Profity apparently does have a purpose...

[Roger Feeley]

I saw this article where they found that profanity, properly applied, can temporarily ease pain. So next time you hit your thumb with a hammer, let 'er fly.

http://http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-do-we-swear/

[John Coloccia]

I saw this article where they found that profanity, properly applied, can temporarily ease pain. So next time you hit your thumb with a hammer, let 'er fly.

http://http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-do-we-swear/

I tried clicking the link, but I just get "Server not Found".

But I tried your suggestion, and after a few choice words it's not bothering me so much anymore.

[Dan Hintz]

His link has a double http... try this one:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-do-we-swear/

[Tom Stenzel]

"Swearing is an art form. You can express yourself much more directly, much more exactly, much more succinctly, with properly used curse words."


from The Quotations of Mayor Coleman A. Young, Droog Press 1991.

[Steve Rozmiarek]

Hmm, my eccentric old neighbor apparently feels no pain...

[Pat Barry]

I understood this concept at an early age and apply it frequently due to my clutziness

[Ken Fitzgerald]

You will notice the last paragraph states there is a catch....the more you use it, the less effective it is........ It doesn't give me much relief.....

[Leigh Betsch]

The way kids talk today I think the old profanity words are just part of their normal vocabulary. I don't think they have anything left for special causes.

[Jim Creech]

I have to agree with you on that one!!!

[David Weaver]

You will notice the last paragraph states there is a catch....the more you use it, the less effective it is........ It doesn't give me much relief.....

It's like many things. If you save it for when you really need it, you'll appreciate it a lot more.

I have better luck saving money sometimes, though. In an ideal world, whatever it is that makes my brain and others desire to drop to cursing wouldn't exist, and I have tried several times to say "i'm just not going to do it at all" and it always seems to last about a day before something causes my eyes to cross. When I'm around the few amish folks I know, I can keep it in, though. They don't appreciate it!! Someone who was an acquaintance described a mennonite farmer near him that had a fairly large operation and a cursing/swearing rule that he didn't communicate to others - you do it one time on his property, and no matter how big the amount of business you had going with him, he sent you off the property never to return again.

There was a counter study to all of this probably a decade ago where they followed a woman around who believed that swearing made her feel better, but all she did was swear, and it didn't seem to help her much.

I have the most idiotic thought that I run across my brain any time I feel like getting really mad. I won't even repeat it, but it's sure cut back on my cursing and swearing and getting angry about things that used to bother me.

[Jim Matthews]

"Profanity cheapens the soul and weakens the mind."
- Javier Grillo-Marxuach

282137

[Brian W Smith]

The brain has a way of "normalizing" everything........

[phil harold]

So next time you hit your thumb with a hammer, let 'er fly.


Next time you hit your thumb with a hammer,
hit it two more times, immediately
you know your going to hit again, just get it done with...
then you will be done hitting for the rest of the day

[Mike Olson]

Whenever I hit myself with a hammer, my words come out as complete gibberish, sounding similar to the Tasmanian devil without the raspberries.

[Ruperto Mendiones]

Contemporary English has shrunken profanity to less than a handful of over-used 4 letter words. Go back to Shakespeare's time and the language is far richer. A Russian friend often complains that English has so little profane seasoning.

[Brian Elfert]

Mythbusters did an episode that tested the myth if profanity lowered pain. I don't recall the results. I do remember they put a shield of some sort over the participant's mouth when using profanity. Blurring the video is much more costly than bleeping out profanity.

[Bill Edwards(2)]

Did you ever hurt yourself so bad you started laughing.............................. me neither.:D

(actually I have and it used to worry me, now I don't care)

[Jim Rimmer]

I'll have to admit that I release the four letter pain relievers from time to time but when i crushed the end of my index finger so bad that it required surgery, I didn't say anything right away. I just remember grabbing my hand, leaning over a sawhorse and slowly looking at it. When I saw the nail at a 45* angle, my thought was "That's going to take a while to heal." I don't remember cursing that day.

[Jason Roehl]

This explains why I swear while I'm snowplowing parking lots (mostly one giant retailer whose name rhymes with "hall fart". The stupidity of the other drivers hurts my brain...