(this takes off from the e-mail thread: "Re: To those of you at Temasek
Polytechnic. Too bad.")
A colleague of mine, Ben Bergen, just wrote a lovely (scholarly) book
about swearing and obscenities. I highly recommend it -- although because
he discusses the origins and usage of almost every word i can think of, it
is not for those who dislike the words (although the book does a great job
of explaining why you might dislike them).
What the F: What Swearing Reveals About Our Language, Our Brains, and
Ourselves
<http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0465060919?ie=UTF8&tag=thneyoreofbo-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0465060919>
by Benjamin K. Bergen
Basic Books, 271 pp., $27.99
Here is the NY Review of Books review of the book (the fact that it got
reviewed in the best book review journal in the US says something)
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2017/02/09/f-ing-around/
--
Why a word should create such strong reactions is a really interesting
phenomenon, all well researched by Ben Bergen. He is a professor of
Cognitive Science who studies language and communication).
I learned a lot in reading the book and have had many conversations with
him about that learning. Some countries don't have the concept of obscene
words. That seems to be a western tradition. And there is a big difference
between obscenity and profanity. This caused me to enjoy the clever writer
who put these words into the mouth of a priest in a television show I
watched (streaming video, because the language would have been prohibited
on broadcast TV). Someone let loose a long string of swearing, ending with
Jesxxx Chrixx. (wee how careful I am now being?). The priest mildly
responded: "Please do not use profanity around me."
By the way, except for the title, the book uses the full, completely
spelled words.
Don Norman
Prof. and Director, DesignLab, UC San Diego
-----------------------------------------------------------------
PhD-Design mailing list <[log in to unmask]>
Discussion of PhD studies and related research in Design
Subscribe or Unsubscribe at https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/phd-design
-----------------------------------------------------------------
|