Cursing makes you feel better when hurt: study

[meegbear]

Ever hear someone scolded for their curse-laden language when they hurt themselves? Those finger-waggers who say cursing doesn't help now should bite their tongues, then perhaps cuss to make it better. Researchers at Keele University released findings showing that letting loose a string of expletives actually has the effect of dulling the sensation of pain.

Researchers had volunteers dunk their hands into icy water and curse, and measured how long they could stand to keep their hands submerged. Then, they measured how long the volunteers could keep their hands in the freezing water while reciting harmless, "clean" language. The volunteers lasted longer while cursing, and the students who didn't usually curse found the pain-dulling effects of cussing four times stronger than their more foul-mouthed peers.

The Telegraph explained that cursing could trigger a fight-or-flight response, raising heart rate and aggression levels.

"Swearing has been around for centuries and is an almost universal human linguistic phenomenon," Dr. Richard Stephens, who worked on the project, told the Telegraph. "Our research shows one potential reason why swearing developed and why it persists."

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/04/18/cursing-makes-you-feel-better-when-hurt-study/

[Keith Bee]

1. I think this is in the "Well, DUH!" category

But I'm reccing it anyway. ;-)

[blondeatlast]

2. I tend to avoid cursing; so when I do it, my family and friends

know something is VERY wrong or I'm very, very angry!

[jdlh8894]

3. What is the definition of "cursing"?

[FSogol]

4. So does Whiskey: personal experience

:beer:

[surrealAmerican]

5. They compared it to the wrong thing.

Cursing in pain is not an alternative to "reciting harmless, clean language", its an alternative to screaming and/or crying.

[joeybee12]

6. Phuck You!

Hey, it worked! Thanks!

:evilgrin:

[Adsos Letter]

7. Mark Twain had some insight on this...

"Under certain circumstances, profanity provides a relief denied even to prayer."

[texshelters]

8. Eff that

bastard scientists.

Peace,
Tex Shelters

[L0oniX]

9. FUCK! ...I feel better now.

[patrice]

10. BIG resurggence in deep concern about four-letter words around here. My theory:

certain portions of the political spectrum feel under assault and they need this censorship high-sign to make themselves feel more like a cohesive group. IOW, it's a power struggle between the individual and the group.

I like to point out, when I get the opportunity, that if I said some stuff about how I don't like cars to be painted black and then I saw one that I did like and I said "Now, that's a black I could go for", you would not make the mistake of insisting that I was talking about a black man and, yet, LOTS of people insist that when I stub my toe and exclaim, "Fuck!!!", I am expressing somekind of interest in sexual intercourse. Or if someone changes lanes at 70 mph in front of me, without signalling and I call him a "Fucking idiot" that I am talking about an idiot who is having sexual intercourse in that other car on the highway.

There's all kinds of examples of this sort of thing, where people do not makes mistakes about the referents of various homophones all of the time, but if you say shit, or fuck, or any of several other taboo words, each of those combinations of phonemes have one and only one definition that is completely unaffected by ANY context.

Everyone is pretending about this. It's stupid because it conveys a message about semantics that is, at best, a significant handicap to most, any?, all?, subsequent development in that regard thereafter: "Only use approved words." "The words that others are using are better words than your own."

:eyes:

[patrice]

11. Or, "It's okay to lie about what a word means as long as it is the lie approved by the group." nt