“Emphatic Swearing”

Steven Pinker’s example of “emphatic swearing” shows how taboo words can draw attention to a following noun or adjective, as in calling something “really, really fucking brilliant”. The article says repeated swearing can become so pervasive that it forms a distinctive style of speech, sometimes called “fuck patois”.

A comic example features a soldier describing his return from war in a string of profanities, before ending with the formal phrase “engaged in illicit sexual relations with a male”. The author suggests that this abrupt shift in register may be part of what makes the story funny, and notes that the term “fuck patois” is often credited to Tom Wolfe.