to that

... cough.

that Wayne Rooney.

'Derek and Clive' classic album listening party?

The swearing those fellas do tends to rub off on a chap. Cunts

...as a result of Fraser's sensible post below.

Sebastian?

Never request less swearing.

There was a time not so long ago when I would never have used the c-word, but I have to admit that there is now a liberating feeling that goes along with its occasional use.

Yes, it's not big and it's not clever, but the fact that the word annoys a certain type of person somehow gives it an exquisite piquancy. With our everyday social intercourse more subject to self-censorship than it would have been, say, 30 years ago, the c-word, used sparingly, resonates in a way that somehow testifies to the indomitability of the human spirit. Or something.

And much as I hate to come across like someone's mum, I would like to remind everyone that we prefer you not to use expletives - we're very clear about in the FAQ, and for good reason: overuse results in such language becoming the norm rather the exception, and I've been moderating communities for long enough to know that it can be the start of a very slippery slope towards a place that's far less pleasant to inhabit of than any of us would like.

may I recommend a funny and informative book called 'Filthy English' about what, at the end of the day, are only words and words are all i have to tell you to go away.

thats where I heard about it from. And bought it right away as instructed to in our clique handbook

Bear with me. When Channel 4's Brookside started, the producer Phil Redmond wanted it to be authentic and included many borderline "swear words" in the script because, after all, that is closer to how people actually speak. He knew it would be controversial and initially had very articulate academic arguments that supported their continued use.

However, after a few weeks enough research revealed that significant amounts of people decided not to persevere with Brookside expressly due to the strong language. It was not welcome at teatime, on a soap, on TV. Yet they would not bat an eyelid (or twitch an earlobe) if they came across the same language in the local newsagents, school playground or even in their own lounge at home.

He came to the conclusion that people on the whole simply don't like it and they don't have to justify that. It's just the way it is. So Brookside was toned down a notch or two and the audience figures started to increase again.

So even though I can and do cuss 'til the melon-farming cows come home, I am not comfortable with it at work or on the telly before about 9pm. On the odd occasion when I have asked work colleagues to tone it down a bit - I immediately sound like Mary Whitehouse. It's a tricky one.

I also apply the same double standard to blogs like this. For some reason, the stronger f & c words don't sit well here. Whereas they are necessary in Viz and Derek & Clive.

We use them to convey emphasis when we speak, because when we speak we don't have time - and our listeners don't have the patience - to be faffing around, fussing, shaping and tweaking our every utterance. Writing isn't just speech written down; it's speech after it's brushed the fluff off its lapel, straightened its tie in the mirror and said "I'm ready now."

Because of that, swearing in writing doesn't work the same way it does in speech. It often achieves little more than suggesting to the reader that we think so little of our own argument that we couldn't be bothered to think of the right words to get it across.

I'm not saying that swearing in writing can never be justified, but it's becoming so overdone (not only here) that it's often counter-productive - actually lessening rather than heightening the intended effect.

Strange as it may seem, writing "George Osborne is pitifully inept" can often be more forceful than writing "George Osborne is a fucking useless bag of shite".

Interesting to see the comments above. I did read the FAQ before posting (indeed I contemplated calling the thread FAQ You).

I swear a reasonable amount - more when I'm up to my ears in work thats not going well. I try not to on here because it always looks and sounds worse when its written. Perhaps its less of the moment than just an uttered word.

Archie sums it up for me - its too easy to call a politician the c bomb. Its much harder to explain why he is.

I don't mind a smidge of swearing - it can be amusingly done - but excess / constant swearing is off-putting, and just makes me assume that the person doing the swearing isn't the most intelligent person around.

If I were talking to someone in a pub who kept swearing, I'd quietly excuse myself and find someone else to talk to. Similarly in threads here.

(OK, I admit I might be a little on the prudish side)

Piers Morgan c**t

There was a fair amount of effing and jeffing on Beezer's 'joke' thread a day or two ago - some of it mine - but in the context of the funnies, some of it was necessary for the rhythm of the punchlines.

Elsewhere, it seems to appear when emotions are running high in the political arena - less so in the musically-focused threads.

Overall I think I agree with Lee - it has become more prevalent recently and a little more self-moderation is probably in order.

Back in the day it wasn't tolerated - I recall one of my first posts quoted (in absolutely justifiable context, of course) the opening lines of 'Plaistow Patricia'. Fraser had it on the bonfire in minutes!

