"I know many things and people claim I'm smart, but I insist on feeling stupid anyways, and part of the rationale for that is because I do X....oh you say smart people do X? Maybe I'm pretty okay then"
Ironic because intelligent people should know correlation != causation? Well, I think sometimes correlation could indicate the cause, you just can't prove it. And in the case of myself I choose to believe!
The article about taboo words actually says that taboo word fluency correlates with general fluency. That means not that you're likely to be better with language if you swear frequently, but that you're likely to be better with language if you're good at swearing.
Seems to me the crux of the fuckin' cursing argument is this:
> People who use taboo words understand their general expressive content as well as nuanced distinctions that must be drawn out to use slurs appropriately. The ability to make nuanced distinctions indicates the presence of more rather than less linguistic knowledge, as implied by the POV [Poverty of Vocabulary] view.
So the way I read that bit of "research" (frequency and correlation are likely to be pure horseshit on the path to causality here but that's another story)... It's not that people with high IQ swear more, but they're likely more able to swear in a nuanced manner without offending those around them because of their higher IQ. It's like a perk, or a symptom, not a cause-- because why the fuck not, eh?
The only really notable thing from the article; which, I liked was calling out profanity isn't a coverup for deficiencies in one's vocabulary. Don't like my vernacular? Go fuck yourself :)
So maybe I don't qualify. The article did say "Taboo Words". I'm not sure how taboo these words are.
Yes, I curse a lot, but I only use the seven basic curse words:
* Fiddle
* Foodle
* Diddle
* Doodle
* Piddle
* Foo
* Sticks
(Yes, really!, no joke, although it may be funny.)
You can combine them together, or use with various prefixes / suffixes.
* Oh, Fiddle Sticks!
* Piddly Foodle Piddle!
* Diddly Doodle Foo!
etc
One time when I explained this to my wife and daughter, they couldn't stop laughing for hours, because they knew it was true, but hadn't realized there were seven basic curse words.
Headline: "Smart people do X"
"I do X, therefore I am smart!"
Oh the irony.