Why is mouthbreather seen as a bad thing?

[Deleted]

I never understood the issue with mouthbreathing, its often better than all the people with runny noses sniffling instead of just breathing!

[Deleted]

It has in common with some other "bad manners" a root in not being aware that you are making a noise related to a bodily function. People see this as you either being oafish or ignorant to the experience of others around you.

Unrelated to the sound I would _guess_ that diseases spread more easily when people breathe through the mouth rather than the nose. The nose has filters to stop catching stuff and stop you expelling the same amount of nasties in aerosol form.

We perhaps developed an instinct that mouth breathing led to more sickness and so shunned people who did.

[Friendlyimmolation]

Because people associate it with a fat guy wheezing into a mic during vent and stuff like that.

[Adam Jensen]

I mouthbreathe a lot because of seasonal allergies. Hard to breath through your nose when your sinuses are stuffed

[Deleted]

Mouth breathing from a young age can cause unusual jaw development and more. For example:



Twin girls, right is a mouthbreather.

[Moralgy]

I mouthbreathe a lot because of seasonal allergies. Hard to breath through your nose when your sinuses are stuffed

Same here, I can actually trigger pretty bad allergy attacks if I breath through my nose in the wrong locations.

[Dsonsion]

(...)
Twin girls, right is a mouthbreather.

Oh God! She looks like the sister of my highschool mouthbreather classmate.

On the topic at hand, I know this isn't a rule at all, but my experiences with mouthbreathers had me thinking that they're not very well educated nor intelligent. Most of the mouthbreathers I know breathe very loudly, their breath stinks and they, well, look deformed.

All in all, that's my experience and I don't judge their character solely on the fact that they breathe through their mouth. But it's a bad habit, detrimental to people's health and I think people should be encouraged not to do so.

[Spraxle]

I get that 'mouthbreather' is an insult online, but it just seems pointless. I breath through my mouth due to my allergies and only one of my nasal passages working at a time because of a deviated septum. Unless you have to gasp for air constantly or some such no is going to hear you breath through your mouth.

I love all of the pseudo-science in this thread claiming breathing through your mouth is somehow going to kill you. Or that people who breath through their mouth are somehow dumber. Like the guy above me who seems to think breathing through the mouth correlates to lower intellect and it's a sentiment shown through the 2 pages of this thread over and over. I'm not a genius, but I am not 'uneducated' or dumb by any stretch of the imagination yet I've breathed through my mouth my entire life. Though this thread would have people believe that I should be using handicapped parking spaces and relying on someone to feed me my dinner.

[Pony Soldier]

I often wondered this too. My nose gets stuffy a lot even when I'm not sick (I think i have a deviated septum) so I am forced to breathe through my mouth. I mean what do you want me to do? Suffocate so I don't bother you with my mouth breathing?

[Atrea]

Habitually (and absentmindedly) breathing through one's mouth is considered a sign of low intelligence.

Look at someone walking around with their mouth hanging open and tell me they don't look like a moron.
If you are sick or something, or if you have a medical reason, then obviously you gotta do what you gotta do.

[brimdog]

Because of projection and insecurity.

[Duridi]

http://www.breathing.com/articles/nose-breathing.htm

When doing physical exercise where correct breathing makes a difference one can very easily tell why nose breathing is superior.

It helps with circulation, oxygen delivery, in dry or cold environments it preserves body moisture etc.

Furthermore mouth breathing is audible. Which makes it uncomfortable in social settings. More than that it also leads to snoring.

That doesn't help any at all, when you physically can't breathe solely through your nose. It's not something you choose to do, unless you do it on purpose.

[Rennadrel]

Live with full on sinus congestion 365 days a year like I do and you might understand why I breath through my mouth. I haven't been able to properly breath through my nose for my entire life. I try not to breath loudly though anyway, which is why people have a problem with those who breath through their mouths.

[Duridi]

Unless you have to gasp for air constantly or some such no is going to hear you breath through your mouth.

This. I have never had any comments on how I breathe, and i can easily hear when I do make a noise when breathing. Only times I do so is when I am exhausted. Normal breathing through my mouth doesn't generate any annoying noise. I do breathe partly through my nose at times though, which quite often generates a whistling sound which annoys the shit out of people instead. And me.

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Habitually (and absentmindedly) breathing through one's mouth is considered a sign of low intelligence.

Look at someone walking around with their mouth hanging open and tell me they don't look like a moron.

