Message from administrator:

Swearing so undermines intelligence and talent

Swearing has always been a sign of poor vocabulary – and it still is, no matter how “streetwise” and cool some tv producers think it makes their work appear.

I remember my school teachers telling me that swearing simply made you look ill educated, lazy and a bit thick – not grown up and sophisticated as we all mistakenly supposed as teenagers.  It didn’t mean we all matured into saints without dropping the odd F word – but apart from glaring exceptions like Bob Geldof and Gordon Ramsay – whose swearing so undermines their intelligence and talent – my generation swears only when we’re so stressed out that we lose control. Invariably, when I  swear (usually at myself during DIY sessions), I feel horrendously guilty and automatically scan the room in panic half expecting a  disapproving glare from my mum (even though she lives a hundred miles away on the South Coast).

My boys think I have ears the size of an elephant – I can hear them swear three or four rooms away – and I always yell a reprimand! I tell them off and sharply remind them that, whatever is acceptable within their own groups, I won’t have it at home. I’m not daft enough to think they don’t swear like troopers at times – but they do need to know that there’s a time and a place. I’d like to still think that TV – which young producers often forget is inside our homes – is a part of my personal life, too. I’m offended that anyone thinks I want their filthy language inside my living room.

The disapproving glare is dying out – and that’s the problem. There’s no caution, little thought to the use of  swearing ( and violence and sex scenes).  It’s like finding we suddenly have a generation of chefs who don’t appreciate the subtlety of herbs and flavourings, but instead toss the whole spice rack into the recipe. The result is something that’s fun only for the creators – it’s unpalatable to the rest of us.

This article first appeared in Yours Magazine 200