← Something You Should Know
Something You Should Know
The Art of Conflict & The Surprising Power of Swearing-SYSK Choice
00:48:49
Why small head injuries matter, how to handle conflict better, and what swearing really does to your brain.
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- [00:01]
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- [00:35]
Mike Carruthers
Today on something you should know why a bump on the head may be a bigger deal than you realize then a better way to handle disputes, negotiations and conflicts in everyday life. From one of the leading experts I
- [00:51]
William Ury
was mediating in a big political dispute and I had a meeting with the president of Venezuela and what I learned then and there was that the greatest power that we have in a negotiation in any conflict situation is the power not to react.
- [01:04]
Mike Carruthers
Also, what's the connection between watching TV as a kid and going to jail and profanity? People swear a lot and still it can be shocking.
- [01:15]
Rebecca Roach
The reason we can cause shock has to do with a signal of disrespect that we give. Say by uttering a swear word in a polite context, the people that we're talking to know that we know it's an offensive word and we're using it anyway.
- [01:29]
Mike Carruthers
All this today on something you should know. You know I'm a sucker for a good mystery. Like in the 1950s, a flight from New York to Minneapolis just disappeared over Lake Michigan. No wreckage, no answers. Or the Dyatlove Pass incident. A group of experienced hikers found dead under circumstances so strange, people still debate what really happened. There's a podcast called Expedition Unknown from Discovery hosted by Josh Gates. And this is what he does. He doesn't just tell these stories. He goes there. He's hunted for priceless artifacts stolen by the Nazis in World War II. He's traced the final flight of a pilot who vanished mid mission and searched the Great Lakes for a ship that disappeared without a trace. If you love the unanswered questions of history, you know the stuff that makes you lean in. You're going to love this. Travel the globe with Josh Gates as he investigates humanity's greatest feats and most iconic legends. Listen to Expedition Unknown wherever you get your podcasts. Something you should know, fascinating intel, the world's top experts and practical advice you can use in your life today. Something you should Know with Mike Carruthers. Hi and welcome. If you think Back over your life. I'm sure there have been times when you've taken a real hit to the head. Either you've fallen down and smacked your head on something, or someone hit you by accident, or maybe not by accident, but we've all taken hits to the head. And we tend to brush off those mild head traumas as no big deal. But it turns out they may be more serious than you realize. Some years ago, the Wall Street Journal did a story on how undiagnosed head trauma could be a factor in homelessness, drug addiction, depression, and other emotional problems. So if you notice a change in mood or behavior in yourself or someone you know after a hit to the head, you really should see a doctor because treatments are often available and you could save yourself a whole lot of trouble. And that is something you should know. Maybe you've heard the saying, or some variation of it, that life would be so much easier if it weren't for people. Every day we have to deal with people, prod them, argue with them, work with them, negotiate and try to get along with them. And it's often difficult, particularly now when it seems like we live in a time when people seem less courteous and accommodating. Wouldn't it be great to be better able to deal with the people and the conflicts and the negotiations of life? Well, here to help you do that is William Ury. William is considered one of the leading experts on negotiation and conflict. He's consulted for the White House, the State Department, the Pentagon, dozens of Fortune 500 companies, and he is author of a book called How We Survive and Thrive in an Age of Conflict. Hi, William. Welcome to something you should know.
- [04:46]
William Ury
It's a pleasure, Mike.
- [04:48]
Mike Carruthers
So you've been looking at conflict and negotiation from all levels, from high up on top, at the government level, all the way down. What is your take on this? Are we more polarized and conflicted? Is it today just more difficult dealing with people than it used to be?
- [05:06]
William Ury
We need to put it in perspective. If you actually ask most Americans, for example, the polls show that most Americans still believe that most Americans agree more than they disagree. Most Americans believe it's possible to actually have to disagree in a agreeable fashion without being disagreeable. In other words, in a healthy, conflictual fashion. So I think there's hope for us. And that's why I'm a possibilist. People often ask me, you don't have to. 20, you know, 45 years wandering around dealing with some of the toughest conflicts, from strikes to boardroom battles. To family feuds, to wars. You know, are you still an optimist or are you a pessimist? And I like to say, actually I'm a possibilist. I actually believe in human potential to deal with our differences because I've seen it happen with my own eyes. I've seen people rise to the occasion. And conflict can bring out the worst in us, but it can also bring out the best in us. And I really do believe it's possible.
- [06:05]
Mike Carruthers
Well, it's interesting that you say that people think we can live with our differences and that we agree more than we disagree, because it doesn't seem that way a lot of the time. It seems very much the opposite.
