Tuesday June 28, 2011
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Why Do We Swear? (June 28th & July 2nd)
This week on Strange Animal we'll take a crash course in coarse language as Mike O'Brien gets to the #%$$#@* bottom of why we swear.
We can't talk about the mysteries of human behaviour without a mysterious human. We'll meet this week's resident strange animal, Scott McGillivray. He's a Christian, an actor, a computer network manager and a swearer.
Mike hits the streets to find out what reasons people give for their cursing.
Psychology Professor Timothy Jay advocates for the much maligned four-letter words.
Four lab rats... oops, we mean people, agree to submerge their hands in icy-cold water to test a theory that swearing actually helps people to cope with pain. Check out the Scientific American article on the original experiment.
The team that swears together...Linguist Janet Holmes shares her insights into the surprising social role of foul language.
Strange things happen in our brains when we swear. Diana Sidtis takes us on a trip through our heads to show that swear words are actually more like gestures than language.
To listen to the swearing episode just press play! Or you can download the podcast here, or from iTunes.
Categories: Past episodes
Strange Animal isn't about zoology -- it's you-ology. Host Mike O'Brien works with scientists and citizens to understand why we do the things we do. Why do you pay money to be scared witless on a roller coaster? Why do you swear, when you grew up being told not to? These are questions we'll answer on our journey through human behavior.
Air Times
| Network | Times |
|---|---|
| Radio One | Tuesdays and Saturdays at 11:30 a.m. |
| Sirius 137 | Wednesday 3:30 pm and Thursdays 4:30 pm |