From when we were young, we were always told that cursing or using bad words depicts bad character. However, a new study said that people who like to curse are actually intelligent.
An article in India Times said that it's commonly thought that people who use swear words show their lack of intelligence. Well a study shows the exact opposite.
The study said that people who can list a lot of swear words are verbally intelligent that those who can't. Two psychologists from two colleges conducted the study to test the vocabulary of participants between the ages of 18 to 22 years old. The study wanted to check whether people who knew a lot of curse words meant that they knew more words in general or they know less. They asked each of the participants to list and name as many curse words as they could within a time they stated. They were asked to name curse words according to certain letters. After sometime, they asked the participants to do the same with animal names and then finally with general words.
After the activity, the psychologists found that people who knew the most swear words are also better at listing other words. Generally, it is believed that most people resort to swearing because their vocabulary might be limited and at that time of speaking, they couldn't think of anything else. However, the researchers found the opposite of the situation to be true. The people who knew the most swear words were the ones who listed the most general and animal words. This indicates that they had a better grasp on the language and have a wider vocabulary compared to others.
Lastly, the researchers divided the words into different categories. Categories were slur, sexual terms, pejorative terms and more. They found that those who swore often are well aware of the correct usage of the words in those categories, which makes them appear to be more intelligent than others.
