You mignt not e**ing believe it but swearing is good for you

Experts say bad language can improve productivity and unity – and Aidan Smith bloody well thinks they might have a point

They are moments mums and dads cherish. Remembered much later on a notable birthday or graduation. Possibly logged in a twee “memory book” but the truths it contains cannot be denied.

First smile. First words. First steps. First pee in a potty. First bike ride without stabilisers. And, just the other day in our house, having been told repeatedly to stop hitting his sister with the plastic sword given to him by an ill-advised choice of godfather, Hector’s first swearie utterance.

“Bloody hell,” said the soon-to-bethree-year-old. My wife scowled at me and I did the same back. “He’s got that from you,” I said. “Not this time,” she said. “I swear more than you, it’s true, and use ruder words. But that rather tame effort is one of yours.”

We tried not to laugh. That won’t go down well at nursery school. But it was funny.

Funnier still was Hector’s followup: “Don’t worry, Mater and Pater, swearing is good for us. A new survey says it improves our mental health, helps coping with pain and problems. Indeed, a quarter of the UK is adamant that swearing helped with staying motivated during lockdown.”

Okay, I’m joking. Hector didn’t actually say this, though he’s a truly remarkable child, as you would discover if you were ever foolish enough to challenge me to a duel with memory books, not that I’m Competitive Dad or anything. But the survey is genuine, having just been published by women’s wellness app Clementine, and it’s not the first time swearing has been deemed e**ing brilliant.

Dr Emma Byrne has written a whole book on the subject: Swearing is Good for You – The Amazing

Science of Bad Language. Swearing, she argues, “enlivens emotional discourse” and releases adrenaline.

Studies show that in the workplace it improves productivity and unity. More than any of that, Byrne contends that words which some would call uncivilised have actually kept us civilised. Without them, we would have had to rely on biting, gouging and throwing faeces to maintain social order. “I don’t think we would have made it as the world’s most populous primate if we hadn’t learned to swear,” she writes.

Improves productivity? In all my time in journalism, I think there’s only been one editor who made a habit of swearing, at least within earshot of the scribblers, but then he did swear enough for the other 19. Sometimes in his fury he couldn’t quite summon the right abuse. Unless it had been his intention that time to address the newsroom thus: “You’re .... you’re all … you’re all a bunch of monkey c***s!”

Perhaps there was method in his madness for Byrne reports that chimpanzees can swear. In a study where a group of primates were taught sign language, they quickly started to use the indicator they’d learned from toilet-training any time they were angry.

My old boss, while he might himself have been toilet-trained, wouldn’t get away with that sort of thing now.

A woke world wouldn’t allow it and he’d be sent away for “re-education”. And on Pravda he’d more than likely be fired.

A few years ago Vladimir Putin mounted a clampdown on foul language, banning swearing in films and plays and requiring novels containing offensive words to be sealed and sold with warnings.

Irvine Welsh managed to avoid swearing in expressing his out