What the F is wrong with a little swearing?

Conventional wisdom has always dictated that people who are foul-mouthed and use a lot of swearwords in their speech are generally of a lower class and possibly less intelligent, but there are multiple studies that seem to point in the opposite direction: that people who use profanity are, in fact, generally blessed with a richer vocabulary and higher IQ.

This revelation should please North West premier Supra Mahumapelo, who was heard hurling an expletive at DA MP John Steenhuisen during the recent state of the nation debate, the annual re-enactment of Animal Farm's Battle of the Cowshed.

These studies should also embolden DJ Euphonik. Some months ago he caused quite a stir on Twitter when he launched into a delicious rant, punctuated with msunu! (a crass Zulu reference to female genitalia).

story_article_left1

I was raised in a household that was strictly a no-swearing zone. My folks' Catholic sensibilities ensured that vulgar language was severely punished. So you can imagine the internal turmoil I experienced the first time the sweet, gentle and pious soul who is my mother had a lapse.

We were in one of those Plymouth Valiants that were used as taxis back then. There was a heated altercation with the taxi driver about change when I heard my mom yell, "Bloody swine!"

I was so traumatised, I haven't been able to talk about it all these years. My whole world was flipped upside down.

This is the same woman who, a few weeks earlier, had beaten my younger brother within an inch of his life for saying voetsek .

But the research confirms what I've always known: that I come from good intellectual stock.

It will always be in dispute which of our 11 official languages contains the vilest swearwords.

A book I read about the Mfecane discusses the intermittent skirmishes across the KwaZulu/Swaziland border. Apparently the Zulus would try to engage the Swatis in combat and the Swatis would hurl a volley of invective at the bemused Zulus and go home satisfied with themselves: "We sure swore the sh*t out of those Zulus!"

But we Zulus are no slouches at the art of the expletive either. One of the most creative insults I ever heard was from one of my firstborn's aunts, Gabi. She called someone wena mthungo wesende (you scrotum stitching). I was fazed in my chops. Until that day I hadn't noticed it. So I checked and went, "Well, I'll be damned!"

block_quotes_start I have never understood why obscenities are so heavily skewed towards genitalia. And in our indigenous languages, this is particularly slanted towards the female anatomy block_quotes_end

And that's another thing: I have never understood why obscenities are so heavily skewed towards genitalia. And in our indigenous languages, this is particularly slanted towards the female anatomy, as was illustrated by the DJ Euphonik Twitter rant.

A friend, Kgomotso Matsunyane, was recently giving a talk on sex taboos, so she asked me to forward her a list of crass Zulu words for the female anatomy. I must have given her about 15. Her brother Neo submitted an equally long list of Tswana words.

In our languages, even simply saying to someone "your mother" is considered insulting. And others simply make no sense at all. In Zulu, saying to someone mbombo wakho (your nose bridge) might lead to a major physical misunderstanding. The same goes for "your jaw" (mhlathi wakho).

story_article_right2

But what about the morality of swearing, I can hear some of my more sensitive Christian readers ask. Well, St Peter, the apostle who is "the rock" upon which the church is apparently founded, was notoriously foul-mouthed. Remember that incident when he was being harassed into admitting that he was a disciple of Jesus? I read somewhere that in the original texts, he finally retorted in exasperation, "I am not one of his effing friends!" And they built the greatest basilica around his tomb.

If you're not convinced, I don't know if anyone remembers a story I once shared about my first time in Rome to visit my brother who was a Catholic seminarian there. A Father Paulo was trying to negotiate us through Roman traffic from the airport to the Oblate House on Via Aurelia. There must have been 30 million Fiats and other minuscule Euro cars that looked like they were designed by a toddler using a crayon.

The kind of driving that goes on in Rome would make our minibus-taxi drivers soil their undergarments. It's so chaotic, the authorities over there don't even bother with road markings.

Anyway, as Father Paulo tried to weave through this pandemonium, he kept on muttering something under his breath. The only words I could pick up were stronzo and scroto.

I remember thinking that this gentleman of the cloth was probably reciting the Holy Rosary or invoking the patron saint of operating automobiles, St Frances of Rome (naturally).

Later that evening, over a glass of wine, I asked my brother what prayer Father Paulo had been mumbling. He burst out laughing and told me that the sweet, gentle soul had been calling other drivers rectal orifices (stronzo) and male gonad sacks (scroto).

So, you see, a little swearing is not going to condemn you to eternal damnation. They might not construct any basilica in your honour, but you will create an aura of great intellect around yourself.

• Follow the author of this article, Ndumiso Ngcobo, on Twitter: @NdumisoNgcobo