The World’s Worst Swear Words
Chapter 1: The spread of our favourite English four-letter words
Let’s be honest, everyone swears. In the English-speaking countries alone, a set of roughly ten words consistently accounts for over eighty percent of public swearing. And now, thanks to our increasingly connected world with its shrinking borders and ease of communication, swear words are being shared across languages like never before.
Bordeaux is one of my favourite cities, and whenever I’m in town I make it a point to stay at my regular AirBnB, a nineteenth-century Bordelaise house on the right bank of the River Garonne far from the hustle and bustle of historic downtown. One lovely afternoon, as I walked back towards the house along the shady riverbank piste de velo, enjoying the cool spring breeze while dodging speeding French cyclists zipping past me from all directions, I chance upon one of the neighbours, a friendly older woman who lived with her husband a few doors down the street. Madame Rousseau was standing outside, pointing excitedly at the little bus stop situated right in front of her home. Someone, most likely a neighbour’s adolescent son (we had a narrow list of possible suspects), had drawn a rude splash of garishly-coloured graffiti using marker pen on the glass panel of the bus stop. “Ben, c’est un gros mot qu’il a ecrit, non?” asked an…