- [06:21]
William Ury
That's true. That's true. And I think it's actually accentuated, amplified, by the way in which we're communicating. A lot of it's through social media these days and the algorithms of social media, they're looking for engagement and conflict, negative conflict, destructive conflict enhances engagement. So they amplify it. And. And so it's both true and the perception is probably even more so than. Than the reality, because the reality is, I think most, Most Americans, most people just, you know, want to get along with their neighbors. And we're not going to get rid of conflicts, nor should we, because we need actually healthy conflict. It's good for relationships. It helps us grow, it helps us evolve. It's at the heart of our democracy, it's at the heart of our economy. But we need. The choice is really not about whether to get rid of conflict or not. It's whether do we handle the conflict destructively through fights, through lawsuits, through vicious arguments, through not talking with each other, as you mentioned, or whether we can do it constructively by listening to each other, by honest, open dialogue, and through constructive, creative negotiation.
- [07:30]
Mike Carruthers
So when people have conflict, the assumption, I think generally for those of us who are not in the business like you think, that if you have a conflict, what you now must do is resolve it. That conflict is something to fix. And very often the fix is a compromise. Neither one of us are going to get what we want. I'll take a hit if you'll take a hit, and then we'll be okay.
- [07:57]
William Ury
Yeah. So there's a story about two sisters who are quarreling about an orange, and they quarrel about the orange. So they decide, okay, we'll divide the orange in half. And one sister takes her half and eats half the fruit and throws away the peel. And the other one takes her half, throws away the fruit and uses half the peel for baking a cake, that's a compromise, right? They compromise on dividing it in half, but in fact, through creative negotiation, if you'd asked a simple question, why do you want the orange? Well, I want it for cooking, I want it for eating. Then you can end up with a whole peel for one and a whole fruit for the other. And I think that's the promise of negotiation, is to really make it into a creative exercise of using our full potential to look for ways not just to divide up a fixed pie, but how do we expand the pie before we divide it up?
- [08:56]
Mike Carruthers
Well, there does seem to be a difference between that kind of negotiation, where you're negotiating about something rather than disagreeing about your philosophy on life or your political views, because it seems like that's going to go nowhere.
- [09:13]
William Ury
The thing that's missing is we think of negotiation or we think of dealing with conflict as talking. And I think actually negotiation is much more about listening. There's a reason why we're given two ears and one mouth for a reason, which is to listen twice as much as we talk. And the most successful negotiators I know, and everyone is a negotiator, by the way. It's not like it's a specialty. Every one of us negotiates every day. If you think about it, it's just back and forth communication, trying to reach agreement. You've got some issue and you might be negotiating with your kid or your co worker, your colleague or your friend or a customer. But in that broad sense of the term, when I ask people, they say, well, we negotiate all the time. You negotiate with yourself. So in that broad sense of the term, what's missing to me is something that again is inherent in us, which is the ability to listen, to listen to your neighbor, to listen. For example, if someone has a different political view, just listen to them, hear them out and, and then be curious. You know, I would say, you know, one of the best mottos is meet animosity with curiosity. In other words, just bring, just ask them some questions. Why do you think that's so. And, and, and that's the key is, is to, is to be open, to be curious, to ask questions and to listen.
- [10:38]
Mike Carruthers
Because what might happen if I disagree with you politically and I say, so tell me why you believe that. What's the hoped for outcome?
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William Ury
For one thing underlying all of this is human beings want respect. And respect comes from the Latin respect. Re is again and spect is like spectacles. It's to see again, they want to be seen, they Want to be heard. And if you hear them and you're curious, what I find is they relax, they feel respected. Even if you don't agree with them, they feel like, oh, okay, you acknowledge that they have a point of view, maybe a valid point of view, even if you disagree with it. There's a difference between agreeing and acknowledging the validity. You can acknowledge that, yeah, you've got a point of view. I can understand how you see it that way. I happen to see it differently. And then suddenly you're in a better relationship with each other. So you can, you can disagree without being disagreeable. And the point of the exercise can be, let's see if we can agree about where we agree and where we disagree. In other words, second order agreement. We don't have to agree on everything. That's not what life's about. I'm an anthropologist by training, and conflict is natural. It's part of life. We're going to always have disagreements. In fact, that's what makes things work, is we have diversity of perspectives and that's where we can have a rich conversation. So it can be stimulating. You know, some of the, some of the best conversations I've had are with people with whom I have profound disagreements.
