Today it's great to chat with John McWater on the podcast. John teaches linguistics, philosophy,

and music history at Columbia University and writes for various publications and language

issues and race issues such as time, the Wall Street Journal, the Daily Beast, CNN, and

he's the author of a number of books and race in linguistics including losing the race,

self-sabotage in black America, and nine nasty words English in the gutter then now and forever.

When John was five years old, he told his mother he wanted to be a quote book writer and he is

happy that it worked out. John, it's great to chat with you finally on the podcast.

Thanks for having me, Scott.

Lots to talk about. I'd like to start with your most recent work on profanity. So why the

fuck did you write a book on profanity?

You know, for a reason that's a little bit cynical, which is that it seemed to me that there are

four topics about language that had a chance of being the topic of a book that would really kind

of get around. I wanted to have one book that really got around. I've written more than I care

to even mention and you know, you don't write them in order to have them become best sellers,

but I wanted one that was a hit and I thought it could be about whether there's a universal

grammar. Steve Pinker did that 25 years ago. It was a hit. Then I could do one where I say that

language usage is going to the dogs. No linguist believes that and a non-lingualist wrote that book.

It was each shoot and leaves 20 years ago. She got rich on the basis of it. Then there is what is

language? What does the internet do to language? And Gretchen McCullough, my friend and colleague,

did that book because internet a couple of years ago. And so that's taken care of and it's not

really my subject. And I thought there's only one other subject and it's cursing. It's profanity.

That's what people really care about. And I thought I can get interested in profanity because I

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