Scientists say we are swearing less – you could have bloody fooled me

Can we all take a moment to relish the fact that a “World Profanity Table” (WPT) exists?

Compiled by linguists in Australia, who studied almost 2 billion words from 1.8 million web pages and blogs, the WPT was put together to establish one crucial, high-brow fact: which country swears the most?

Traditionally, Brits have always ensured we come top of this table, at least – if not literacy and numeracy ones. But this year, we’ve been toppled by the Americans, with Australia in third place, followed by Singapore, New Zealand, Malaysia and Ireland (who will be devastated to come in so low).

Some may say that the US deserves to win. After all, their president’s idea of diplomacy is taking to the airwaves to announce that both Israel and Iran “don’t know what the f--- they’re doing”. But I refuse to believe that we have in any way cleaned up our act. In fact, I’m going to have to demand a recount.

One of my biggest pet peeves (alongside the use of the word “journey” to describe anything that doesn’t involve a physical ticket) is the unique foulness of the British mouth. And it has definitely got worse.

‘A cross-section of society’

I never savoured the sound of obscenities. Even if not directed at me, there was something about them that instantly soured the atmosphere of a room, that killed a good mood.

The beautiful girl on the bus was immediately made unbeautiful when she peppered every sentence with F-bombs. But I never actively got angry about loud, public swearers until my daughter was born.

As it turns out, a large swathe of the population thinks it’s perfectly acceptable to eff and blind in front of a baby, an infant, a toddler, a child, a 12-year-old. This is as anathema to me as chewing gum at a funeral.

Yet I can promise you, it’s not just the trope obscenity-shouters – the scaffolders and the white van men – but a cross-section of society.

Well-educated businessmen will casually machine-gun out expletives on their mobile phones in the queue at Gail’s, oblivious to the three kids waiting for their cinnamon Danishes in front.

Shop assistants talking amongst themselves will idly cuss in front of kids. Perhaps worst of all are the Lululemon mums, oh-so-zen as they exchange obscenities on their way back from hot yoga.

As a perfect illustration of this, I watched a mother and father curl up into balls of embarrassment on a recent flight to Nice, as their four-year-old started squealing “For f---’s sake! For f---’s sake!” when her iPad ran out.

The titters from surrounding passengers only made her more determined to keep going.

A limp attempt to get the girl to amend her language – “Do you mean for foxy’s sake, darling?” – was too little, too late.

[Source: Daily Telegraph]