- [12:10]
Mike Carruthers
And you resist the urge to say, well, that's the stupidest thing I've ever heard.
- [12:15]
William Ury
Now that's the thing I'd say. The lesson I've learned most is that the biggest obstacle to getting what I want in a negotiation, in any conflict situation, however small, home, work, wherever, the biggest obstacle is not what I think it is. You know, I tend to think. We tend to think it's that difficult person, you know, that difficult person on the other side of the table. Well, guess what? It's the difficult person on this side of the table. It's me. It's the person I look at in the mirror every morning. It's our own very human, very natural, very understandable tendency to react. In other words, to act without thinking, to react out of fear, to, to react out of anger, to react out of umbrage, to, you know, some kind. It's, it's that, it's that quick reaction. And as the old saying goes, when you're angry, you will make the best speech you will ever regret, and, you know, you'll send the best email you'll ever regret. And the key, what I've found is to step back from the situation, pause, you know, don't react in that moment. It's the ability to go to a balcony. It's almost like you're negotiating on a stage, and part of you goes to a mental and emotional balcony, which is a place of calm and perspective where you can keep your eyes on the prize and see the larger picture. Balcony is the foundation of successful negotiation.
- [13:43]
Mike Carruthers
When people hear about negotiation, a lot of people run the other way and they think that a good negotiator, somebody who's good at it, is slippery. You know, it's that used car guy that's like, you know, he's got tricks. It's a tricking thing. It's not what you're talking about.
- [14:05]
William Ury
I know that's a common perception of negotiation. And the thing I have to tell you is that having been in this business for many, many decades, the most successful negotiators I know, interestingly, what they prize the most is their reputation for honesty and fair dealing. Now, why would that be? Because, after all, you could, of course, manipulate or deceive or be slippery. And yeah, you're likely you might put something over on someone once. But the thing is, the word gets around. You get a reputation for being slippery, and then, as we know, with used cars or whatever, no one wants to deal with you. Or if they're going to deal with you, they're going to deal with you at arm's length, and they're certainly not going to share their interests with you. But if they trust you and you're honest and you deal fairly with each other, people will open up, they'll tell you what they actually want. You're more likely to get a superior deal in that sense. You're more able to expand the pie, come up with an optimum deal, and you're able to do it faster because you can operate at the speed of trust, which is a lot faster. So there are. And you set yourself up for the next one because there are hundreds, thousands of negotiations that we're going to engage in the course of our lives. So, paradoxically enough, the best negotiators I know, that's what they prize. Honesty, fair dealing. Be trustworthy, be trustwilling.
- [15:39]
Mike Carruthers
We're discussing the art of dealing with people in conflict, in negotiation, and in everyday life. And my guest is William Ury, author of the book How We Survive and Thrive in an Age of Conflict. I think we tend to overcomplicate our wardrobe. Too many options, not enough things you actually wear. You don't need more clothes. You need a few pieces that just work. That's why I love quints. My wife, my son, we are all devoted quint shoppers. I wear their cashmere sweaters and short sleeve Mongolian cashmere polos all the time and the quality is real. 100% Mongolian cashmere long staple Pima cotton that stays soft and doesn't pill all without the luxury markup that cashmere polo. It looks good, it feels expensive and it's affordable. Quince works directly with top factories and cuts out the middlemen. Their pieces are rated between four and a half and five stars and they only partner with factories and that meet high standards for craftsmanship and ethical production. Stop over complicating your wardrobe right now. Go to quince.comsysk for free shipping and 365 day returns. That's a full year to build your wardrobe and love it. Now available in Canada too. Go to quince.com sysk whenever you start something new, like a new business idea, you always doubt yourself. You think, ooh, this is exciting. But your brain says, yeah, but what if it doesn't work? When I started this podcast, I had no idea what would happen. But look, at some point you either launch your idea or you don't. And that's why tools matter. Shopify is the commerce platform behind millions of businesses worldwide. They're behind 10% of all E commerce in the US from major brands to people just getting started. They let you build a professional online store with ready to use templates and they're packed with helpful AI tools that write product descriptions and page headlines so you don't have to do everything yourself. And if you get stuck, Shopify's award winning 24. 7 Customer support is always there, which makes those what if moments a little less scary. It's time to turn those what ifs into with Shopify today. Sign up for your $1 per month trial today at shopify.comSYSK go to shopify.comSYSK that's shopify.comSYSK so William, we often hear in terms of negotiating, we hear things like, well, we need a win win outcome here. We need a win win. Is that what we need? A win win?
