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A review by sevenlefts
Swearing Is Good for You: The Amazing Science of Bad Language by Emma Byrne
3.0
Damn, this is an interesting book.
Byrne looks into the history and psychology of swearing. She's quite funny and not afraid to toss an f-bomb here and there.
Chapters include the neuroscience of swearing, swearing as it relates to pain (it helps!), gender differences in swearing, workplace swearing, and Tourette's syndrome. My favorite chapters looked at how apes that are taught to communicate by signing manage to invent swearing on their own. And the final chapter on swearing in other languages was quite interesting. Sometimes, it seems, we swear more easily in our native tongue -- but in other situations, a second language fits the bill.
The major insight I learned from this book is how basic and primal swearing is, lodged deep in the emotion centers of our brain and an absolutely integral part of human communication.
Also, it happened that while I was reading, an episode of The Allusionist popped up in my podcast app featuring an interview with Byrne about this book.
Byrne looks into the history and psychology of swearing. She's quite funny and not afraid to toss an f-bomb here and there.
Chapters include the neuroscience of swearing, swearing as it relates to pain (it helps!), gender differences in swearing, workplace swearing, and Tourette's syndrome. My favorite chapters looked at how apes that are taught to communicate by signing manage to invent swearing on their own. And the final chapter on swearing in other languages was quite interesting. Sometimes, it seems, we swear more easily in our native tongue -- but in other situations, a second language fits the bill.
The major insight I learned from this book is how basic and primal swearing is, lodged deep in the emotion centers of our brain and an absolutely integral part of human communication.
Also, it happened that while I was reading, an episode of The Allusionist popped up in my podcast app featuring an interview with Byrne about this book.