I Swear to God
(For F*'s sake, Part II)
I’ve noticed I’ve been swearing more lately, and that I’m not alone. That maybe I’m swearing more because I’m drinking from the same global zeitgeist-spigot that has everyone else swearing more. Gone is any self-consciousness about breaking with decorum to launch F bombs at the office, or around the elderly or children, or at the grocery surmising the $5 canned soups, or in a parent-teacher conference, or on the Zoom therapy. Everywhere curse words about everything all at once. People you might not expect to speak rudely in places previously forbidden. A cultural Tourette’s.
People like Jasmine Crockett who are done being polite. She’s become a spokesperson of our rage, shouting truth to power. Are they listening? Will it help if we use some expletives, albeit eloquently? What about our crowd size and the volume of our cursing? Among the congressmembers denied treasury access what feels like a million years ago, she preached in this clip,
We know who we work for. We know that we work for the American people. And what we’re not going to do is stand around while they pull this bullshit that they’re trying to pull right now. This is why I’m not going to be able to preach because I’m probably not going to be able to stop cussing.
She’s fierce, but ultimately pretty benign, considering, as she needs to remain poised, well-coifed, and still ride the requisite rails. Would we say this phenomenon of increased swearing is evidence of a trickle-up or a trickle-down economy? Can we blame our escalating rage on the rising stressors of these no-holds Trumped times, or on Trump himself? If our leader can do and say whatever he wants, with the crassest, nastiest words imaginable, then we can too? Or can we flatter ourselves that our swear words are the biggest, most inventive swear words, well-positioned in smarter sentences, in this grassroots word revolution we hope to be having? Are our kids learning the art and anxiety of armageddon cursing from us, or we from them?
Some weeks ago, I explored the masterful way we’ve inherited creative cursing from the Brits dating back to Monty Python and before that Shakespeare and before that to various forms of the F-, S-, B-, P-, and D- words since the dawn of language across civilizations.
Is it true or just perceived that we’re swearing more these days than we’ve ever sworn before? Or is like when my mom believes there are more bad things happening in the world now just because there’s more news telling her about it?
Show me the data.
In my quick Google search, what may lack studies is made up for in headlines. Many seem to be noticing the uptick, but since we haven’t really counted curse words historically, it’s tough to compare. This would be a good game for AI I’d say, to tabulate the frequency of rude words through the arc of time; I’d really like to see that chart. Yes, the articles seem to agree, swearing is on the rise, but also: this isn’t entirely new. It’s been on a constant uptick until perhaps the pandemic. And it certainly seems all bound up with politics:
Why are politicians swearing more in public?
May 27, 2022 in NewsNation
Opinion: Swearing is now a presidential campaign strategy
Sept 15, 2019 in Los Angeles Times
F-bombs away: Why lawmakers are cursing now more than ever
Aug 18, 2019 in The Hill
Why might the F-word be on the rise?
June 11, 2022 on NBC News
But then go deeper onto page two of the search results and it gets more personal:
Profanity in politics: Does Kamala Harris swear the most?
Sept 24, 2024 in Deseret News
The Science of Why Tim Walz Swears So Much
Oct 1, 2024 in Mother Jones
To finally taking it to the top, the brutal bully-in-chief:
Trump has changed politics, from f-bombs to videos of his opponents hogtied
March 24, 2024 in USA Today
In politics this is a tale as old as time. Or at least since this study in 2014:
Swearing in political discourse: Why vulgarity works.
2014 in APA PsychNet
And then ever more:
Kamala Harris, Donald Trump and the politics of cursing
Sept 9, 2024 in The Wash Post
Is This the Most Profane Election in History?
Oct 29, 2024 in Newsweek
Politicians are increasingly using profanity online
Nov 29, 2018 in CNN
Politicians dropping the F-bomb: There's more to it than you might think
Oct 6, 2022 in The Conversation
You get the idea, so much so, that maybe this present era has a good term for it, which I found here on this platform from Robin Wilding who said, back in the longest January we’ve ever experienced,
I know it’s only 28 days in, but I’m already naming 2025 as the year of The Fuckening.
