swearing

Today, the F-word is routinely used to describe how we feel, how objectionable someone is, what a bad day it is, or simply to wish someone a Happy AF Birthday. We may all frown upon swearing and profanity, but scientist Emma Byrne believes that we wouldn’t have “made it as the world’s most populous primate if we hadn’t learned to swear”. Scientist and author Emma Byrne (Courtesy the subject) The author of Swearing is Good for You: The Amazing Science of Bad Language, Byrne did her PhD in Expectation Violation…

In his introduction to Unruly, the comedian and Observer columnist David Mitchell says his book is “an anecdotal explanation of England, focusing on what I find most interesting. More often than not, that has something to do with a person wearing a sparkly metal hat.” A sort of Horrible Histories with added swearing, Unruly is divided into sections including Pre-Willy, meaning before 1066; The Dukes of Hazard (which speeds through two Williams, two Henrys, a Stephen, Richard and John); Here Comes the Reign Again (Henry…

Jennifer Lopez Once Shared She Felt Violated While Performing S*x Scene With Wesley Snipes In Money Train ( Photo Credit – Instagram ) Jennifer Lopez is a fabulous dancer, singer, and actress. There’s hardly anything the diva cannot do. She has performed intimate scenes with several actors in many Hollywood movies and has mesmerised us with her s*x appeal and confidence. But, once the experience was not good for the actress. A few years ago, she talked about doing love scenes with Wesley Snipes in Money Train and how…

The new profanity rules YouTube introduced late last year are being relaxed — with an update outlining a less restrictive policy that will allow the use of moderate and strong profanity to be used without risking demonetization. The original policy, first introduced in November, would flag any video that used rude language in the first several seconds as ineligible for advertising, with little delineation between "strong" or "moderate" swearing. The policy also seemed to apply retroactively, with many creators claiming…

YouTube is rethinking its approach to colorful language after an uproar. In a statement to The Verge, the Google brand says it's "making some adjustments" to a profanity policy it unveiled in November after receiving blowback from creators. The rule limits or removes ads on videos where someone swears within the first 15 seconds or has "focal usage" of rude words throughout, and is guaranteed to completely demonetize a clip if swearing either occurs in the first seven seconds or dominates the content. While that policy…

When Douglas Adams’s U.S. publisher asked him to substitute something less offensive for the f-word in in his novel  Life, the Universe, and Everything (one of the sequels to The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy), Adams made a cheeky decision to swap in the name of an entire country with a reputation for maintaining a diplomatic middle ground. A new linguistic analysis suggests that the choice Adams made—substituting in the word “Belgium” at every instance—may unconsciously have reflected a cross-language pattern of using…

Credit: Unsplash/CC0 Public Domain Swear words across different languages may tend to lack certain sounds such as l, r, and w, suggests research published in Psychonomic Bulletin & Review. This common pattern in profanity indicates that these sounds, called approximants, may appear less offensive to listeners. Swear words are…

Hugh Grant has jokily responded to an MP three years after they criticised him for swearing.On Saturday (10 July), it was revealed that Andrea Jenkyns , a Brexit-backing loyalist of Boris Johnson, had ben given a job .as an education minister.However, photos of her gave givingJohnson protesters the middle finger after he resigned earlier this week surfaced online.Grant reshared a tweet Jenkins sent him three years ago, in August 2019, in which she called the Notting Hill actor out for a sweary post about Johnson.“You will…