I once read in a copy of The Oxford Dictionary Of Ships & The Sea that 'C**ting' is a nautical term that describes the grooves in a section of rope. There is also a type of knot known as the 'C**t Splice' (since rechristened 'Cut Splice' by spoilsports) where two ropes are braided together to form an eye.

We were staying in Dartmouth at the time and were surrounded by boats and by numerous examples of both C**ting and C**t Splices. My brother and I took great pleasure in pointing these out to one another in the informed, matter of fact manner of men who are well-versed in sailing and the sea:

- "That's a very frayed piece of c**ting."

- "I wouldn't trust that not to unravel in a force nine North-Westerly."

Swearing can be aggressive, or even when it's not overtly hostile, can create an environment where people feel uncomfortable. Curse words can also be used in a very lazy way as surrogates to patch the holes in sentences. However, in other contexts, a little uncouth language can be very funny.

Naff off you scrote.

any time on this blog. The only time it wouldn't be acceptable is in personal attacks but they aren't tolerated in any form so that is fine.
The swearing keeps the blog from drifting off into Planet Fluffy.

I too may well be a bit prudish but...

I don't like it. I especially don't like it when it's in the title. If my son is reading over my shoulder (not unusual) when I visit the blog and the title is an expletive then If feel embarassed to be reading it. I take him to the footie and I know the language he hears there and I'm sure he hears it at school but I tell him that expletives tend to show a lack of sophistication in intelligence (I know that's not always true) and that use of language is a measure of the man. Sure, swearing has its place but let it be exceptional rather than just linguistic litter defiling sentences.

when I hear kids swear (my teachers would have clipped me on the ear), but as B7 says above, the occasional f, c and b can be spot on and funny in conversation, less so when written down. However, I do miss out on people calling others a twit. There's something very Miss Marple-ish and genteel about it but also conveys a message.

This has been a fascinating exchange of ideas on this subject and it makes me glad to be a Massive member (!). Sorry jimmy drifting off into Planet Fluffy there for a moment.

Don't mind swearing at all in the right context and have being known to eff and jeff with wild abandon. But I really find it jarring in song. It spoils a song for me often and I'm not sure why. Maybe I want my art to lift, inspire and transcend but I also like it to inform, and shine a light into dark corners. There's something about a swear word that brings me out of a song the same way a duff chord or bum note would. Maybe it reminds me of the artifice of song-writing, making me think that 'they chose to use that word there', but that would be the same of any word that stands out sweary or not. And the non-sweary words don't bother me.

This just wouldn't be teh dame if it was called 'Its a real pain'

That word expresses more than a million others could. I get the feeling, the emotion, the desperate longing, the heartbreak, the bleakness, the pain etc etc etc

I may have told this story before - I was raised by control engineers, and in the steelworks and power stations where I worked in the 80s, the c-word was often used in a jocular way - it didn't always signify the beginning of a fight.

In 2002, one project I worked on was for a nuclear power station. The project team was under a lot of pressure, and had been for some time at the point that I joined it. The language used by everyone involved in the project was strong, partly as release-valve and partly because that's how everyone had become accustomed to speaking.

One morning, we were surprised to realise that all 4 of us in the test team had used the c-word before 8:30am, the official start time. We'd come in early to catch up, and had been very disappointed by the progress made. We realised we had to change our ways. So we did.

There is great comedy to be had in England when a large Jock (me) is given some bad news and instead of responding with traditional industrial language instead says "Crikey, that's disappointing." Jings is also good. The mood of the project lightened once we stopped swearing like professional footballers and found more inventive ways to express ourselves. "That's sub-optimal" was a funnier response to 8 test fails out of 9, with the only pass not properly recorded.

We also developed the spelling out of "S-H-ONE-T". When a female colleague had failed to print a file after an hour of frustration, she welled up with "I'll tell you what that is, it's S-H-TWO-T".

I agree with Fraser's point above - there's a drip-drip-drip where suddenly it becomes the standard language and that would make this lovely place less pleasant.

I think one of the challenges in a free speech kind of place like this is that if someone finds gratuitous swearing annoying, it could make the place uncomfortable for them. If you don't mind gratuitous swearing but there isn't really any to speak of, the lack of it doesn't actually make it uncomfortable.

But I now feel very guilty about posting that video by Tuppence and the Gang.

you cucking pempslider

Well, it appears to me that, on swearing at least, the Massive is roughly split into two camps

1) Jimmyshoes, DogFacedBoy and friends, who enjoy swearing (it stops the blog becoming Planet Fluffy, according to Mr JS).

