Friday, October 14, 2011

Not fine at all

I don't remember why, but last month, I decided to fine myself RM1 for each swear word I uttered.

Since we're all grown-ups here, I don't have to state the entire verboten list, suffice to say it also contains "shit," "damn," "asshole," and everything that mum would be unhappy to hear ("you're an idiot," "stop being such a bloody idiot").

The total fine imposed for swearing in the month of September in the year 2011 was RM44.

Yes, that's more than 1 word a day.

That's less RM44 from what I have available to spend now, innit? Part of the "deal" is that I can't touch that money until... whenever. Maybe it should go to charity. I don't know yet. Suggestions are most welcome!



 
Anyway, I figured that the exercise would be a means of adopting a more chilled approach when things don't go my way, as my observation is that the more you (I) swear, the more agitated you (I) feel, and your (my) behaviour deteriorates accordingly.

I had no scientific basis for this approach; I mean, can you approach the funding department and ask them for money to study how people behave when they swear?

As it turns out, YES, you bloody well can, as researchers Bowers and Pleydell-Pierce have done:

Swearing, Euphemisms, and Linguistic Relativity - Take home message: swearing automatically triggers strong emotions when such words are acquired early in language development.

Others beg to differ, as evinced by the comments on io9.

Anyway, I'm doing much better this month. Not that I've been driving less, and I don't want to jinx myself, but the current total is RM8.

Go, me!

3 comments:

Snuze said...

If ever I am dumb enough to fine myself for utilising beautiful swear words, I won't be able to eat for the entire month.

HAHAHAHAHA.

You could always plop down that moola to benny the flood in Thailand. Or World Vision or something.

Or buy the new Muse CD (got ah?).

Angela Gripesalot said...

Sad as it is, I'm over Muse D:

Now, the word is TRANCE (true story)

Charity's a great idea; thanks for the suggestion!

I think I started this Sin Bin thing because I wanted to sound more civilised, haha. Don't you think "Pox-ridden son of a whore!" has a nice ring to it?

Snuze said...

AIIIYYYEEE!!!! That is most elegant!

There are the odd times I try to reduce my swear-words utilisation; however yelling to errant drivers "Fornicators!" doesn't have the same pizzazz as the MF word (not spelt out so you don't swear in your reading either).

I quite like the term "swive" which is interchangeable with the F-word back in Elizabethan days, but since sadly very few know what it means (it's not even in the online Cambridge dictionary WTF), the impact is somewhat deflated.