By Eli Stokols – Reporter
DENVER
Tim Hlavac nearly lost his eye Monday when a grinder got loose on a construction site and hit him in the face, obliterating his safety goggles and leaving an inch-long gash on the right side of his nose.
So you can’t blame him if he responded to the shock and sudden pain by uttering every swear word in the book.
“You name it, I said it,” Hlavac said. “I don’t know why but it’s just the natural reaction.”
Natural, sure. But a new study out this week says that swearing in the face of pain may also be a necessary way of coping with it.
The research project, conducted in Great Britain, sought to study swearing’s impact on an individual’s tolerance to pain. Researchers had 64 volunteers submerge their hands into a freezing tub of ice for as long as they could stand the pain. Those who did so while repeating a swear word of their choice were able to keep their hands in the water longer than those who didn’t swear.
From construction sites to skate parks to tattoo parlors — anywhere we found pain in Denver, we also found profanity.
“We hear all sorts of stuff,” said tattoo artist Jhren451, who owns and operates Revolution Tattoos. “Sometimes people come in and, especially if it’s their first time getting a tattoo, they just freak out. They can’t stop swearing. At some point, it’s like, ‘Hey, hold on, we have kids in here’.”{jcomments on}
Source: Chicago Tribune, July 13 2009