Using swearwords（坏话，咒骂） is often thought of as the preserve of the thoughtless and uneducated - but new research suggests that this may be nothing more than a myth.

 

A language expert has published a new book about the history of swearing, and discovered that the practice is a lot more common - and a lot less useless - than most people imagine.

 

Among Melissa Mohr's revelations are the fact that most children learn how to swear before they even know the alphabet, and that some swear words date back to the time of the Romans.

 

The author told Time that her book, Holy Sh*t: A Brief History of Swearing, sets out to correct some of the misconceptions held by many people about swearing.

 

While you might think that less educated working-class people are more likely to swear than others, in fact the upper classes are just as keen on blue language.

 

In contrast, the group least likely to use bad language is the middle class, according to Dr Mohr.

 

'This goes back to the Victorian era idea that you get control over your language and your deportment, which indicates that you are a proper, good person and this is a sign of your morality and awareness¹ of social rules,' she said.

 

Additionally, many claim that swearing is a sign of mental laziness, but the evidence shows that it does in fact have some practical uses.

 

If you are subjected to acute pain such as stubbing your toe, swearing can be cathartic², providing relief from the agony（苦恼） - studies have shown that swearing sometimes has a genuine physiological³ effect on the body.

 

Swearing also helps to form social solidarity⁴ - for example, when workers use swear words while talking about their managers, it builds an 'in-group' which aids social and professional interaction.

 

Dr Mohr told Time that an analysis of the words used by an average English-speaking person over the course of a day reveals that around 0.7% of our language consists of swear words.

 

That means that one in 140 words we use is obscene - roughly the same proportion as the first-person plural⁵ pronouns such as 'we', 'us' and 'our'.

 

The surprising preponderance of swearing in everyday language explains why the majority of children know at least one swear word by the age of two.

 

Many toddlers not yet old enough to learn the ABC are so exposed to swearing that they use bad language themselves.

 

Dr Mohr, who holds a PhD in Renaissance⁶ literature from Stanford, has also revealed that swearing is nothing new.

 

But there are different trends in swearing down the centuries - for instance, in the Middle Ages scatological words were considered much less offensive, but religious oaths such as 'by God's bones' were believed to be so potent⁷（有效的） that they did physical harm to Jesus Christ.

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