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Our brains swear for good reason: to excrete, deal with, increase the grit and feel to those around us. Vows can act as social glue and play a meaningful role in the way people communicate, connect and express themselves.
A new study published on Lingua analyzed over 1.7 billion online languages in 20 English-speaking regions. We have identified 597 different forms of vows, ranging from standard words to creative spellings such as “4rseholes” and acronyms such as “WTF.”
The findings challenge familiar stereotypes. Australians are often considered prolific oaths, but in reality they are actually losing in both the frequency of Americans and British swearing and the number of users they swear online.
Facts and numbers
Our research focuses on publicly available web data (excluding social media and private messaging, including news articles, organizational websites, government or institutional publications, blogs, etc.). Vulgar words accounted for 0.036% of all words in the dataset from the US, followed by 0.025% in UK data and 0.022% in Australian data.
Vulgar language is relatively rare in terms of overall word frequency, but was used by a considerable number of individuals.
From 12% to 13.3% of Americans, around 10% of British people and 9.4% of Australians used at least one vulgar term in their data. Overall, the most frequent vulgar word was “fuck.” With all the variations, it has become a stunning 201 different form.
We focused on online languages that do not include social media, as large-scale comparisons require robust and dedicated datasets. In our case, we used a global web-based English (Glowbe) corpus. It is specifically designed to compare how English is used online in different regions.
So, were our findings affected by the online data we used?
Translating the results comes from research that is happening at the same time as us. One study analyzed the use of “FUCK” in X’s social networks and examined how network size and strength influenced the UK, US and Australian oaths.
Using data from over 435,000 users and 5,660 networks, including 7.8 billion words, we found what we did. Americans use “fucking” most often, while Australians use it the least, but there are the most creative variations of spelling (comfortable for those who are disappointed with the statistics of online sworn in).
Americans retain a relatively conservative attitude towards public morality, and their high oath rates are surprising. Cultural contradictions may reflect the country’s strong individualistic culture. Americans place emphasis on personal expression, especially in private or anonymous settings, such as the Internet.
Meanwhile, public displays of the oath are often frowned upon in the United States. This is due to the prolonged influence of religious norms, particularly as a violation of moral decency.
Importantly, “shit,” the only religiously based oath word in our dataset, was most frequently used by Americans.
Research suggests that oaths are more acceptable in Australia’s public discourse. Certainly, the public broadcasts of Australian Oaths often surprise visitors. The long-term road safety slogan, “If you drink, drive, you’re a bloody idiot” is impressive. Such languages are rare elsewhere in official messages.
Australians may be comfortable swearing in person, but our findings show that they dial it online and dial it.
In terms of a particular form of vulgar preference, Americans strongly preferred variations of “ass (hole)”, Irish people favored “feck”, British people prefer “pussy”, and Pakistanis leaned towards “butt”.
The only statistically significant aversion we found was among Americans who tend to avoid the word “bloody” (folk wisdom claims to be blasphemous).
People in countries where English is dominant language (such as the US, the UK, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Ireland) tend to pledge lexical diversity more frequently and more than people who are not dominant English, such as India, Pakistan, Hong Kong, Ghana and the Philippines. This pattern applies to both frequency and creativity in oath.
However, Singapore ranked fourth in our study in terms of frequency of oath ahead of Australia, Ireland and Canada, ahead of Australia, Ireland and Canada. Singapore’s English is increasingly seen as a native language, not as a second language, and as a tool of identity, belonging and creativity. Young Singaporeans use social oaths to oppose authority, especially given the government’s strict rules regarding public languages.
One of the reasons we may have seen so swear among non-native English speakers is that it is rarely taught. Despite its frequency and social usefulness, swearing alongside humor and informal speeches is often excluded from language education.
Cultural, social and technological changes reshape linguistic norms and blur the already blurred lines between informal and formal, private and public languages. Consider Australia’s contribution to the July Oxford English Dictionary update. Expressions such as “make potatoes tense” (urinate), “no wakker,” “wucking wucking no” (from “fucking in no fucking aris”).
Oath and vulgarity are not merely lumps or abusive. Although they can be used harmfully, research has shown that they are consistently useful for important communication functions. Colorful language expresses humor and emotions, solidarity and relieves tension.
It is clear that oaths are not a bad habit that can be easily kicked, such as biting your nails or smoking indoors. In addition to that, history shows that telling people not to swear is one of the best ways to keep your pledge alive.
