New research says intelligent people are messy, stay up late, and curse a lot | Hacker News Reader

New research says intelligent people are messy, stay up late, and curse a lot

higherperspectives.com

16 pointsthepsint16 comments

How these things often go:

Headline: "Smart people do X"

"I do X, therefore I am smart!"

Oh the irony.

Ironic because intelligent people should know correlation != causation? Well, I think sometimes correlation could indicate the cause, you just can't prove it. And in the case of myself I choose to believe!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affirming_the_consequent

To this point, here is the 2nd last sentence in the article:

> So, if you enjoy your swears, and being awake really late, and have a messy room, don't worry. You have a higher IQ than most!

But theres also

"I know many things and people claim I'm smart, but I insist on feeling stupid anyways, and part of the rationale for that is because I do X....oh you say smart people do X? Maybe I'm pretty okay then"

Confirmation bias is a relentless, subtle force that shapes all of our perceptions...

The article about taboo words actually says that taboo word fluency correlates with general fluency. That means not that you're likely to be better with language if you swear frequently, but that you're likely to be better with language if you're good at swearing.

This article is pretty devoid of content. Although clearly it panders to messy, cursing, night owls.

This is exactly how horoscopes suck people in..

We are an underserved market segment, after all.

Seems to me the crux of the fuckin' cursing argument is this:

> People who use taboo words understand their general expressive content as well as nuanced distinctions that must be drawn out to use slurs appropriately. The ability to make nuanced distinctions indicates the presence of more rather than less linguistic knowledge, as implied by the POV [Poverty of Vocabulary] view.

So the way I read that bit of "research" (frequency and correlation are likely to be pure horseshit on the path to causality here but that's another story)... It's not that people with high IQ swear more, but they're likely more able to swear in a nuanced manner without offending those around them because of their higher IQ. It's like a perk, or a symptom, not a cause-- because why the fuck not, eh?

The only really notable thing from the article; which, I liked was calling out profanity isn't a coverup for deficiencies in one's vocabulary. Don't like my vernacular? Go fuck yourself :)

All you square ass clean freak type A morning people can FIND YA OWN DAMN STUDY YA HEAR?

Messy? Check!

Stay Up Late? Check!

Curse a Lot? Check?

So maybe I don't qualify. The article did say "Taboo Words". I'm not sure how taboo these words are.

Yes, I curse a lot, but I only use the seven basic curse words:

* Fiddle

* Foodle

* Diddle

* Doodle

* Piddle

* Foo

* Sticks

(Yes, really!, no joke, although it may be funny.)

You can combine them together, or use with various prefixes / suffixes.

* Oh, Fiddle Sticks!

* Piddly Foodle Piddle!

* Diddly Doodle Foo!

etc

One time when I explained this to my wife and daughter, they couldn't stop laughing for hours, because they knew it was true, but hadn't realized there were seven basic curse words.

That's fucking sad, man

The paper this is describing is from 2015. Perhaps it was "new" when this article was written, but not any more.

Holy fucking shit! I can come out of the foul language closet!

My desk (home/office) is always messy and I like staying up late.

Fuck yeah!

Peace and love! ;p

Reply on news.ycombinator.com