Why we curse: Steven Pinker explains

The strange power of linguistic taboos suggests that these words tap into ancient parts of the brain. In general, words have not just a denotation but a connotation: an emotional coloring distinct from what the word literally refers to. Curses provoke a different response than their synonyms in part because connotations and denotations are stored in different parts of the brain. www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=20071008&s=pinker100807

Why should native English speakers be offended when an outsider refers to an African American as a ni##er, or a woman as a c##t, or a Jewish person as a f##king Jew? Perhaps the sense of offense comes from the nature of speech recognition and from what it means to understand the connotation of a word.

There are a variety of reasons to think twice about giving carte blanche to swearing. One is that if an overuse of taboo words, whether by design or laziness, blunts their emotional edge, it will have deprived us of a linguistic instrument that we sometimes sorely need.

When used judiciously, swearing can be hilarious, poignant, and uncannily descriptive. More than any other form of language, it engages the full expanse of the brain: left and right, high and low, ancient and modern.

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