The pros and cons of Swearing.
Arts & Ideas
BBC
4.2 • 599 Ratings
🗓️ 3 November 2017
⏱️ 46 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Comedian Janey Godley, historian John Gallagher, poet and journalist Bridget Minamore and author and science writer Dr Emma Byrne discuss with Matthew Sweet swearing on stage, in pain and protest and when new terms entered our language.
Swearing Is Good For You by Emma Byrne is out now.
Please note this programme may contain strong language.
Producer: Debbie Kilbride
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome back to the home of the oxymoron. Evil genius. He asked the newspaper to print his obituary early so he'd enjoy it. That's like hiding at your own funeral. Yeah, a big, great gig. I'm Russell Kane. Join me to weigh in on whether the biggest players in history are more evil or genius. Becoming that rich, I'd say that is some level of genius. It also helps that it's a long time ago, right? |
| 0:23.3 | It's like the podcast version of telling your kids the ice cream van plays music |
| 0:27.0 | when it's out of ice cream. |
| 0:28.8 | Listen to Evil Genius on BBC Sounds. |
| 0:32.1 | Thank you for downloading this podcast from the team who make the free thinking program. |
| 0:36.3 | I should warn you that this edition contains strong language |
| 0:39.6 | because the topic under discussion is swearing. |
| 0:43.0 | If you enjoy the debate, do rate us, review us and tweet us at BBC Free Thinking. |
| 0:48.5 | This is the BBC. |
| 0:53.9 | Welcome to Free Thinking. My name is Matthew Sweet and this is Sorry by Ms. Beyonce Knowles. |
| 1:04.6 | I ain't sorry. I ain't sorry. I ain't sorry. I ain't sorry. Nen it. Nah. |
| 1:09.0 | Beyonce's sorry from her album Lemonade. But if you have that, you'll know that we're playing the expurgated radio version from which certain words have been removed. |
| 1:19.1 | They're the words around which tonight's program is organized. |
| 1:22.2 | The first is one that Offcom, the broadcasting regulator, describes as highly unacceptable without strong |
| 1:29.4 | contextualization. And one coming up now... |
| 1:32.3 | Well, in that gap, you would have heard what Offcom describes as the strongest language, unacceptable pre-watershed, |
| 1:46.6 | seen as strong, aggressive and vulgar. |
| 1:50.4 | And now we go into the dance. |
| 1:59.5 | Now I can't encourage you to do this at home, but obviously I can't stop you, nor could I really stop my guests who are gathered here to measure the power and explore the history and practice of swearing, live on the radio. So the next 45 minutes are pretty much guaranteed to include the strongest language. |
| 2:18.0 | Let me tell you whose mouths I'm warning you about. |
| 2:20.9 | Emma Byrne is a robotics researcher who's just written a book called |
| 2:24.2 | Swearing is Good for You, the Amazing Science of Bad Language. |
... |
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