06/20/2016
In a lively study with the potential to offend just about anyone, Bergen, a professor of cognitive science at the University of California, San Diego, examines all aspects of profanity: how it evolved, how we use it, why we use it, and why exactly some words and phrases are considered vulgar or taboo. By breaking down swearing into four categories—praying, fornicating, excreting, and slurring—Bergen is able to look at how these words evoke certain primal responses and how they relate to the most basic human needs and instincts. “Profanity has a lot to teach us about language—not only how it’s realized in the brain and how it changes over time but what happens when children learn it, how it hooks into our emotions, and why it occasionally trips us up,” he explains. From a linguistic and sociological viewpoint, the book is illuminating, even playful, as he uses charts and scientific studies to fully explore the material. His frequent use of vulgarity, contrasted against the seriousness of the topic, further shows how words have power, and how we enjoy a complicated relationship with them. The result is an entertaining, if sometimes overly technical, look at an essential component of language and society. Agent: Katinka Matson, Brockman. (Sept.)
"A delightful investigation of profanity."—New York Times Book Review
"A sweeping book, exploring not just the history of English profanity in words and in gestures, but also the impact that swears and other taboo words can have on the human brain...a valuable addition to the literature about profanity."—Atlantic.com
"In What the F, a self-proclaimed 'book-length love letter to profanity,' cognitive scientist Benjamin K. Bergen succeeds in bringing me around to appreciate the broader context, as well as the finer points, of the role 'bad' words play in human society."—Science
"Offers useful information."—New York Review of Books
"Some prospective readers may avoid this book because of its subject matter. That would be a gosh-darned shame."—Science News
"Interesting and insightful"—National Review
"A fascinating journey to the crossroads of etymology, neuroscience and culture."—Discover
"Full of cute tidbits you can drop at cocktail parties.... It's a quick read, not a detailed, academic dissection. But don't mistake breeziness for triviality: cursing plays a central role in our lives."—Ars Technica
"An illuminating read, and makes the case for swears as a salutary aspect of our lexicon."—A.V. Club
"Oh, it's a lot of fun, and scientifically sound too!"—Language Hat
"What the F is rigorous enough to guide future scientific inquiry, and casual enough to be read by any ordinary bastard with a passing interest. At the very least, this book reassured me of the profundity of my own human capacity for expression when I rolled out of bed last month to find out who got elected President of the United States and could only utter that one favorite curse word."—PopMatters
"This book is a surprisingly engaging introduction to a topic rarely discussed or examined...Highly recommended."—Choice
"A lively study with the potential to offend just about anyone.... From a linguistic and sociological viewpoint, the book is illuminating, even playful...an entertaining...look at an essential component of language and society."—Publishers Weekly
"A winner for the psycholinguistics nerd in the house."—Kirkus Reviews
"There's something here guaranteed to offend everyone (the book wouldn't be doing its job otherwise), but...lovers of language will savor every word."—Booklist
"What the F is accessible and engaging, and so brimming with insights that, even as a linguist, I found myself stopping every couple of pages to say to myself, 'Huh-I never thought of that.' You'll find yourself saying the same thing-and you'll never hear profanity the same way again."—Geoff Nunberg, author of Ascent of the A-Word, language commentator on NPR's Fresh Air
"What the F teaches us that profanity is not just pungent, but as INTERESTING as other aspects of the miracle we call language."—John McWhorter, author of The Power of Babel, Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue, and The Language Hoax
"An elegant, insightful, and ballsy application of rigorous linguistic methods to swearing, that most revealing—and ignored—corner of language.... Though a descriptivist to the core, I issue the following prescription: read this effing book!"—Jesse Sheidlower, author of The F-Word
"Why we swear and where and when it is permissible are explained in this compelling treatise on one of the most taboo subjects in all culture. Read this fucking book or else you might be a wanker."—Michael Shermer, author of The Moral Arc
"It takes courage, energy, extraordinary intellectual chops, and a sense of fun to take on profanity. Ben Bergen has all in full measure. Read this book."—George Lakoff, Professor of Cognitive Science and Linguistics, The University of California, Berkeley
06/15/2016
What's in a word? A lot, of course, particularly in the case of profanity. In this erudite and entertaining work, Bergen (cognitive science, Univ. of California, San Diego) offers a thorough examination of what swearing reveals about language, the brain, and society. Swear words are taboo; what makes them so? The topics of conversation in which they are often used, including religion, sexual intercourse, and bodily functions. But what really marks this language as forbidden is the prohibition of its use, particularly for children; adults pass down unmentionable words by teaching children that these terms are "bad." Interestingly, such words are not fixed but change over time. Moreover, they are treated differently in the brain, having their own, more emotionally connected pathways that are preserved even when other aspects of language processing are damaged by illness or injury. Bergen's tour of the profane is fascinating, educational, humorous, and sorely needed. Sometimes the points feel belabored and repetitive, and occasionally the narrative jarringly switches from colloquial to professorial. Nonetheless, this is a worthy project that is sometimes laugh-out-loud funny. VERDICT Recommended for readers of popular social science and social awareness topics.—Nancy H. Fontaine, Norwich P.L., VT
2016-06-21
An examination of the sub rosa language that sets us all atwitter—and athwart.What is it about the F-word, the N-word, and the C-word (supply your own, as long as it's got four letters) that provokes rage, disgust, and embarrassed laughter? Bergen (Director, Language and Cognition Laboratory/Univ. of California, San Diego) observes that they fire up parts of the brain that other words don't excite in quite the same way; profanity, he writes, "gets encoded differently in the brain." That makes the study of vulgar language a topic of special interest for neuroscientists, who can connect those bad words to responses along the neural pathway. A word is sounded, Bergen schematizes, and then converted into electrical signals, whereupon "different parts of the temporal lobe then extract information about the speech sounds that make up the word and then send modified signals to a region called Wernicke's area, which is believed to associate the sequence of sounds that you've heard with their meaning," and so forth. Something unusual happens in that area when bad language is heard. Bergen doesn't sort out nature and nurture quite neatly enough: it's sometimes less that children have potty mouths, he writes, than that adults have "potty ears." A little more reference to the anthropological literature might have helped, but all the same, it's clear that elements of both are involved in parsing how to interpret "give a fuck," to say nothing of the more fiery, more dangerous iterations of terms surrounding race, incest, and other taboo or sensitive areas. What is certain, as the author notes, is that such words are indeed capable of harm, and, therefore, we as social and legal beings have some interest in regulating them. Using them, he observes memorably, "is the linguistic analog of closing your eyes and swinging in full knowledge that there's a nose within arm's reach." It's no match for Jesse Sheidlower's fluent, fun The F Word (1995), but Bergen's study is still a winner for the psycholinguistics nerd in the house.
