WTF? Swearing at work is good for business

[Arnold M. Zwicky]

On Oct 22, 2007, at 9:36 PM, Dennis Baron wrote:

> There's a new post on the
> Web of Language:
>
> WTF?  Swearing at work is good for business
>
> Bans on swearing in college sports have been making headlines in
> the last year or two as part of a concerted effort to enforce good
> sportsmanship among players and fans alike, both toward the
> opposing team and toward the refs, but a new study coming out of
> the University of East Anglia’s Norwich Business School reports
> that, while swearing may cost you the game, on the plus side it
> does build team spirit.  Their research further suggests that
> turning the air blue on a regular basis may actually be good for
> business.

see the very critical discussion of this "study" by Mark Liberman on
Language Log:

   ML, 10/22/07: We eventually wound up walking into this complete
other study:
  http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/005046.html

(with, as a bonus, a wonderful piece of science-news satire from The
Onion)

arnold

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