idealpeople blog

We were intrigued earlier in the week when came across an article about swearing in the workplace. According to researchers, swearing relieves stress and improves staff morale.

Once we got over the initial shock that someone had found the time to research this, we became a little more intrigued - particularly after reading some of the comments posted, which include:

Swearing is called “swearing” because it’s not socially acceptable. To imply it should become acceptable is very sad. No one with any decency like [sic] to hear foul lanuage. If you can’t control what you say you’ve lost control of your thoughts.

I wouldn’t dream of swearing at work, it wouldn’t sound right. I might occassionally forget myself and say something i shouldn’t but it wouldn’t be a really horrible word enough to offend or embarras [sic] me.

I now have my own professional practice and neither I nor my staff swear. Swearing is out of place in the office. However before I set up on my own I did work in a practice where the owner constantly swore. I found it disgusting and intimidating. Swearing may be acceptable on a building site but never in a professional environment.

Whilst we’ll try to keep out of a debate on the morality of swearing, and absolutely don’t condone the use of language which when taken in context may be offensive, we find it hard to believe that a workplace would be such that individuals would be punished or looked down upon for the way in which they use and understand language.

Like it or not, language is largely subjective, in that different words mean different things to different people. The meanings of words depends largely upon the environment in which someone was bought up, and the language that person was exposed to when they acquired their language. There’s an argument in here which could say that enforcing a particular working environment on someone for whom swearing (in context, at appropriate times) is normal isn’t a million miles away from discrimination.

Can swearing be good enough for a building site but “not for a professional environment”, and what does it mean if that’s the case?

Answers on a postcard please….