\n<\/p>\n
When researchers asked people around the world to list every taboo word they could think of, the differences that emerged were revealing. The length of each list, for example, varied widely.<\/p>\n
While native English speakers in the UK and Spanish speakers in Spain rattled off an average of 16 words, Germans more than tripled this with an average of 53 words ranging from intelligenzallergiker<\/em>, a person allergic to intelligence, to hodenkobold<\/em>, or \u201ctesticle goblin\u201d, someone who is being annoying.<\/p>\n The results, researchers say, hint at how the overlooked field of social faux pas \u2013 whether it be swearing, insults or other off-limit language \u2013 can help us better understand the values, boundaries and shifting norms that shape different cultures.<\/p>\n \u201cThese words can be more offensive, or less, they can be loaded with negativity or with irony,\u201d said Jon Andoni Du\u00f1abeitia, a cognitive scientist and professor at Madrid\u2019s Nebrija University. \u201cBut taken together, they offer small snapshots of the realities of each culture.\u201d<\/p>\n When it came to the differences between Spanish and German speakers, Andoni Du\u00f1abeitia had two theories. German, with its seemingly endless capacity to build new compound words, could simply offer more options, he said. \u201cBut it could also be that some people [speaking other languages] just don\u2019t have these words readily available, or it\u2019s harder for them when asked to produce them in a very neutral environment,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n The study, which looked at taboo words in 13 languages from Serbian to Cantonese and Dutch, and across 17 countries, revealed other differences. The word \u201cshit\u201d, or its translated equivalent, for example, ranked among the most frequently used in several languages, including English, Finnish and Italian, but was not in the top rankings in French, Dutch, Spanish or German.<\/p>\n In contrast, words that sought to disparage women, such as \u201cbitch,\u201d turned up across cultures. \u201cI think it comes down to the terribly sexist traditions of many countries,\u201d said Andoni Du\u00f1abeitia, who was among the four dozen researchers involved with the 2024 study. \u201cThe vocabulary reflects the reality of societies where women have been mistreated, removed from everyday tasks and relegated to the background.\u201d<\/p>\n Sexual terms also came up repeatedly, hinting at a near-universal discomfort with topics perceived to be private or indecent.<\/p>\n Other words, such as \u201cfeminazi\u201d, revealed how words evolve alongside social and political change. In the current era of social media platforms, and the anonymity they often offer, researchers also traced a proliferation and hardening of the language used, laying bare how taboo words can be weaponised to target people based on race, religion, gender or sexuality.<\/p>\n When Simone Sulpizio, a psychology professor at the University of Milano-Bicocca and lead author of the 2024 study, launched into the research, he expected to hear a cacophony of expletives related to the church. \u201cBut we were surprised because, while blasphemy was present in all of the languages, it was only among the most frequent in Italy,\u201d said Sulpizio.<\/p>\n The Italians who were part of the study offered up more than 24 taboo words related to the church, including 17 different versions of what researchers translated as \u201cfucking God\u201d.<\/p>\n Sulpizio speculated it might be because of Italy\u2019s proximity and longstanding relationship with the Vatican, as well as the enduring strength of Catholic tradition in the country. \u201cSo that\u2019s an example of the impact <\/strong>of cultural or societal differences,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Another difference was in the way people used insults. \u201cEverybody has slurs, but depending on the culture of the country, the target of the slur changes,\u201d said Sulpizio.<\/p>\n The research suggested a handful of constants that hold across most cultures: men are more likely to use taboo words than women, as are extroverts. On average, people swear once for every two minutes of speech. This rate, however, can vary widely depending on the setting, the topic and the relationship between those in the conversation.<\/p>\n skip past newsletter promotion<\/p>\n Sign up to This is Europe<\/span><\/p>\n The most pressing stories and debates for Europeans \u2013 from identity to economics to the environment<\/p>\n Privacy Notice: <\/strong>Newsletters may contain information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on theguardian.com to send you this newsletter. You can complete full registration at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.<\/span><\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n What makes taboo words fascinating is that unlike most other parts of our vocabularies, they can be used positively or negatively, said Sulpizio. They hold extraordinary power, say researchers, who say they can be wielded to inflict harm or rattle power structures or, in turn, relieve stress and elicit humour.<\/p>\n Swearing could even confer physical benefits, Sulpizio said, citing a study that asked people to say a normal word or a taboo word while holding their hand in ice.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen they produced the taboo word, they were able to keep their hand longer in the ice,\u201d he said. \u201cSo these words can be used as kind of an emotional regulation tool.\u201d<\/p>\n Their wide range of uses could help to explain the persistence of these words, even as generations of parents, teachers and authority figures have actively discouraged their use and traces of them are wiped from formal written texts.<\/p>\n \u201cUsually the most frequently used words of a language are the most familiar words. But with taboo words, this relationship is the opposite,\u201d Sulpizio said. \u201cSo the more familiar the taboo words are, or the more known they are, the less frequently they tend to be written in newspapers or blogs or anything like that.\u201d<\/p>\n The team behind a 2022 study found the use of taboo words can deeply affect the way we think, act and relate to one another. \u201cSwearing was long dismissed as a topic of serious research because it was assumed to be simply a sign of aggression, weak language proficiency or even low intelligence,\u201d researchers noted recently in the Conversation. \u201cWe now have quite a lot of evidence that challenges this view, prompting us to reconsider the nature \u2013 and power \u2013 of swearing.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" When researchers asked people around the world to list every taboo word they could think of, the differences that emerged were revealing. The length of each list, for example, varied widely. While native English speakers in the UK and Spanish speakers in Spain rattled off an average of 16 words, Germans more than tripled this<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":29095,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[58],"tags":[17218,17220,6066,17219,2596,7319,15507,3787,550],"class_list":{"0":"post-29094","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-science","8":"tag-blasphemy","9":"tag-differ","10":"tag-german","11":"tag-ingenuity","12":"tag-italian","13":"tag-language","14":"tag-swear","15":"tag-words","16":"tag-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29094","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=29094"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29094\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/29095"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=29094"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=29094"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=29094"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}