I finally need to stifle my swearing

Most of us, I imagine, regret things we have said to our nearest and dearest. Families are often places of verbal rough and tumble, as children test boundaries, mums and dads express their frustration, and distant uncles inadvertently put their feet in it by slagging off a much-loved cousin.

My earliest memory of remorse over words spoken in anger still makes me squirm. I was perhaps nine or 10 and we were about to set off on a family holiday. The car was packed and we were all ready for the off, but at the last minute, my father – certainly not a man governed by notions of punctuality – decided he needed to mow the lawn. Small boys don’t generally handle delay and boredom well, so by the time we were ready to go for the second time, the air was fractious.

As we got into the car, I stubbed my ankle on an umbrella that dad had left in the rear passenger footwell. It didn’t really hurt a great deal, but I was already irritated; and the sense that my father was the cause both of my general feelings of annoyance and my very minor injury led me to explode. “Dad!” I shouted, “you f***ing b*****d!”

Looking back, the shame of the incident is exacerbated by the fact that my father’s response was not to harangue me for being a disrespectful potty mouth but to calmly apologise for having left the umbrella there. We then drove away in silence.

I had got into using bad language a few years earlier, largely thanks to playing football with older (and thus cooler) kids during my first year at junior school. I knew my parents didn’t like it, and I was usually as polite as pie at home – saving my effing and jeffing for the playground. In fact, on the incredibly rare occasions I heard my parents swear, I was incredibly shocked. And it only happened when my dad hit his head on the ceiling, and even then it would be a muttered “bloody hell”.

As I got older, my language only became more foul. I realised that a swarthy oath uttered in my posh-sounding voice could often get a laugh, or diffuse a brewing argument, so it became part of my social schtick, a way to combat my shyness.

Later, when I started my professional life, I discovered that swearing still came in useful. For one thing, I was working on the edges of an industry – journalism – in which cursing was part of the culture, for good or for ill. By being sweary, I could build a sense of connection with editors and journalists, even in the often challenging territory of press regulation. What’s more, throwing out a swear word when giving a talk at a seminar or a conference often punctured people’s idea that they were in for a dull hour. I genuinely felt there was value to it.

But at a work event this week, I listened to a discussion about the language of inclusion, and in particular about the way extreme swearing can exclude people who find it offensive and upsetting. It’s obvious stuff really, but still brought me up short, as I thought back to all the times I had peppered my speech with X-rated words and had assumed nobody minded.

I’ve sworn less since I had children anyway. On the rare occasions I have heard other parents swearing in front of, or at, their kids, it has made me flinch. My libertarian attitude towards even the harshest terms has slowly but surely waned as a result. And the thought of unpleasant language creating division in a professional setting – even when the intention is primarily as a tool for humour – should make me think twice even more swiftly.

I can’t say that expletives will disappear from my lexicon entirely; sometimes no other words will do. But I’ll try to confine them to the privacy of my own home, when the children are out of earshot – and when my dad isn’t around either.