Get the free Morning Headlines email for news from our reporters across the world
Sign up to our free Morning Headlines email
Swear words like f*** and s*** have become so commonplace in the UK that they are used merely to emphasise points rather than cause offence, a linguistic expert has said.
It came as BBC Radio 4 presenter Mishal Husain stunned Today listeners when she said the word “s***” seven times in one minute during an interview with James Cleverly.
“There was the time it was reported [that] you had called a government policy was ‘bats***’, there was the personal place you referred to in parliament that was a ‘s***hole’”, Husain, 50, who has hosted the show for a decade, said.
Husain and Cleverly clashes on the airwaves
(Getty)
While Cleverly, 54, did not deny calling the Rwanda scheme “bats***”, he hit back at claims he used the derogatory term to describe Labour MP Alex Cunningham’s Stockton North constituency in the House of Commons last November.
”You didn’t use the word ‘s***hole’ in parliament?” Husain challenged Cleverly, who reiterated: “No, I didn’t.”
The car crash interview continued: “You used the word ‘s***’ didn’t you,” Husain challenged Cleverly.
“Yes I did, but the point is what you just accused me of is very very different and completely wrong,” he replied.
Dr Robbie Love, an English Language lecturer at Aston University, said Brits now swear casually for comic effect, express surprise, show solidarity with peers aswell as to abuse someone.
He said: “Swearing, as with all language use, is entirely context dependent and context specific. It’s what you do with the word and the various functions, as far as performed, that informs the perception of how acceptable it is.”
On Husain, he said” “Rather, she’s referring to the word that [Cleverly allegedly] used and asking whether he said it. In that context, I would argue that it’s more likely to be considered acceptable, than if she suddenly said at the end of the story, ‘Well, that was a load of s***, wasn’t it?’”
He told The Guardian that it might be part of a strategy from the interviewer to “rattle” the Home Secretary adding he didn’t believe anybody would “genuinely be offended” by the context used.