Samuel L. Jackson has been known to drop a few f-bombs in his movies, but it turns out the foul language serves a hidden purpose.

On today’s episode of The Howard Stern Show, Jackson revealed he still suffers from the remnants of a debilitating childhood stutter. As a kid, Jackson says he was bullied “to the point that I stopped speaking for almost a year in school.”

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But for some reason, Jackson says the word m———– helps him control the speech impediment. “I have no idea [how] but it just does,” he laughed. “It clicks a switch that stops the d-d-d b-b-b, because me I stuttered really, really, really badly for a long time.”

This revelation puts a whole new perspective on perhaps his most famous movie line from Snakes on a Plane, when his character emphatically declares, “I have had it with these m———— snakes on this m———— plane!”

Warning: Explicit Language

Beyond cursing, Jackson says he taught himself how to control the stutter without any formal speech therapy. “I read a lot,” he tells Stern. “I read things about breathing exercises, I actually went to the library to combat stuttering.”