Too mild to be a swear word? Bloody right

‘Overexcited’ BBC host apologises for turning the air blue on his show, but did he swear or not?

No sooner had Andrew Marr uttered the word “bloody” during his interview with David Davis on his Sunday morning show than he immediately apologised. Yet he has now been chastised by language experts who said he need not have said sorry because the word is now “pretty mild”.

ONE might say it’s all a bloody mess. Only not on the BBC, it seems. Or maybe you can – no one seems to know.

No sooner had Andrew Marr uttered the word during his interview with David Davis on his Sunday morning show than he immediately apologised. In describing his previous prediction that the UK divorce bill would cost £40billion as “a bloody good guess”, the presenter had, he claimed, “got overexcited”.

Yet he has now been chastised as “old-fashioned” by language experts who said he needn’t have apologised because the word is now “pretty mild”.

The BBC itself refused to say whether Marr had slipped up.

The confusion arises, academics suggested, because no one properly understands the etymology of “bloody” and therefore whether it was ever right to consider it a swear word. According to Patrick Hanks, the former chief editor of the Oxford English Dictionaries, the term may have once been a swear word but began a “process of normalisation” some decades ago, driven by its usage in Australia.

He said Marr had probably been “over-sensitive” to apologise.

“My view is that it’s pretty mild. I think it would be a very old-fashioned person who took offence at it, but there are plenty of old-fashioned people about.

“The Victorians were notoriously mealy-mouthed and we’re only just recovering a century and a bit later.” The BBC said it did not ban specific words or phrases but rather judged acceptability depending on context.

Last night it would not say how this applied to “bloody” in a Sunday morning political interview.

Many scholars believe the word is best understood as an “intensifier” used to add emphasis to the noun it precedes.

Some have previously argued that the word derived from the expression “by our lady” via the contracted phrase “by’r lady”, which is common in Shakespeare and also appears in the works of Jonathan Swift, around a century later. This, however, is debated. But whatever its meaning, the word itself is a “good, old Germanic with Dutch and Old Freisian cognates”, said Mr Hanks.

“As a swear word these days I think an Australian would laugh at you, but then they talk about ordinary human beings as ‘bastards’.”

In Australia “bloody” is widely used and largely free of any offensive connotations, while in the USA it is not considered offensive but is hardly used.

Another etymological theory suggests the word derives in some way from the use of “blood” to denote rowdy aristocrats, although it has been pointed out this would not account for its use before the late 17th century.

Dr Emma Byrne, a neuroscientist and author of Swearing Is Good For

You, said the presenter had clearly used the word for the purpose of intensifying his point, but added: “The problem with broadcasting is swearing is so culturally dependent.”

The BBC Editorial Guidelines state: “The use of strong language must be editorially justified and appropriately signposted to ensure it meets audience expectations, wherever it appears.”