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Is it cos I is working class?
Oct. 1st, 2006 12:20 amActually, it's not. Swearing to excess, that is. And I'm hardly working class any more, so there goes that excuse.
One thing that is guaranteed to piss me off is if someone checks me on my language. No, I don't swear in front of kiddies and your parents, or in a formal situation; if you're an adult, I expect you to cope with the fact I use "indelicate language".
As we all know, consciously or not, there are different kinds of swearing:
It also explains someone like me, who defines herself as agnostic/pantheist, suffering from this quirk:
And why the fact that we can moderate our language when talking to the parental units, or the senior manager (in relation to the "swearing is lazy" myth)?
Finally, the class factor does come into it, IMO. The simple fact is that the language we hear around us in formative years tends to be the language that we actually use. Working class people don't "switch modes" as much as middle-class types - the language used in the public and private spheres is pretty much the same. Of course, that's often mitigated by a great degree in terms of who you associate with at any given time, in exactly the same way as having an accent. While you might get to the point where you can "pass", there will always be vestiges that come out with the right stimulus.
I'm a bit idiosyncratic, though. Due to having spent time in the UK surrounded by middle-class English people, I've got a fairly "posh-sounding" kiwi accent (which is getting nicely watered down by these Aussies at present, tho'). However, my language content is littered with tons of swear words. Since I have a low sense of humour, I get quite entertained when people who think I sound "nice" and "girlie" on the phone (I drop into a more formal speech pattern there) meet me in person. Heh.
One thing that is guaranteed to piss me off is if someone checks me on my language. No, I don't swear in front of kiddies and your parents, or in a formal situation; if you're an adult, I expect you to cope with the fact I use "indelicate language".
As we all know, consciously or not, there are different kinds of swearing:
...syntactic and semantic functions, including swearing as in giving oath in the witness box, are rooted in the left, but emotional language, including automatic cursing (e.g. when hitting your head) from the right hemisphere [of the brain].This explains the differentiation I personally make between "general swearing" and "abusive swearing". When you're accusing someone of being a fucking whore, you're using your left brain to deliver a value judgement verbally. If you say whore of a thing when you hit your thumb with a hammer, that, of course, is an automatic right-brain activity.
It also explains someone like me, who defines herself as agnostic/pantheist, suffering from this quirk:
if you hear somebody say something like Thank god, I'm an atheist it does not mean to say that the speaker has gone off their rockers. The statement is not a nonsensical paradox, because Thank god is only an automatic swear interjection which adds emotional connotative meaning to the propositional statement that follows i.e. I'm an atheist. God is not meant in the original referential sense but in the emotive connotative sense.So there you go. All this is from this review of a book written by Timothy Jay, called Why We Curse: A Neuro-Psycho-Social Theory of Speech. The review article is an interesting read.
And why the fact that we can moderate our language when talking to the parental units, or the senior manager (in relation to the "swearing is lazy" myth)?
People do not use curse words because their mental lexicon is impoverished, he [Jay] argues, but because "neurological, psychological and socio-cultural forces compel them to curse" (p259). If no hesitation or pause signals that the speaker is searching for the right word, the curse word is not a poor substitute for the 'real' expression from the mental lexicon.The article author says this assertion is unproven, but it makes perfect sense to me. When you're trying to make a good impression, you choose your words a lot more rigorously than in general and keep the filters in place at all times, unlike when you're hanging with your friends. Well, most of the time. There's a reason I don't drink when attending work dos outside my immediate team!
Finally, the class factor does come into it, IMO. The simple fact is that the language we hear around us in formative years tends to be the language that we actually use. Working class people don't "switch modes" as much as middle-class types - the language used in the public and private spheres is pretty much the same. Of course, that's often mitigated by a great degree in terms of who you associate with at any given time, in exactly the same way as having an accent. While you might get to the point where you can "pass", there will always be vestiges that come out with the right stimulus.
I'm a bit idiosyncratic, though. Due to having spent time in the UK surrounded by middle-class English people, I've got a fairly "posh-sounding" kiwi accent (which is getting nicely watered down by these Aussies at present, tho'). However, my language content is littered with tons of swear words. Since I have a low sense of humour, I get quite entertained when people who think I sound "nice" and "girlie" on the phone (I drop into a more formal speech pattern there) meet me in person. Heh.