OK, I’ve had a pretty good day today. Decent day at work, had some rapid fire linguistic fun with some friends on Facebook, saw a really funny song video, and now had the laugh of my evening when I saw this headline.
Swearing Can Make You Feel Better, Lessen Pain
This is pretty humorous to me. I would love to see a copy of the experimental design and the plan for the analysis of the data. Being fairly well armed in experimental analysis and fairly savvy with statistics I am always curious when I see studies like this.
The sad thing about this is that it was most likely government funded research. I don’t know this for sure, but I just can’t see any “for profit” business sponsoring research like this. Can you imagine… Drug Company Z sponsors research that shows swearing is better at relieving pain than their brand of pain reliever.
Imagine the commercial… (In bad TV salesperson voice.) Hit your hand with a hammer, cut your finger with a knife, bump your head on the table? Don’t take a pain reliever, just let a little swearing fly and that stubborn pain lessen by the second!
I’m not normally negative on my blog here, but don’t we have more important things to research and serious illnesses to find a cure for and for that matter cover in the media. I can think of a few, how about you? AIDS, Cancer, Parkinson’s Disease, Alzheimer Disease, Heart Disease? Just to name a few.
My favorite statement in the news article is that the reason swearing developed and persisted is that it provides this analgesic effect. So, if there is no analgesic effect then swearing should cease to exist?
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