WTF? Why being proficient in profanity as an author is a sign of intelligence

WARNING: CONTAINS INTELLIGENT AND WELL-CHOSEN PROFANITIES

“The fuckening: When your day is going too well and you don’t trust it, and then something bad happens and you think, ‘Ah, there it is — the fuckening.”

Hell yes! It’s the news I’ve been waiting for over my twenty-year writing career — intelligent people are more likely to fucking swear! 

My swearing throughout my everyday life, and peppered throughout my 10 books and other writings, I can officially say is a side-effect of being, well, smart.

I’ve been fluent in foulness for decades!

I tend to disagree with those who get offended over swearwords, or who think swearing isn’t necessary or “lady-like.” Yeah, I know it’s fucking vulgar, and obscenities aren’t fucking necessary. And by the way, I can be ladylike — just not in my literature.

My mother only ever says “sugar!” when she stubs her toe. Or  “fudge!” if she drops something, whereas I am bloody bilingual — I speak and write English and expletives.

It turns out psychologists found “an individual’s fluency in the English language was linked to fluency in swearing.”

Fucking right! Swearing may actually be a sign of greater intellect — not less — and a sign of a robust vocabulary.

In fact, studies show that swearing has many benefits: it relieves stress, dulls pain, fosters friendships, and is linked with traits like openness and honesty.

“People who are good at producing language are good at producing swear words,” says this expert on swearing. “It’s not because they don’t have language — it’s because they have a whole toolbox full of words.” 

Sometimes when I'm writing a book or article, only curse words can fully express my feelings (and much more succinctly). I don’t write profanities for shock value. They just naturally flow out of me. I can’t tell you exactly how often I spout off obscenities…but it’s a shitload.

There are just so too many times using the words “and” along with “the” in a sentence doesn’t cut it when, for example, trying to describe someone you truly detest. Saying, “She was mean AND THE biggest liar!” isn’t as impactful as saying, “What a cunt!” (Yes, I went there.)

Most women, even if they hate the C-You-Next-Tuesday word, are at least aware that this one word — cunt — not only fully expresses your feelings but also allows others to understand exactly what you mean. No further explanation is needed!

Sometimes people are cunts. Sometimes people are assholes. And no no other words would be as appropriate to describe them.

I have been trying to cut down my use of profanities, kind of like when I quit smoking (“Let’s see how the fuck it goes this time.”) I started a swear jar, where I put in $5 for every time I wrote or uttered a swear word.

I’m now worth an estimated $29 million dollars. And I only started four days ago.

I’m kidding.

But I'm not fucking kidding that I get fucking frustrated as fuck every time autocorrect tampers with me. Like, okay, autocorrect, you know me better than anyone. You KNOW by now I never mean to use the word “duck,” you mother forklift!

And if swearing in front of my kids makes me a bad parent then…

Shit.

Many writers or readers WILL continue to think that using swear words in books is due to a limited vocabulary, lack of intelligence, or laziness. I do have a pretty good vocabulary if I do say so myself, but I still prefer “fuck off” to “go away.”

Swearing strengthens an argument and the effectiveness of any message — which is why all the swear words in this article I consider “sentence enhancers.”

Even if you find swear words unsavoury, which sentence below would be more impactful for you?

“This new novel is fantastic!”

OR

“This new novel is so fucking fantastic!”

I rest my case.

Timothy Jay, professor emeritus of psychology at Massachusetts College, believes that humans partly developed taboo language as an emotional release valve. 

A world-renowned expert in cursing (where were these professors when I was in journalism school?), he says, “We’ve evolved this very efficient way to vent our emotions and convey them to others.”

This holds true for swearing verbally to novelists writing dialogue between characters.

“It’s a form of linguistic snobbery,” says Jay, referring to the presumed link between swearing and intelligence. (Are you reading this, Mother and Father? I know you KNOW I’m your smartest kid. Now you know fucking why!)

In the book Swearing is Good for You: The Amazing Science of Bad Language, author Emma Byrne writes that when you put people in stressful situations and tell them they cannot swear, their performance goes down and their stress is “much greater.”

The frequency of swear words is something writers may want to think about. Too much cursing contributes significantly to people’s negative perceptions of swear words.

Not only do I have a penchant for profanity, but I am also a #fangirl of a 17-year-old musician/singer-songwriter named “Gayle,” and her song “abcdefu.” It’s described here as her “gloriously caustic grunge-pop smash in which she tells a feckless ex, ‘F— you and your mom and your sister and your job/and your broke-ass car and that s—’ you call art.” 

I’m old enough to be Gayle’s older sister mother, but trust me — the lyrics really resonate.

I've been singing and dancing to this song for months, along with the half a billion other fans streaming the song on Spotify and YouTube.

Female artists — from songwriters to fan fiction writers on Wattpad — whose speech has historically been far more tightly policed — no longer give AF about their fucks. 

Clearly, these younger young songwriters are intelligent enough to realize that being authentic and foulmouthed can be very lucrative (and seemingly a competitive sport — how many swear words can you sing in a two-minute song?)

“I knew that [abcdefu] had the possibility of offending people,” says Gayle. “I didn’t think it was offensive. But I know that a teenage girl being very comfortable in her emotions and in her anger and not being apologetic about it — that can be jarring to some people.”

She was nervous to play “abcdefu” to her grandmother.

Guess what? 

Her grandmother was like, “You get to say all the things that I wasn’t able to at 17.’” (So, all you Bubbies reading this? Be a badass Bubby and scream out those 70 years of pent-up obscenities!) 

Spotify and TikTok allow artists to create songs that don’t have to follow outdated rules — just like self-published authors can throw up their profanity-ridden books electronically on Amazon.

Spotify’s global head of editorial, Sulinna Ong, says in a culture that still treats “women’s expression of anger and frustration as the ultimate taboo,” streaming technology “allows women to reclaim their agency”

Kara DioGuardi, a veteran pop songwriter and former American Idol judge who signed Gayle to her Arthouse label (and is also foul-mouthed!) says the proliferation of F-bombs is “merely bringing pop into alignment with how kids talk in real life and on social media… If you’re thinking that teenagers don’t use those words, then you’re not really being honest with yourself.”

So, to swear or not to swear in your book? 

I agree with author and linguist Kate Burridge, who says, “Swearwords are socially and emotionally indispensable, vital parts of our linguistic repertoires that help us mitigate stress, cope with pain, increase strength and endurance, and bond with friends and colleagues — it’s not for nothing they are described as ‘strong language.’”

Another benefit of swearing? It is a natural pain reliever. A study in Psychology of Sport and Exercise found swearing rudely during a workout can actually make you stronger. Participants who cursed aloud while gripping a hand vice were able to squeeze harder and longer compared to uttering ‘neutral’ words.

Using obscenities resulted in significant improvements in performance. Dr. Richard Stephens said, “We know from our earlier research that swearing makes people more able to tolerate pain" because swearing stimulates the body's sympathetic nervous system, which makes your heart pound when you are in danger.

So, it turns out that my penchant for profanity — featured in almost everything I write — finally demonstrates that my “colourful language” is really just showing how intelligent I actually am that swear words, while sometimes shocking and more evocative, really do express sentiments that ordinary words just can’t.

Are you pro-swearing or anti-swearing when it comes to reading? Tell me here! 

Or don’t. I don’t give THAT much of AF — but I DO fucking care about you, dear readers!

Until next time, flip your hair and flip the page (and flip the bird)!

xo, 

Rebecca

P.S. You can pass this shit on to another potty mouth you know here!