I’VE always had a way with words. More specifically, swear words. At the tender age of six, sat in the back of the car with my family, I was several hours into a long journey when I threw down the book I was reading. Asked what was wrong, I announced matter-of-factly to the car: “I can’t see a word because of the f****** sun.” My grandparents looked horrified and my father, who knew exactly where I had picked up the new addition to my vocabulary, sheepishly drove on.
Twenty years on, I am an ardent advocate for cussing. Like emotionally-charged punctuation, it can cover everything from air-punching, unadulterated joy to gut-wrenching sadness more eloquently than any other words in my cuss-laden lexicon. Luckily, working in newsrooms, my professional environment has never been particularly po-faced when it comes to swearing. If the average Brit curses 14 times a day, multiply that by 10 for any editor I’ve ever had.
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The debate over whether swearing is conversationally acceptable or uncouth reared its head again after Salford City Council scrapped a ban on swearing in public. The original order, part of a bid to curb anti-social behaviour, saw anyone who used foul language in public faced with an on-the-spot fine of up to £1,000.
Of course, no one swears quite like us Scots – so it comes as little surprise that I am on the side of cussing, at least in its purest, most simple form. Forget fussy compound insults like c***womble which, for reasons unbeknown to me, are all the rage on social media. I’ll happily stick with the four-letter classics.
It’s not just me. Billy Connolly, a national treasure by all accounts, has long lauded the poetry of profanity. “People say it’s limited vocabulary that makes you swear,” he once said. “I don’t think so. I know at least 127 words and I still prefer f***.”
But the best thing about my life-long love of cursing is that science is on my side. Research has found that those with higher IQs tend to swear more. And the idea that people who swear have a “limited vocabulary”? Utter s****. A study published by the Language Sciences journal revealed that people who tend to curse more may in fact have a larger vocabulary than those who don’t.
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Swearing also has its benefits in the workplace. Studies have shown that teams who swear together work better together, increasing productivity and alleviating tension. Cussing is also proven to help us cope better with stress and withstand pain, whether that’s screaming profanities through child birth or muttering under your breath when you stub your toe.
Of course, I am occasionally chided for my “unladylike” language. Luckily, I have the perfect response for that…
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