Good swearers have a better general vocabulary, scientists say

A bigger vocabulary is a bigger vocabulary - no matter whether you are quoting Shakespeare or cursing like a sailor.

This is the takeaway from a study recently published in the journal Language Sciences, which finds that fluency in “taboo words” is correlated with having a larger vocabulary in general.

The finding goes against some prior research and much popular thinking that sees cursing as a defect. Researchers and authors have argued that people who curse a lot are lazy, have a more limited vocabulary, and lack education and self-control.

But the study by psychologists Kristin Jay of Marist College and Timothy Jay of the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts suggests that at least one of these assumptions is wrong.

The researchers carried out three different studies to test how “general verbal fluency” - demonstrated in the study by people's ability to come up with a long list of words starting with the letters “a”, “f,” and “s” - correlated with their ability to list “taboo words,” or common curses and slurs. As a control, they also had the test-takers list as many words related to animals as possible.

In the first study, they had participants speak all these words. In the second, they had them write them down. And in the third study, they had them write out the words again, but also take a personality test.