It might go against social etiquette, but scientists believe there may be a link between swearing and honesty.
Researchers from the Netherlands, the UK, the US and Hong Kong say that people who use profane language are less likely to be associated with lying and deception.
By profanity, scientists mean “language that contains sexual references, blasphemy or other vulgar terms”.
Swearing is often “related to the expression of emotions such as anger, frustration or surprise”, but can also be used to entertain. Think Frankie Boyle … or Gordon Ramsay in Hell’s Kitchen.
As part of the study, scientists carried out two surveys – the first one was small-scale and involved 275 participants while the second, much larger one analysed data from 75,000 Facebook users.
The volunteers from the smaller group were asked to rate their reasons for using profanity in their speech. They then took part in a lie test to determine whether they were being truthful or “simply responding in the way they thought was socially acceptable”.
In the second study, researchers looked at the use of swear words among Facebook users in their online social interactions.
They found that those who swear were also more likely to use pronouns like “I” and “me”, while those who regularly posted short, simple messages were the least likely to swear.
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Analysis from both groups found those who swore more also tended to use language patterns related to honesty.
The researchers also claimed that Donald Trump’s use of swear words in some of his US election campaign speeches made him appear more genuine than his rivals.
Dr David Stillwell, a lecturer at the University of Cambridge and a co-author of the paper, said: “The relationship between profanity and dishonesty is a tricky one.
“Swearing is often inappropriate but it can also be evidence that someone is telling you their honest opinion. Just as they aren’t filtering their language to be more palatable, they’re also not filtering their views.”
The research is published in the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science.