- [18:42]
William Ury
We do need a win win in the sense of it's not Pollyannish in the sense of okay, you get everything you want and they get everything that they want. But a win means that you get your interests, your basic interests satisfied. They get their basic interests satisfied. And certainly better than the alternative. Because in negotiation you always want to think through what we call your batna, which is B A T N A, which stands for your best alternative to a negotiated agreement. What are you going to do to satisfy your interests if for some reason, you cannot reach agreement. If you can't reach agreement on this particular salary with a prospective job, are you going to go for another job? What's your alternative? Having a good batna gives you confidence, gives you power in that negotiation. A genuine win win is something that satisfies your interests better than you could by not negotiating and better than they could by not negotiating. And I would even be more audacious these days because I think we need to go for what I would call a triple win or a win win, win, which is a win for both parties, but also a win for the surrounding community, be it a win for the family or a win for the workplace. A work for the work team, a win for the society. We need to pay attention to those around us and we need that third win. Otherwise it's not sustainable.
- [20:07]
Mike Carruthers
It's sometimes, I don't know if you've ever been in that situation where when negotiations get difficult and so it becomes more about just getting the other guy. Like, you just want to walk away and say, screw you. And then if you do that, you oftentimes regret it. It felt good in the moment, but it turned out to be not such a great strategy.
- [20:32]
William Ury
That's exactly right. You know, it's kind of like, you know, they say about a marriage, either you can be. You can be happy or you can be right, but you can't be both. And. And yeah, you can win, you know, you can win a battle, you know, and maybe feel good in the moment. But then in the long term, these people, we have ongoing relationships, and even if we never see them again, we have reputations and they affect our other negotiations. So, yeah, in the end, it may feel temporarily more satisfying to say screw you. That's your initial reaction. That's why it's so important to be able to go to the balcony. That's why it's so important to kind of pause for a moment, because on the balcony you ask yourself, what's in my real interest here? You know, once, you know, I was engaged, I was mediating in a big political dispute down in Venezuela, and I had a meeting with the president of Venezuela, and he got irate at me because for something, he started shouting at me, shouting and shouting and shouting. And of course, I felt embarrassed. I was flustered in front of his entire cabinet. And I felt like, you know, reacting and saying screw you, just like you're saying, whatever. But then I caught myself and I said, wait a minute, why am I here? I'm here to kind of calm the situation down here. I pinched the palm of my hand, which gave me a little temporary pain and alert, just helped me go to the balcony. And I realized, is it going to get me do any good to get into an argument with the president of Venezuela? Is that going to help things? And I realized it wouldn't. So I just bit my tongue and I listened. And he proceeded to shout at me for, you know, 30 minutes. But I was just listening to him from that balcony perspective. And then, because I wasn't feeding him fuel, he kind of started to kind of wind down. And I watched his shoulders sink, his body language. And then he finally said to me, so, Yuri, what should I do? And that is the sound of a human mind opening. And then I said, you know, Mr. President, it's Christmas. Everyone's, you know, the family festivities have been canceled. Just give everyone a break for three weeks. Let the whole country go to the balcony, as it were, and propose a truce. And he said. He looked at me for a moment. He said, you know what? That's a great idea. I'm going to propose that my next speech. And he clapped me on the back. His mood had completely shifted. And what I learned then and there was that the greatest power that we have in a negotiation, in any conflict situation, is the power not to react, but to go to the balcony instead, to stop, pause, ask what you really want, what's in your real interest.
- [23:13]
Mike Carruthers
Yeah, hard to do in the moment, but, you know, and that's, you know, I think people have this sense that someone like you, someone who's an experienced negotiator, has some special quality that you can do. You can get yelled at by the president of Venezuela for half an hour and keep your cool. And most of us probably couldn't. And that there is some special je ne sais quoi that you have.
- [23:45]
William Ury
Well, this is what I would say. I would say, I understand that, but we all have it. This is the secret. It's in every one of us. You can all think. You know, if you think about it, every one of us has our favorite ways of going to the balcony. Some people, you know, just take a deep breath. You know, some people pinch the palm of their hands. Some people count to 10. Some people, you know, take a break. You know, I love to go for walks. Walks in nature. They kind of like settle my nervous system. Some people like to go work out, go for a run, have a cup of coffee with. With a friend, whatever it takes. Just brings you back into a clear, calmer mood where you can actually ask Yourself. The question of what do I really want here? What's in my long term interest? Is it really going to do me good if I get into an argument with my spouse or my business partner? What do I really want here and what's going to get me there? And that I think is essential. And that's in every one of us. It's our birthright, we're born with it, we just need to develop it.
