How often do you swear?
I don’t think I swear too often. Ask my mum and she will say that I swear too much. My partner’s family don’t swear often, and around them I realised I swear more frequently. Yet I have many work occasions where I don’t swear, TedX events, children’s events, and live radio.
So how do we feel about swearing?
In English we have around ten words we consider to be taboo - I’d love to know your favourite! They play a role in popular culture from Miriam Margolyes being the first person to say fuck on the BBC, and still doing so regularly on daytime television, to Davina McCall’s famous line ‘Big Brother house, this is Davina. You are live on Channel 4; please do not swear’ swearing is part of who we are as humans.
We can trace the roots of these words /phrases to Latin, old French, germanic phrases, and the use of the profane to divide the classes. Some are older than time, some have only been in our vernacular for the last 100 years. This plays out differently across English-speaking countries, with the USA having a low threshold for profanity, and Australia being the biggest potty mouth. The UK sits somewhere in the middle of swearing occurrence and use in the vernacular.
My perspective of swearing is that it is one of the more expressive ways we can be understood. Our understanding of the emphasis the handful of swearwords we have can provide is helpful to me as a speaker and writer. These words help me underline things, help me convert emotion, and show people I mean business.
Some people consider swearing to be low intellect. I disagree, because I think when used correctly, swear words have much more efficacy than a puffed-up word sandwich. Swearing gets to the point, it saves us time, and it is efficient.
I feel comfortable swearing when it is necessary because it is the ultimate exercise of freedom of speech. In work settings I would always ask because that is appropriate to do so - that is what professionalism means to me. One thing I think is important, beyond the social perimeters of work, is that I never want to sensor myself.
However, we swear, little or often, I think it shouldn’t be an element of judgment - because our motivation is individual. I will never swear off swearing, and I think however you want to approach it, you should do exactly as you wish - and sod all judgments!
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