The new rules on swearing: unleash and feel the #$@&%*! relief

What are your thoughts on swearing? Careful how you answer this, because it could mark you out as a fuddy-duddy.

Apparently, older employees feel uncomfortable when younger colleagues start potty-mouthing all over the shop, or office, or factory.

But bad language is mighty hard to avoid these days; even Meryl Streep’s at it. “Bitch stole my seat,” she joked this week about Mariah Carey taking her place at the Golden Globes.

The key to swearing with panache is the surprise factor. Who could fail to punch the air when Chelmsford Crown Court judge Patricia Lynch QC responded to a foul-mouthed defendant with the immortal words: “Well, you’re a bit of a c--- yourself.” She later apologised unreservedly, and has now been cleared of judicial misconduct, presumably because on this occasion justice was blinding as well as effing.

Swear words are no longer considered immoral, but they do remain taboo, which gives them a certain shock value among adults. Teenagers, who routinely use swear words as adjectives, adverbs, verbs and nouns with remarkable inventiveness, are inured to their power; and minding one’s Ps and Qs to show respect for one’s elders is as defunct a concept as the fax machine.

Having said that, the new play at the Royal Court ought to give them pause. It is called, dear readers, My Mum is a Twat.

Now, I’ve been on Google

(wearing a hazchem suit) and cyberspace is divided between those who think it a very vulgar term indeed, and those who feel that through usage, the T-word has evolved to mean “idiot”.

Either way, lit up on the front of a theatre, it’s bound to be a talking point, which can surely only be a good thing? I enjoy a judiciously deployed swear word as well as the next f-----fulford; the upper classes are well known for swearing like stevedores.

Moreover, it has been shown that cursing can be good for us. According to Rebecca Roache, a philosophy lecturer at the University of London who is writing a book on the subject, dropping an F-bomb may breach social etiquette, but it’s not immoral – and, in fact, it’s a way of giving forceful expression to emotion and relieving anger.

So my advice to mature employees fed up listening to casual obscenity; stand up, clear your throat and tell those whippersnappers exactly where they can stuff their explicit Anglo-saxon epithets. You’ll feel so much better, honest.