The power of language (7)

Cykl artykułów został przygotowany przez Lang LTC - platynowe centrum egzaminacyjne Cambridge English, organizatora językowych wyjazdów zagranicznych oraz szkoleń językowych dla firm i klientów indywidualnych.

The Anatomy of Swearing

Anatomia przeklinania

Swearing is more common than you might think. After a historic health-care vote, Joe Biden whispered to Barack Obama, “This is a big fucking deal", as the men shook hands in front of a cheering crowd and an open microphone. Biden’s remark was intended for Obama’s ears only, but that nearby microphone broadcast his profanity to the world and what followed was a buzz about whether the comment was inappropriate or uncivil. However, some specialists have said that the slip was simply another example of how normal it was to swear in everyday speech. “Big fucking deal, is a perfectly reasonable thing to say when you are talking to a friend about something that was a big fucking deal," said Geoff Nunberg, a linguist at the University of California, “It’s emphatic and has an intensity of emotion. To say ‚This was certainly a big deal,’ or, ‚This was an awfully big deal,’ does not convey that emotion." It is their taboo status that gives swear words their power. In saying something that we are not really supposed to say, we point out that this topic is so important to us that we are willing to cross boundaries to make that clear. In this context, to condemn politicians for swearing in private contexts, as Biden did, is rather hypocritical. Especially, if we look at some statistics which say a lot about British swearing habits.