- [24:52]
Mike Carruthers
But in a negotiation where it's more like, you know, friends, husband, wife, lovers, that kind of thing, where you go to the balcony because you're upset and you don't want to say anything, and then there's often that tendency to never say anything, to let it just kind of go, but it's still there, it's simmering, so it's not right in the forefront anymore. And if you keep going to the balcony with all these things that are building up and the resentment's building up and you never say anything, it seems like a recipe for trouble.
- [25:28]
William Ury
That's a great point. So this is the thing. When we are in conflict, we often fall into what I would call the three a trap. The first A is avoid. And that's, I'm not talking about avoidance here. You know, you're, you're, that's what you're talking about. Like you never bring it up, it, it stews with you, it doesn't solve anything. The second A is attack. You know, we, we go on the attack and you know, and then we regret it because like an eye for an eye and we all go blind. Or, and the third A is for accommodate or appease. We give in. Which also doesn't, is not satisfying. So what's the way out of the 3A trap? It's actually to engage, it's to actually lean into the situation. It's the exact opposite of avoiding. You just go to the balcony at first to think about what you want, but then you come off the balcony, you go back right on the stage. Right. It's not like you stay on the balcony, you go back to the stage, but go back to the stage with your better self, knowing exactly what you want, you're going to be much better able to achieve what you want. So it's about leaning into conflict with curiosity. It's about actually embracing conflict with creativity. It's about transforming conflict, changing the form of it from destructive to constructive with collaboration.
- [26:48]
Mike Carruthers
Well, you have such an interesting and distinctive and different view of conflict and negotiation and how to resolve all that. I really enjoy talking to you, William. Ury has been my guest. He's considered one of the leading experts on negotiation and conflict resolution. He has consulted the White House, the State Department, the Pentagon, and he's author of a book called How We Survive and Thrive in an Age of Conflict. And there's a link to his book at Amazon in the show notes. Appreciate you coming on. Thanks William.
- [27:20]
William Ury
Thanks Mike. It's been a great pleasure.
- [27:23]
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- [27:45]
Mike Carruthers
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- [28:18]
Mike Carruthers
Certainly swearing today is much more acceptable than it used to be, almost to the point of it being mainstream. Is that a good thing? Doesn't swearing lose some of its value and effect if everybody does it and fewer people are offended by it? Or maybe the purpose of swearing has changed. Well, here to take a look at why we swear and how swearing has changed and what the future holds for it is Rebecca Roach. She is a Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at Royal Holloway at the University of London and author of a book, for f sake, why swearing is shocking, rude and fun. Hi Rebecca. Welcome to something you should know.
- [29:02]
Rebecca Roach
Hi, I'm happy to be here. Thanks for having me.
- [29:05]
Mike Carruthers
So I would imagine that swearing has been around for as long as people have been talking. You know, as long as there have been words, there have probably been swear words.
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Rebecca Roach
There's a great book by Melissa Moore on swearing and she tells us in her book that there's instances of swearing on Roman toilet walls. So it has been, it has been around for quite a while.
- [29:32]
Mike Carruthers
And swearing is only swearing if generally everybody agrees you shouldn't say it and that it's wrong, it's naughty, it's got something bad about it. Because if it isn't, then it isn't swearing.
- [29:47]
Rebecca Roach
Yeah, yeah. I think there's a few things that contribute to a word's being a swear word. All cultures have taboos which are words or topics or behaviors that are sort of, maybe not actually formally illegal, but which are sort of frowned upon. People prefer you don't utter them or engage in them or whatever. And swearing is a form of taboo in that we're not supposed to swear in polite company. Swear words themselves tend to focus on taboo topics. So, you know, around the world, swear words tend to be words to do with toilet matters, sex, blasphemy, a few other things. It also tends to be language that we use to express emotion. You know, when we're really angry or when we're surprised, we might utter a swear word or when we're in pain as well. So there's this little cluster of. I mean, I haven't gone through the whole lot, but there's a cluster of features, I think, that make a word a swear word.
- [30:53]
Mike Carruthers
In my lifetime. I have seen swear words become less shocking over the last several decades. It does seem, I can remember as a kid, if somebody had spray painted the F word on a wall, it'd be a news story. It would be like people would be outraged. I see that all the time now. Nobody cares. It's like we've been desensitized to it. And the other example, I was talking the other day because your book had arrived and you can see the swear words on the COVID of your book, even though there's asterisks. But there was a time where no book would ever do that. But there's lots of books now that do that in their title. So it's not as shocking anymore to see it. It's just, there's just a. Like, eh, well, he's swearing. People seem to accept it more now. Right.
