Blue streak

Most language issues from the cerebral cortex - evolution's pride and joy. But swearing erupts from the buried, primitive limbic system, which is the same part of the brain that produces passion, hatred, and aggression. As National Book Award nominee Richard Dooling tells us in his smart, funny, and erudite exploration of verbal taboos, this difference in linguistic origin explains why many people who suffer brain damage that destroys their ordinary speaking abilities can nevertheless cuss up a storm. It also helps to explain why swearing pervades all eras, cultures, and levels of human society: We have the hardware for swearing built into our systems, and nature - or at least human nature - doesn't like to let any tool lie around unused. But our capacity and our impulse to give vocal offense have always run smack into good manners, and in America these days they also run smack into political correctness and federal regulations. These age-old and newfangled conflicts provide Richard Dooling with his richest sources of insight and humor. He demonstrates in logical and hilarious detail why government rules about language are next to unenforceable, focusing directly on those that involve sexual harassment. He skeptically follows the trail of professional psychobabble about profanity, and he traces the history and meaning of several primary English curse words and their tendency to wax and wane in transgressiveness. Right now, for example, "hell" is often used as a conversational litmus test for dirty-word tolerance, and it's the only common imprecation that doesn't involve scatology or sex. But in Blue Streak, Dooling makes a convincing case that "Go to hell" should be regarded as the ultimate insult, and he proceeds to prove that cursing is not only part of our biology, but a necessary component of any religious view of the universe.