A protester, demanding the criminal indictment of a white police officer who shot dead an unarmed black teenager in August, shouts slogans while stopping traffic
A protester, demanding the criminal indictment of a white police officer who shot dead an unarmed black teenager in August, shouts slogans while stopping traffic while marching through a suburb in St. Louis, Missouri November 23, 2014. After a fourth straight night of low-level protests in Ferguson, Missouri, anxious residents still did not know on Sunday when a grand jury would return a decision on whether to charge a white policeman who shot an unarmed black teen to death this summer. It appeared that the St. Louis suburb, which has become a flashpoint for U.S. race relations since Officer Darren Wilson killed 18-year-old Michael Brown on Aug. 9, would have to wait until at least Monday and perhaps longer for an announcement. REUTERS/Adrees Latif

A new research suggests that people who swear frequently are not, as has generally been assumed, lazy or lack education. On the contrary, it means that they probably have a wider vocabulary than those who do not swear too often.

According to Science Direct, the study has destroyed several myths related to swearing. "Unfortunately, when it comes to taboo language, it is a common assumption that people who swear frequently are lazy, do not have an adequate vocabulary, lack education or simply cannot control themselves," the researchers wrote in the study.

Titled “Taboo word fluency and knowledge of slurs and general pejoratives: deconstructing the poverty-of-vocabulary myth,” the study found that people who swear aren’t necessarily otherwise inarticulate.

As a part of the research, participants were given one to two minutes to list as many “curse words” or “swear words” as they could. They were then given the same time to list animals and emotionally-neutral words, according to Russia’s RT English news channel.

The researchers found that people who swear are not short of vocabulary but are, in fact, more likely to have a wide lexicon. They further found that people who are fluent in swearing are more likely to be neurotic and open, and less likely to be conscientious and agreeable.

The study also found that taboo words mostly consist of expressives and pejoratives, with the exception of female-sex-related slurs. Slurs tend to remain at the periphery of the language of those prone to frequent swearing.

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