- [31:49]
Rebecca Roach
I think. Well, I think there's a couple of things to say. So one is that the offensiveness of individual swear words rises and falls over time and it tracks what's most important culturally. So Gone with the Wind, which, you know, the movie of Gone with the Wind, which was released in 1939, it contains up that famous line, frankly my dear, I don't give a damn. And at the time that was really shocking. You know, there was a discussion about whether that line should even be included in the movie. And there was, you know, the suggestions that maybe, maybe Rhett Butler could say, frankly, my dear, I don't give a hoot. So. So that was really regarded as quite powerful language. Whereas today that just sounds super tame. If you were going to remake that movie, you would have him say a Different word. So, I mean, you might view that as, you know, damn is obviously a blasphemy term. And perhaps the explanation for why we're more tolerant of that these days is that, you know, sort of societies like the US and the uk, we've become more secular over the years. Not wholly secular, but. But more so. I mean, our rudest swear words now are, as you say, the F word. And I guess generally words that have a sexual theme. But actually, before Victorian times, they. Those words were less shocking. I mean, they were still vulgar, but they weren't the powerful swear words that we think of them today. So I think that's one. One point. You know, the word, the individual words that shock us the most change changes over time. And I think today, if you. If you really wanted to cause offense, then you would. You would utter sort of racist language or homophobic language, you know, what we'd call slurs. So the sort of language that denigrates an entire group of people. Whereas a few decades ago you could sort of drop a bit of casual racism into conversation, even polite conversation.
- [33:55]
Mike Carruthers
Do you know if there have been recent surveys to gauge people's temperature about whether they like to hear other people swear? Because it really seems situational to me, like if I'm with people or if I'm with my wife and we're somewhere where people are just swearing like crazy, it's offensive and really unnecessary. But I sometimes swear too, so. But I do it with certain people and I don't let strangers hear me. But I just wonder, how do people generally feel about it?
- [34:30]
Rebecca Roach
So there's an organization in the UK called ofcom, which is sort of a broadcasting regulator, so they will fine TV stations for broadcasting swearing inappropriately, things like that. And once every decade or so they do a public survey to find out what people's attitudes are towards different words. And it's really interesting to go and look at these, you know, the different reports over the years, because you can see that people's tolerance for slur terms, you know, sort of racist, sexist, homophobic, ableist language, has, you know, people are much less tolerant of that than they would have been a few decades ago. People in these surveys that ofcon conduct say that they're more tolerant of swearing when it's sort of unplanned, you know, like if somebody hits their thumb with a hammer by accident and swears sort of unthinkingly, that that's, that's more acceptable to people than when they're sort of choosing their words consciously. So there you Know, there's a bit of tolerance for just a sort of impulsive swearing. Um, people are, some of it's just common sense. People are less tolerant of repeated swearing than, you know, sort of one off instances.
- [35:52]
Mike Carruthers
It is not uncommon to hear people swear a lot. And an example, I go to a gym and there's often these two guys in there. Every other word as they're talking to each other is the F word. And it has two effects on me. One is these guys must not be that bright that they can't think of other words to say besides that, the F word. But also it loses the swearing loses some of its pizzazz because if you swear so much that every other word is a swear word, it has no. The impact is gone.
- [36:29]
Rebecca Roach
There is evidence for what you've just said there. The thought that the more you swear, the less power the swear words have. A psychologist in the UK called Richard Stevens and his colleagues ran a few experiments which found that swearing helps us withstand pain. So they had their subjects hold a hand in a bucket of icy water, which apparently is painful if you keep your hand there for long enough. And they had people either remain silent, see how long they could hold their hand there, or they could say benign words like table, or they could swear. And what they found is that when people were allowed to swear, they were able to hold their hand in the icy water for longer. And the thought was that swearing, there's some sort of chemical explanation to do with, I think it's to do with the release of adrenaline when we swear that can help us withstand pain. But they did found that this only works if people are fairly selective about when they swear in, you know, in their day to day lives. So people at swear all the time don't enjoy this benefit. It's just, it's just too, I guess it just becomes another part of language. Right. The words, as you say, don't have their power anymore.
- [37:51]
Mike Carruthers
Well, I've always wanted to like go up to someone like that and say, do you guys realize what you're, you know, it just makes you sound stupid. It just, I don't know, it just. But I never do because, because language like that, there's kind of a connection between people who swear. Like that might hit you, you know, that they're not dainty people.
