10 Reasons to stop swearing

A study in the UK has shown that people who swear have the capacity to endure pain for longer. After putting 64 volunteers’ hands in freezing cold water Dr Richard Stephens from the University of Keele in Staffordshire England, found that with swearing they could handle the pain for a longer period of time. It sounded like a little bit of a stretch to me; I was swearing throughout the entire article and it did not lessen the pain once.

My girlfriend has commented a few times on the frequency of my swearing and after watching the video of the ultra marathon I did recently, I can see why. It was a good 20mins of gratuitous f and s bombs. Granted that I was pretty buggered at the time, but it is not an excuse, but more so the point – have I lost the ability to communicate?

I did swear growing up, but my swearing problem developed from a long period of working away in a swearing dense environment. Even the women I worked with at the time would drop a c bomb without blinking – sometimes people were c’s that rhymed with punts, and there is no way around it. The time has come to fix it, so here are 10 reasons to stop swearing.

1. It lowers the effectiveness of the curse. If I call you a dickhead, I want people to say “Whoa, that guy must be a dickhead” and not “meh, he says that about everybody”.
   
   
2. It does make you more of a Bogan. Do you want to admire the view of an empty Commodore shell from the couch on the front veranda? Enough said.
   
   
3. Swearing does make you sound more aggressive. As a guy with a smart mouth and a history of broken noses, I do not need any more reasons for drunks to hit me.
   
   
4. Cheap laughs will only fill your soul so much. Think of something clever to say; people will not always be shocked like four-year-olds when someone utters a rude comment. Stick to fart jokes for that result.
   
   
5. Swearing limits your ability to describe things; I understand that you are tired/frustrated/overworked/drunk/post coitus but is that any reason to describe it “fucked”?
   
   
6. Professionalism aside, it will do your career a world of good to limit swearing. Unless you are a writer for People magazine for example.
   
   
7. Swearing proves that you are down to earth and not stuck up, but gratuitous swearing shows a lack of respect for the people around you. Everybody deserves your respect until proved otherwise and you may have just proved otherwise to everybody in the room.
   
   
8. In making you approachable swearing does help a fraction, but the relationship is not linear; the more you swear does not make you more approachable. Unless you are trying to attract police offices with capsicum spray. If you break your leg, drop a couple, if you stump your toe, toughen up.
   
   
9. Swearing will limit the time you will be around children. Not in a weird do-you-want-to-see-the-puppy-in-my-van kind of way, but in limiting the time other parents would let their kid’s hangout with your kids. A young child has moved in next door to me, with his mother obviously, but I would not let a child go to his house to play, not with us cursing Bogans sitting on a couch on the veranda next door.
   
   
10. It will stop the boffins doing bullshit research and start spending their grants on things that matter. I'm pretty sure that cancer thing is still kicking around.