2) LeedsBoy, me and others, who don't mind a smidge of swearing but are generally quite happy living on Planet Fluffy, thank you very much.

How can these two disparate groups live together in perfect harmony?, I hear you cry. Well, if ebony and ivory can manage it, then so can we.

I have been working on a new Word blog plug-in, the Feckin' Fluffy Filter. It shows the unexpurgated version of the site to members of camp 1), so they can enjoy all the cussing and rude words.

For members of camp 2), it replaces words that we might find offensive with less contentious words (for example, a popular sweary-word is replaced with the far more respectful "mother-cuddler").

I've been using the beta version for a couple of weeks now, and I think it's working pretty well. I've seen no swear words for ages.

Although I'm puzzled at why there's so much talk of George Osborne being a big count. I mean, he's the chancellor of the exchequer, of course he does a lot of counting.

Plus, I'm delighted that Lenny Law appears to have upped his intellectual game, most days I read Lenny proudly boasting that he's just enjoyed a mass debate.

Anyway, the Feckin' Fluffy Filter should be ready to roll out to the rest of you bar stewards soon.

I've noticed myself swearing a lot more recently... I've no idea why though. I enjoy a good swear, but I hate swearing without any imagination ("I went to the f***ing shops" - what does that add exactly?).

In reality, I'd like to imagine myself as a swearer par excellence, like Stephen Fry, for example, delivering sweary bon mots (or should that be "mal mots"?) with perfect timing and weighting. In reality, I probably just say "c**t" and "w**k" a lot when I've had a few.

Why am I swearing more these days? Fluffed if I know.

(aside: I do) its just that I don't have hangups about it.

I find its history really interesting and feel that labelling it as 'filthy\bad\rude' etc only surrounds it with some sort of naughty aura (TMFTL) that only makes it more attractive. Swearing can be brilliant in an artistic sense, the rhythm it gives language at times. I just don't buy into this theory that it is evidence of idiocy, lack of intelligence and laziness.

Its all subjective, personal and how you relate to those words. This can be affected by zillions of things including upbringing, your job, your home life, sexual politics, whether you have kids etc

I haven't noticed that the blog has got particularly sweary of late but this 'not big not clever' supercilious patronising attitude - leave it ahhhhhttt, you nerks.

Plus I don't know any word to describe Piers Morgan other than 'the c-word' - its just perfect

The following 'swear' words are acceptable on the blog:

Numpty
Nitwit
Twit
Faffing
Flippin'
Naff Off
Applemuncher
Bottom
Pillock
Wazzock (c.f. Wayne 'Wazza' Rooney)
Plum

The following profanities are not acceptable on the blog:

[CENSORED]
[CENSORED]
[CENSORED]
[CENSORED]
[CENSORED]
[CENSORED]
[CENSORED]
[CENSORED]
[CENSORED]
[CENSORED]

Sorry to come late to this with my own twopenny-worth - I'm genuinely in two minds about this.

I personally tend to swear like a trooper much of the time. I don't object to bad language perse, so much as lazy/gratuitous language (of which I can be as guilty as the next person).

As far as this site is concerned, I've never particularly objected to the language as much as the occasional snarky or abusive comment - again, I'm sure I can be guilty of this myself.

I think the single worst comment I've ever read on here was someone saying that they never read any posts by "a particular poster" and then calling them a boring c*** - but it wasn't the swearword so much as the sentiment. If I want to hear that crap, I can always go back to reading the Guardian's "Comment is (unfortunately) Free" disaster zone.

In short, it's not the word but the context and intention, shurely(?)

and don't call me Shirley

I am ashamed to say that I have in the past been known to use the word B*NO. I know it's not big or clever and I vow to try and curb my use of this most unpleasant word in the future. I unreservedly apologise to all those of a sensitive nature who may have been damaged mentally by my use of this most shocking expletive.

That may be true but I would never mention Un*ut in polite company. So I do have some standards unlike some I could mention.

I work in the building trade where the foulest of foul language is pretty much the norm. I use my fair share of it when amongst work colleagues and the f*** word gets plenty of use in my outside life too. The c*** word pops out occasionally if I'm particularly annoyed but I'm very uncomfortable hearing it when in the company of females. I also don't like hearing either word used when there are young children in earshot. This might be to do with the age I am but the c*** word in particular seems more disrespectful in the company of the nippers and womenfolk.