- [38:14]
Rebecca Roach
Yeah. This is something that. There's a late American philosopher, Joel Feinberg, who wrote a huge book on offense and how the law should get involved in, in situations of where, where people are offended. And one thing he says is that, you know, any Breach of etiquette, which includes swearing in a polite context, can alarm us. Right. Because we have this fear that, oh God, if this person is going to break this rule, what else might they do? So there's this sort of anything goes.
- [38:45]
Mike Carruthers
Yeah.
- [38:46]
Rebecca Roach
Attitude. Right. But I, I think also, I mean, it is quite complex. I think, especially when it comes to younger people, teenagers, they, they will reach an age where they want to sort of, they want to push boundaries and show that they're willing to break rules and signal this about themselves. And swearing can be a fairly benign way to do that. You know, it's probably. If a 13 year old wants to show that they're not a baby anymore, then checking a few swear words into conversation is probably preferable to some of the things that they could do to show that they don't care about the rules. Right.
- [39:27]
Mike Carruthers
Well, what you were saying about people who swear less often. My dad never swore, except maybe, I can maybe think of three times in his life that he said something, the S word or something. And boy, did you notice, because he never swore his whole life. So if he actually resorted to swearing, you know, you better pay attention, something's wrong. And. And it worked.
- [39:56]
Rebecca Roach
Yeah, yeah. And that. You're reminding me of an anecdote. In the army where swearing was apparently very common, the command to get your rifles would generally be as part of a drill, accompanied by the F word. And then on one occasion when it wasn't a drill, there was actually an actual need to get their rifles. The command was given without the F word. So it was just get your rifles. And that omission of the swear word had the same effect that you're describing when hearing your father swearing. So it's just like, wow, there's something, there's something going on. Right. It's a diversion from the norm. So it's kind of interesting. It's almost the reverse. But in both cases there's a signal that something strange is going on. Right.
- [40:42]
Mike Carruthers
One of the interesting things I find about swear words is what they have in common with Christmas carols in the sense that there are hardly ever any new ones. And I've always assumed that the reason that is is you can come up with a new word for anything, but it's very hard to come up with a new word and create a taboo around it. Like, it's hard to build that up. So that's why you don't get many new ones.
- [41:13]
Rebecca Roach
Yeah, yeah. And that reveals something really interesting, I think, about what does give swearing its power, that it's not about the words or it's not about those particular sounds in that particular order or those particular letters in that particular order. I think what we. The reason we can cause shock when we utter a swear word inappropriately has to do with a signal of disrespect that we give. Say, by uttering a swear word in a polite context, the people that we're talking to know that we know it's an offensive word and we're using it anyway, regardless of what they might think about it. And so the message they receive from that is that we don't respect them very much. We might even be contemptuous of them. And we signal all that just from our choice of using a particular word. Now, you can invent a new word and say, like, let's make this into a swear word. But in order for that to happen, you would have to, to, you know, do quite a bit of social engineering. You'd have to get everybody on board with, okay, like, whenever anyone says this word, they don't respect you. Which is one thing to recognize rationally, but to have that emotional connection with it. You know, when somebody utters a swear word unexpectedly in a completely inappropriate context, it's not that, just that we rationally see that they've said something that we shouldn't, that they shouldn't have said. We also respond emotionally, right? There's this sort of hurl. Clutching response, you know, like, oh my God, what did they just say? You know, you sort of respond emotionally and there's. And that's much more immediate. So I think that's quite difficult to engineer.
- [42:50]
Mike Carruthers
Well, it's interesting too that when you say a swear word, like if you're mad at somebody and you throw out the F word or the S word or whatever it is, you're not referencing the actual meaning of that word. You're not even thinking of what that word means, really means. Historically, it's just the sound of the word that's expressing anger or whatever, but has nothing to do with the actual meaning of the word.
- [43:19]
Rebecca Roach
Yeah, yeah, that's true. There was a paper written a few decades ago by a linguist called James McCauley, and he was writing under a pseudonym, which I'm not going to say because it will sound like a swear word, but he, he wrote this whole paper about the F word. And his, his argument was that it. Basically, there's two ways of using it. There's one way in which you can use it sort of more or less like a. Just like a regular verb, and then there's another way of using it where it's just. It's kind of like a scream. It's just you're. You're sort of letting off steam. And he analyzed that use of it and showed that it has all these weird properties. It just doesn't behave linguistically like other words. So. So, yeah, I mean, double life. Because they do have. They are, in a sense, words that refer to taboo topics. But as you say, they're also. The way that we use them is often nonsensical. The linguist Jeffrey Nunberg has said swear words are more like screams than utterances.
