OUCH! *%&@#!

OUCH! &**%@#!, (Los Angles Times)

Strangely it seems that uttering a well placed swear word now and then seems to help pain, a study from the Neuro Report has found. Using an occasional swear word after hitting a thumb with a hammer, or twisting an ankle can actually be therapeutic, even though it doesn't sound very good.

According to the report, there is no need to feel bad in using what my mother called "guttural language." I can attest to the fact that swearing after I hit my thumb with a hammer does ease the pain, I just didn't know at the time that, if I hadn't used some foul language, it would have hurt worse.

Researchers in England asked test subjects to put their hands in ice water and see how long they could keep them immersed, (a common practice because no damage is done) before they had to take them out of the water. Those that were allowed to use foul language feared better and reported less pain.

Those subjects that refrained from anything worse then a golly gee, or a holly smokes said that they suffered more pain then when they were allowed to let loose with a few expletives.

The findings have to be true, the study was conducted over a two year period at Keele University in Staffordshire, England. We all know how stuffy and dry those Brits are, here in the United States and how serious they take their research.

These findings give credence to one of my beliefs, if a person  doesn't drink, smoke or swear, he can't be trusted.  A person who won't use "locker room language" is, well, strange. I always found that some of the best athletes were the guys that swore like a drunken sailor, (I swear.)

Sadly the research program also found that the use of swearing after an injury helped those people that didn't usually swear, to that I can only say @&*%^$@.