To which I might add, that likely applies for these four-(plus!) years, not just the one. Former US Secretary of Labor Robert Reich takes a fun twist on this, announcing, with a combo of laughter and horror as we witness what most call a coup and a flurry of federal firings care of DOGE,
Fusk Muck!
What I’d really like to know more about though is the poor commoner, the Plebians in the pit of these Shakespeare dramas. People like me who are letting it rip much more with reckless abandon, or worse, those getting fired or living in fear of deportation or cancellation for their trans identity, those under attack. Who might be developing this nothing-matters fuckitudinal thick skin in light of our leader. Or worse: despair, depression. Aha, now we’re getting warmer:
Do Americans Swear More Than They Used To?
Nov 2024 in The Saturday Evening Post
Why the **** does everyone swear all the ******* time?
March 14, 2024, Vox
—
From all of these clips, some stats and facts, since if we’re in the mood for swearing, things also demand to be terse, in lists:
From Business Insider, May 16, 2021: the average American utters 80 to 90 curse words each day. That’s about five for every waking hour.
In 2006 in NBC News poll, two-thirds said they think people swear more than they did 20 years ago.
From the Saturday Evening Post article above,
A corporate research company recently studied transcripts of conference calls. It found the use of expletives among call-attendees rose 80 percent between 2018 and 2021. And it appears younger generations are more expletive-prone. According to one report, Baby Boomers use profanity 10 times a day, but members of Gen Z swear 24 times a day.
Then they talked about why. Yes, Trump has set the low tone. But maybe he’d in turn blame the whole nation since a politician’s aim these days is to sound more “regular,” more “everyday.”
But why are Americans swearing more now? One reason may be the tone of political talk. Donald Trump has shown little inhibition in his speech, but he is far from alone. An analysis from GovPredict in 2016 discovered politicians posted profanity on social media fewer than 200 times. But in 2018, they sent out 2,500 profane tweets.
This move toward more profanity may reflect candidates’ efforts to distance themselves from professional politicians. The goal is to sound more like regular everyday Americans — assuming that the average American regularly curses.
Blame the media.
In 2021, the F-word was heard on television 13,261 times. In 2022, it was heard 17,801 times — a 34 percent increase. Streaming and cable services are largely responsible for the increase. The word is banned from network television, but there is no censorship on many viewer-paid streaming services, and 83 percent of U.S. households subscribe to at least one streaming channel.
Blame Covid and our new comfort in the casual.
Perhaps profanity is also a lingering effect of Covid, in which people let their social skills languish while in isolation. As people grew isolated, they focused more on their own ideas and became less interested in others’. They found it difficult to handle disagreement or argument. And they brought the casual obscenities they used freely at home back with them to the workplace.
Bring your curse to work! There are benefits of all this angry utterance, supposedly. The experts say letting your lips loose like this, a mouth running amuck, makes you happier and healthier. Swearing when you stub your toe or push a head through your canal increases your tolerance to pain by 33 percent. You can increase your physical performance. And alleviate “distress.”
Shout, shout, let it all out. Do you feel any better?
Here’s a poll:
Okay, I'm probably swearing a little more, but I've been swearing more these last 10 years regardless. On a different note, I've found I have much less patience for rudeness right now. I snapped at a woman (with a child) who was rude to me the other day, and a woman at the grocery store was rude to me this morning and I'm still angry. Yesterday at the local snotty coffeeshop a barista was snotty to me. I think I'm much more irritated in general these days, and I'm wondering if people are picking up on my vibe, or if everyone's kind of boiling under the surface. People are rarely rude to me, but I'm hitting almost one a day right now, and this in a polite town. And frankly, I want to smack 'em. It doesn't help that I'm trying to grow a beard for the first time since my 20's, and my facial hair is bristly and irritating the hell out of my face. So now I'm insecure, wondering if my beard is making me look like an undesirable, or angry, or something. Either way, fuck 'em, I guess. Wish the damn beard would hit full length so I can decide whether to shave it or not. I bought some beard conditioning oil at the grocery store for $12 and so far it doesn't work at all. Anything else you'd like to know?
1. Fuck 2025, broadly speaking
2. I think my own access to swearing increased dramatically beginning in the mid 90s. There was something magical about Pulp Fiction that sort of marked a "never going back" period for our generation