There isn't a soul this side of a two-year-old minister's daughter who doesn't know how to flip those letters.

Yet if you do, and someone is offended by it, you may find some defender of the laws of 'decent folks' writing you a ticket for "disorderly conduct."

We all know this is just f*ck*d up b*ll sh*t --- but we can't really say it. And, anyway, as Mike Matusow has found out at the poker table, repeated offenses get you repeated fines - up to 10 minutes per F-bomb even.

It isn't just poker rooms, bars or other hang-outs of the young and restless that swearing dominates conversations.

Ever look at the transcripts of the tapes Richard Nixon secretly made of the lofty deliberations in the White House? I have.

They're not easy to read. Indeed, it's tough to figure out what Tricky Dick was saying at all because essentially every other word was "expletive deleted."

You say "mother," I say "day."

Swearing is a fundamental feature of human talk. President Obama noted that Mother's Day had an odd ring to it for Rahm Emanuel, his chief of staff, because "Rahm isn't used to hearing the word 'day' follow 'mother.'"

If you take a quick look back at the history of languages and how they've changed, you'll find that every generation has its 'cuss' words. And they change.

'Bitch' and 'bastard' originally referred respectively, and rather benignly, to a 'female dog' and a 'person born out of wedlock.' They slowly wended their way into use as effective insults.

As such, they functioned as words that 'offended' others - which is sufficient to have them fall under some loosely structured disorderly conduct laws. Consequently, they were 'banned' from the airwaves in the US as unsuitable for the ears of 'decent folk.'

Nowadays, bitch and bastard have become so common they've lost much of their affect. They're barely offensive and hardly insults - and are printed with vowels rather than asterisks. The only TV show where you won't hear them is Sesame Street.

Not as much research out there about non-verbal release, but Todd Brunson has always been a bit ahead of his time.

Ever wonder about cursing? Why it's linguistically universal? Why all societies have swear words?

Universality alerts psychologists to the possibility that we've stumbled on something fairly deep.

Much of the early research on swearing wasn't very illuminating, since it tended to be clothed with concerns about morals and ethical conduct.

But Timothy Jay, a psychologist at the Massachusetts College of the Liberal Arts has carried out some research that cuts through all the trivia and gets right to the heart of the matter:

Cursing is good for you!

Yup. It turns out that swearing has real and important psychological functions.

Its immediate impact is to lessen tensions and release frustrations. When you're really pissed (note, not 'p*ssed') when some donk-brain sucks out on you on the cash bubble, it's psychologically uplifting to let loose with a couple of juicy 'expletive deleteds.'

There is, in addition, a secondary gain of even more significance (from the point of view of smoothing social interactions) --- the release of tension also makes it less likely that you'll resort to physical abuse.

And, as we know, when a particular behavior makes you feel better, it's a psychological certainty that it will become an action deeply ingrained and oft-repeated.

F penalties! Even the WSOP says there's no harm in some directionless cursing.

So, is there a poker message here? Sure. And interestingly, the WSOP has figured it out. "Empty" swearing, venting, is okay. It's no longer a violation to hurl a "WTF" when the one-outer hits the board.

But it's still a violation to turn to the guy who slurped out on you and call him a "dumb mother f*ck*r" ... and it should be. The offense isn't in the sound of the words; it's in the intentions of the speaker to harm another.

The real crime is "verbal assault." This is where the "indecent" element comes in.

I'm a big fan of what I guess we call "directionless" cursing. It can be an art form, a way to express political and social ideas, a device for exploring the edges of meaning.

And now it turns out that it can actually make you feel better. Or play better.

I feel better already.

More poker strategy articles from Arthur S. Reber:

• The Naked Raise Plus: Post-Flop Play Part 3
• This One is Tricky: More on Post-Flop Play
• The Simple Psychology of Post-Flop Play
• Skill vs. Luck: Let's Get it Right