- [44:24]
Mike Carruthers
Oh, I like that. Yeah, that's right. That's exactly right. You're just making a sound. And everyone has come to agree that that sounds has this taboo meaning to it that makes it all the more powerful. But it's just a sound.
- [44:38]
Rebecca Roach
Well, yes and no. So I think it's not just the sound of it. It's something else. It's the intention, the signal of disrespect that we give out when we use it, which is actually. I mean, it's more complicated than that, because I think it's not that the sound is irrelevant. Swear words have to be well suited for the way that we use them. So they have to be things that are kind of reasonably satisfying to utter when you're in pain or when you're angry or whatever. So that's probably not going to be a need that is satisfied by a word that is eight syllables long and contains lots of sort of soft consonant sounds. I mean, that's just not going to be very satisfying to say. So I think the sound is not irrelevant. But also, it's not simply that we object to certain sounds.
- [45:30]
Mike Carruthers
Yeah.
- [45:31]
William Ury
But a lot of.
- [45:32]
Mike Carruthers
I mean, I don't know. A lot. If you say, if you're mad at somebody and you say f you, I don't even know what that means when you take it literally. It has really no meaning. And yet you know exactly what it means in the context that was just used.
- [45:47]
Rebecca Roach
Well, one theory here is that that expression evolved from religious language. You might want at one time have said. I mean, this goes back to sort of what we were talking about, the Gone with the Wind example. Something like damn you does make sense. You can explain what is meant by that. But, you know, the thought is at some point that sort of language became less offensive. And so it sort of saying. Saying that expression was just less satisfying. So the way that people responded is to say, okay, well, you know, the word damn is not very powerful anymore. So let's replace it with something that is. So you then end up with the expression, as you say, fu, which makes no sense, but we kind of know if somebody says that to you, you're not left scratching your head, wondering what they mean. There's a sense in which we know exactly what it means.
- [46:39]
Mike Carruthers
Okay, but I'm always dumbfounded. I have no idea. When you take the F word and put the word mother in front of it, I have no idea what that means. People use it all the time. But what is that?
- [46:54]
Rebecca Roach
There is an explanation about what that means which I'm not going to give because I don't know if I can remember it correctly. There are people that write on this very interestingly, though. But, yeah, I think what you're saying there illustrates a really interesting point about taboos, which is that it often doesn't matter if you don't know what it means. There's a book by a couple of. I think they're psychologists, Alan and Burridge, who wrote a book about taboos. And one thing they say is this. They use the example of the taboo of throwing salt. If you spill salt, throwing a pinch of salt over your shoulder. And, you know, they make the point that plenty of people do this, having no idea why. You know, what's the story there? And the story is that it's, you know, there used to be this spiritual significance to salt, and it was also sort of super expensive, and when you spilled it, used to throw it over your shoulder to land in the eye of the devil, which kind of makes sense. I mean, it invokes questionable beliefs about what's going on behind you, but it makes sense. You know, you can tell a story about what's going on, but that's still. That that taboo or that ritual still has meaning to people, even though the original story about it is long forgotten. And the same is true of swear words. I think we care about the power that they give us to express certain things, but in plenty of cases we don't know. Even as the example you've just mentioned illustrates, we might not even know what they mean.
- [48:21]
Mike Carruthers
Well, it is certainly a quirky part of the English language, but I guess every language has swear words in them because swearing is what people do. I've been speaking with Rebecca Roach, who is a senior lecturer in philosophy at Royal Holloway at the University of London and author of the book For F's Sake, why Swearing Is Shocking, Rude and Fun. And if you'd like to read it and like to know what the real title is, you can click on the link to Amazon in the show Notes thank you, Rebecca.
- [48:55]
Rebecca Roach
Thank you. It's been great talking to you.
- [49:00]
Mike Carruthers
If you want to keep your kids out of jail, turn off the TV Researchers in New Zealand say they found a direct correlation between too much stuff TV in childhood and criminal convictions in adulthood. They followed a group of 1,000 children and tracked their TV habits. The more TV they watched between the ages of 5 and 15, the more likely they were to develop antisocial behavior and wind up with a criminal record. And their odds increased by 30% with every additional hour of TV watched per weeknight. And that is something you should know. We need your help to grow our audience. It is the best thing you can do to help support this podcast is to recruit your friends and loved ones and ask them to listen and hopefully they'll get hooked on it just like you. I'm Micah Ruthers. Thanks for listening today to something you should know.
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