Holy F***ING ^%#(*&!!

All this time, I thought it was because I was from Brooklyn.

That muttered curse word that reflexively comes out when you stub your toe could actually make it easier to bear the throbbing pain, a new study suggests.

Swearing is a common response to pain, but no previous research has connected the uttering of an expletive to the actual physical experience of pain.

"Swearing has been around for centuries and is an almost universal human linguistic phenomenon," said Richard Stephens of Keele University in England and one of the authors of the new study. "It taps into emotional brain centers and appears to arise in the right brain, whereas most language production occurs in the left cerebral hemisphere of the brain."

Swearing Makes Pain More Tolerable

Wow, I never realized I was in so much pain so much of the time!

But surely cursing has been around for a lot LONGER than mere centuries. Who's to say if some of ancient cave-markings we've yet to decode said something along the lines of "Mongo can kiss my furry bollocks" ?

Comments

[joker]

Considering that a lot of cave markings seem to be the simple painting of a triangle, pointing down, with one or two strokes through the lower corner...
...yeah.

;)

[Evan]

I dunno. It's a good theory, but what with all those paintings of antelopes and buffalo and whatnot, I've always assumed it was furry porn.

[Nightfall]

Except I never use language like that, so it just comes out as vowel-less gibberish. (Example: nrrglf!)