Very few mouth breathers look stupid. There are whole lot more of them out there, than you have noticed. You've just noticed a random person who happened to breathe through their mouth because you found his or her apperance funny.

[Xenryusho]

It's like keyboard turning, it's just inefficient imo.

Like the guy above me who seems to think breathing through the mouth correlates to lower intellect

There is a correlation. If even one person is unintelligent and breaths through their mouth there is a correlation. It's a weak correlation, and has very little chance to imply causation in either direction, however its there. It's because of correlations like this that the term originated to begin with. Your problem is you're taking the existence of a correlation as strong evidence that there exists an 'All X is Y' truth, and therefore want to reject the existence of said correlation in order to reject the perceived consequences of such. And I have a severely deviated septum and can't breath through my nose at all when I'm sick, so no, I'm not just the man trying to keep a mouth breather down.

Very few mouth breathers look stupid. There are whole lot more of them out there, than you have noticed. You've just noticed a random person who happened to breathe through their mouth because you found his or her apperance funny.

He didn't say that. What he said was "Look at someone walking around with their mouth hanging open and tell me they don't look like a moron", he never said anything to the effect of mouth breathers doing this in the first place, just that they are thought of as doing so. The topic was asking a question, the answer from him was that A) Its commonly thought of as a sign of low intelligence that is partially B) due to the perceived look of a mouth breather walking around with their jaw hanging open. How many do or do not is irrelevant to the question, the only thing that matters is why people would think of mouth breather as an insult and this is his answer as to why he believes so.

[Deleted]

Its stupid to breath through your mouth when you have the choice.

[ComputerNerd]

Idk, breath through your mouth if you have to. The people that say something are just being douches and deserve no attention.

Exactly.
It is just a cheap insult from ignorant people who just throw around a buzzword insult because it being popular somehow lends itself being a cool thing to say.

It's like keyboard turning, it's just inefficient imo.

Inefficient, but not everyone has that same capability or choices.
Your hands are not the same as those of anybody else.
Few can run like Usain Bolt simply through lots of running.
There can be reasons for someone behaving differently physically aside from the ignorant assumptions about lack of effort.

[Grimbold21]

Is this another US retarded thing?

[Xenryusho]

Inefficient, but not everyone has that same capability or choices.
Your hands are not the same as those of anybody else.
Few can run like Usain Bolt simply through lots of running.
There can be reasons for someone behaving differently physically aside from the ignorant assumptions about lack of effort.

Despite your half hearted attempt to label me as ignorant I'll try to keep this civil as I explain the assumption you made in my post.

I said nothing about lack of effort. Keyboard turning, like mouth breathing, is a occurrence that can be due to a serious of reasons. I often breath through my mouth due to a severely deviated septum, for instance. Similarly some players have disabilities that makes keyboard turning the best method of control. Even more so while I'm firmly seated in the Razer Naga control camp, I've known keyboard turners who've been able to generally perform at a level of acceptable play for their area of progression.

The rest of what you posted, as I mentioned to two separate people in the edits of my last post, are irrelevant to the discussion.
Let me bring the OPs statement back here:

Why do people see "Mouthbreather" as an insult?

If I answer 'Because people see mouth breathers as racist nazis', whether or not they are racist nazis is completely irrelevant. Because the question isn't "Why is being a mouthbreather bad" it's "Why do people see 'Mouthbreather' as an insult". The only thing that matters is the truth value of my statement, do people really see mouth breathers as being racist nazis. Similarly what you should be asking to dispute me is do people see mouth breathing as inefficient and thus leads to the greater connotation of the term.

The problem is you're too ready to try and kill the discussion by taking offence and pointing fingers. You're not here to answer the OPs question, and that's fine. But at least make an attempt to understand the statements the other posters are making rather than just taking them out of context and drawing assumptions from them.

[Dsonsion]

Live with full on sinus congestion 365 days a year like I do and you might understand why I breath through my mouth. I haven't been able to properly breath through my nose for my entire life. I try not to breath loudly though anyway, which is why people have a problem with those who breath through their mouths.

I suffer from a similar condition. I also live 1800 m above sea level and the climate tends to be quite humid. But still, it's not that hard to get used to breathing through the nose, as it is also beneficial to one's health. I tend to compare it to taking bad postures while sitting: people do it because it's more comfortable, but it's harmful to people's health and also very hard to correct when one's grown accustomed to it.