever hurt before, but we will do this together. We'll do 15 seconds on and 15 seconds off." Jason explained to the patient precisely what was about to happen. Then we began. I held the patient's hand, and Jason timed the intervals. When Jason told the patient the pain would be on, the patient squeezed my hand and swore like a champion truck driver (to use an old metaphor). The patient could relax and breathe when Jason said the pain was off. The thing is that the paramedics continued their work without 15-second intervals. It should have technically hurt the whole time. There is a lot of psychology at play here - all of it is amazing! One of the things that stuck out for me was that the patient seemed to know instinctively which words to use to help him cope with the pain!
In our never-ending and historically traditional need to prove that the younger generation is so much worse than our own and that the world is coming to a definite end because the children of today are so much worse than they were a hundred years ago, we often have asserted that swearing has become more common. In fact, studies have disproven this theory. Timothy Jay and Kristin Janschewitz of "The Science of Psychology" have written that the average person is not swearing more today than people have in the last 40 or more years. The introduction of the internet, social media, and satellite television may make people think swearing is more common, but that isn't the case. There was some concern that women were swearing more than they did in the past, but this has been debunked. The difference is that women swear more in public now, but they have previously done the same amount of swearing in private settings. And, in fact, our swear words are Anglo-Saxon words that originated hundreds of years ago, suggesting that swearing has remained fairly constant for many years! The exact list of bad words we use today were used in Medieval times for the same purposes.
Finally, swearing is not as harmful for children as we might assume. If you remember way back, you likely did it, too, and you turned out pretty well! I have an eccentric and wise uncle who once experimented with his students in an inter-city school. He wrote the top ten curse words on the board and assigned the students to write a story where they needed to use all ten words. There was a vast diversity in the group, from solid academics to struggling students, gang-bangers and upper-middle-class kids from various cultures. Upon collecting and assessing these stories, my uncle noted that 100% of the time, the students only used the ten words in dialogue uttered by the villains in their stories. There is an interesting message there.
So, what can teachers do when they witness or are the target of the swearing? It is important to note that swearing can occur for various reasons (perhaps not listed here), so be a good detective! This flow chart will get you started, and I will elaborate further on each section in later posts.
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