What the X*&^$%?

How many curse words do you say in a day?

Several media outlets have published this week a link between how much people curse and the economy. Supposedly, people are cussing now more than they ever did, and it reflects a foul economy.

Seems like everything in news always comes back to the economy, doesn't it?

Here's a few quotes I found on Poynter:

Msnbc.com reports:
According to Los Angeles psychotherapist Nancy Irwin, a foul economy is prompting more outbursts of foul language. "There are a lot of elements that are out of our control right now and as a result, there's a lot more frustration, a lot more fear and anxiety," she says. "When people feel that, many cuss. Swearing is something that gives us an instantaneous release."

While not everyone swears, field studies indicate that those who do utter 80 to 90 taboo words per day, out of an average of 15,000 to 16,000 words we speak daily.While swearing has many uses, two-thirds of swearing is linked to anger and frustration, says Timothy Jay, professor of psychology at the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts in North Adams, and author of a just-released survey of the "Utility and Ubiquity of Taboo Words."
During tough times, that number can go up.

We don't seem to have much will to clean up our language. Look at this 2006 story:
At this point, it's hard to find people working to stop swearing in everyday conversation. "There are so many other issues to deal with that people consider of a much more serious nature that they're not devoting time towards cleaning up language," said James O'Connor, author of "Cuss Control," a self-help book on how to curb swearing.Demand for O'Connor's book was initially high, and it sold through three printings in 2000 on an imprint of Random House. O'Connor has been mentioned in hundreds of newspaper articles and on dozens of television shows including "The Oprah Winfrey Show." But sales have since tapered off, and O'Connor is now self-publishing the book through iUniverse."For the enormous amount of publicity I got, I thought it would sell a lot better. It remains an extreme mystery to me, to my literary agent, why this didn't take off," O'Connor said.

You know, there really is nothing new about profanity. It is fairly safe to say that ever since we have had language, we have had ways to make it profane. Take for example, the "F" word. Historians have traced it back over the centuries; maybe as far back as 1475 it appeared in writing.

Of course, it was spoken before that.Shakespeare and even Scripture contain words that might not be spoken in decent company, as The New York Times noted in 2005.This piece (it contains some vulgar language, of course) describes how our concept of profanity evolves over time.