We must fight to retain the right to swear and be rude

The sound of louts swearing and leering, playing fast and loose with the f-word and more besides, is one of the least pleasant on Earth. Many is the time my stomach has turned at an uncalled-for barrage of expletives – particularly when directed at another human being.

But the sense that we’re growing increasingly unable to tolerate not only swear words but brusque and, yes, slightly rude speech full stop is far more concerning. And boy, have we become thin-skinned, as a kerfuffle involving the University of Reading has made clear.

Reading has decided to offer 14 scholarships to refugees living in the area, a decision that some, including those who think those scholarships should go to British people, have disagreed with. In response, the university replied with almost shocking bluntness for a (normally jargonheavy) institute of higher learning: “To [our critics], we would like to say: Tough. Jog on.”

This was certainly an eccentric way for a government-funded body to respond. But it was also rather brilliant – a bracing subversion of the normal, hollow-ringing circumlocutions designed to prevent offence at all cost.

Not everyone felt that way. One woman tweeted indignantly that the university had used unforgivably “crass language … I am a parent of a student at the U oR and neither she nor any of her friends speak like that.” The response, particularly the line about her daughter, struck me as peculiar – the university had been abrupt, but was hardly obscene. But apparently students use such angelic language these days (in step with their virtuous, teetotal and vegan lifestyles) that anything remotely terse now counts as beyond the pale.

So what does this mean for swearing – a tradition as hallowed as it can be off-putting? If brusque speech is now deemed offensive, could a ban on expletives be on the way?

With everyone constantly scanning the horizon for offence, the signs certainly point that way. Even one of our proudest bastions of vigorous language – the professional kitchen – is turning its back on cursing which, thanks to the likes of Gordon Ramsay, had become synonymous with a laudably tough, everyonemust-muck-in culture. Chefs are increasingly banning swearing for fear of putting off young people: Ryan Simpson, of Orwell’s in Henley-on-thames, used to work with Ramsay but recently insisted that the days of the “sweary chef ” are over.

Lurking beneath such announcements, of course, is the fear of putting off not just “young people” but women. Women are now encouraged to be eagleeyed about offensive masculinity and a roaring, swearing man does not fit the post-metoo image of a desirable workplace.

But there’s a troubling assumption at play: that almost anything will make women feel uncomfortable. I’d like to think we’re made of sterner stuff. In days past, in male-dominated industries, from politics to newspapers to kitchens, the arrival of women did not necessarily signal an end to bumptious and lewd language – it would often continue, with the women expected to join in. In other words, there used to be a kind of egalitarianism to robust swearing.

We must fight to retain the right to be rude and to swear; in excess it’s unpleasant, but done right, it’s an efficient, cathartic and natural way to let off steam. Don’t agree? Jog on.