OK. Firstly: shit. ShitshitshitshitshitshitshitshitshitshitshitshitshitshitshitSHIT. SHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIT. Then: check: do I feel better? Yes? Excellent.
In 2009, Keele University researchers conducted a study which showed that swearing in response to pain produces a hypoalgesic (pain-lessening) effect.* Evidently, within the international scientific community, this news was exceptionally welcome; they were awarded the Ig Nobel Peace Prize the following year.†
Naturally, I knew it all along. I had already been conducting my own research into swearing and hypoalgesia for many years – I just hadn’t got around to publishing my findings yet. (As I write, I await my Ig Nobel Prize for Redundant Pomposity.) Today, I am pleased to report that I still find swearing helpful; which is just as well, as my pain suddenly shot through the roof last night, and is still stubbornly clinging to the rafters.
I’ve no idea what triggered it. I didn’t do much yesterday – not physically, at least – I’ve been back to work this week; so, yesterday was split between sitting in front of the computer, and light housework – the same as many other days recently. On the other hand, never mind what triggered it – all I want to do now is get rid of it, so I don’t have to fritter away any more time lying flat on my back. For one thing, I want to be fit to conquer my mountain of work emails on Monday; for another, I want to be able to bend down to reach the place where we keep the crisps.
What I really need now is the assistance of the esteemed winners of the 2010 Ig Nobel Engineering Prize, Karina Acevedo-Whitehouse, Agnes Rocha-Gosselin and Diane Gendron, who successfully developed a method of collecting whale snot, using a remote-control helicopter, Petri dishes, and sheets of plastic. Maybe, with a slightly larger helicopter, a drinks tray, and a simple pulley system, I could gather food and cutlery from the kitchen and fly it over here, when it’s time for lunch.
The Ig Nobel Prizes, by the way, are real, bona fide awards, that are bestowed at Harvard University in September every year. According to improbable.com, the purpose of the Prizes is “to celebrate the unusual, honor the imaginative – and spur people’s interest in science, medicine, and technology.”†† Some of my favourite examples of Ig Nobel Prize-winning research are: how/why wombats make cube-shaped poo (2019 Physics Prize), the existence of the word ‘huh?’ in every human language (2015 Literature Prize), how contact with a live crocodile affects a person’s willingness to gamble (2017 Economics Prize), and whether things look different when you bend over and view them between your legs (2016 Perception Prize).
Also deserving of a special mention are 2009 Ig Nobel Public Health Prize Winners, Elena Bodnar, Raphael Lee and Sandra Marijan, who invented a convertible bra that becomes a pair of emergency face masks. You may recently have seen, and sniggered at (as I have), pictures and memes online of people wearing bras over their noses and mouths – well, as it turns out, those are genuine breathing apparatus! When the emergency appeals for bra donations start hitting our screens, I guess I’ll just have to do my bit.
Meanwhile, if anyone has invented a Class B painkiller that tastes like Frazzles, could you please let me know where I can get some?
* Stephens, Atkins & Kingston, Swearing as a Response to Pain, 2009 https://www.drjoebio.com/uploads/1/8/1/3/1813500/swearing_as_a_response_to_pain.pdf
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