The unspeakable hides behind a veil of swear words
From time immemorial, crude and vulgar language has been a powerful method for people of all kinds to provoke and get noticed.But, as with any cultural phenomenon, the understanding and meaning of swear words also change across time and space.
Even if the swear words we use often have a centuries-old history, in the Western world since the 1900s, social and legal norms have become less strict. Uttering Oh my God! no longer means taking God's name in vain, but simply conveying an intense pathos.
Vulgarity becomes ordinary and loses its force
Be careful, though: normalizing swear words and curses can reduce their expressive potential.
The English word drat, for example, now harmlessly means damn it. Yet, it was once a contraction of God rot, which in turn came from God rot your bones!: not exactly a nice thing to say to anyone.
In general, at least in the West, secularization has reduced the scope of religious curses, making way for poop, pee, and sex.
According to Melissa Mohr, author of Holy Sh*t: A Brief History of Swearing, swear words became more acceptable due to the First and Second World Wars.
Compared to the horrors of war, swearing seemed like a minor sin. In fact, it helped express dismay, pain, and desperation. Later, this habit was brought home by soldiers.
Vulgar language has lost some of its gravity and is no longer a challenge to the Church, the law, or social taboos and conventions. Instead, it has become a frequent, trivial, and accessory outlet.
In short, it's now a filler word that we sometimes no longer even notice. It's widespread across all social groups and ages, with a higher spread among men and teenagers: many societies still demand greater self-control from women and adults.
Swearing to cope with life's adversities
In their own way, swear words can be a great cure-all.
As Timothy Jay and Kristin Janschewitz argue in their article The Pragmatics of Swearing, a study of over 10,000 instances of swearing by children and adults found that, in most cases, the public use of taboo words is harmless and does not convey anger or violence.
According to this and other research, swear words can be beneficial: they can be used for joking, telling stories, managing stress, socializing, enduring pain, or substituting for physical aggression.
In short, swearing can be cathartic.
In other cases, it can even increase physical strength.
In a series of experiments cited in a 2017 Guardian article, when people cursed their way through the half-minute bike challenge, their peak power rose by 24 watts on average. In the 10-second grip task, swearers boosted their strength by the equivalent of 2.1kg.
When brands get naughty... and win
It's rare for brands to use profanity in their advertising.
Doing so would likely be judged as out of place and would draw criticism from families, opinion leaders, and regulatory bodies.
However, some irreverent brands, in line with their market positioning, dare to push the boundaries.
A vegan burger company like Meatless Farm is, by its nature, a direct challenge to the traditional food industry.
In this campaign, a trivial expletive is camouflaged by dots and softened by the photo of a distinguished lady. What's more, the first two letters of the curse match the company's initials.
In 2008, for the Australian market, Air Asia played on the assonance between the Thai city of Phuket and the swear word you all have in mind. Etiquette, at least formally, was preserved.
We've previously encountered this KFC campaign when discussing brands that know how to apologize. Here again, the expletive is evoked simply by rearranging the letters, as a form of atonement for the inconvenience caused to customers.
But swear words can promote more than just products and services: they can also advance social causes.
In 2023, the charity GIRLvsCANCER launched a powerful message: cancer can be defeated, and it will not have the last word.
To convey this concept, the campaign relied on a classic double entendre, accompanied by an explicit photo.
The asterisk, however, was not enough to convince the ASA, the UK's public regulator of advertising, which banned the billboard.
The campaign, if nothing else, had the merit of speaking the authentic language of everyday life, with all its charge of anger, determination, and hope.