Name: Swearing

Age: It varies: some ancient words became profane over time, other swearwords are more recent coinages.

Appearance: Frequent, especially wherever people are trying to raise the subject of Jeremy Hunt.

All I know is, it’s not big and it’s not clever. Actually, it may be both.

Are you calling my mother a liar? In fact, swearing is associated with many desirable conversational outcomes – research suggests it can make you seem more persuasive.

Holy shit. Indeed. It can also make you happier, fitter and more impervious to pain.

How does it work? There are still many unanswered questions about the nature of swearing, according to a new paper published in the journal Lingua.

That’s great. Any answered ones? One thing seems certain: swearing is powerful. It’s capable of producing “a range of distinctive psychological, physiological and emotional effects”.

And some of these are positive? Yes. One study showed that subjects who swore could keep their hands in a bucket of ice water for longer than non-swearers. Chanting a swearword also increases muscle performance during physical exercise.

I do that anyway, but only because I hate physical exercise. In addition, swearing has the power to strengthen social relationships, and increase credibility. Research shows that text messages with swearing in seem more believable than those without.

Should I be swearing all the time, then? No. Swearwords still carry negative connotations, and swearing can easily be interpreted as impoliteness, direct disparagement of another person, or a general display of aggression. Context is everything.

I understand, but I’m not sure I can help myself. Please try.

Fiddlesticks! Actually, it looks as if you could do with the practice.

Where does swearing get its magical power? We know it doesn’t lie in the words themselves: foreign-language swearing doesn’t produce the same reaction, and swearwords hold less force for those who speak them as a second language.

Does that mean it goes back to childhood? Good question. One suggestion is that swearwords produce emotional arousal because we were punished for using them as kids, but there isn’t much empirical evidence to support the hypothesis.

If not that, then what? Hard to say. Swearing is likely processed in a different part of the brain from other speech. “Specifically, it may activate the amygdala and basal ganglia, rather than higher order processing structures,” says the study.

I have no idea what that effing means. Me effing neither.

Do say: “I find this scientific study highly credible, thanks to its liberal use of the word dickhead.”

Don’t say: “*** off, all you *************!”