Everybody loves a good public fuck. Or shit. Or the occasional Jesus Christ.
Dr. Timothy Jay, a Psychology professor at Massachusetts College Of Liberal Arts, is a goddamn expert on the subject of cursing. He's been studying swearing and its broader implications for decades.
In February, Dr. Jay published his newest findings around the act of swearing in public (and, in particular, how this pertains to children). It's fascinating stuff. We've used Dr. Jay's data to build the chart below, which focuses on how men and women let profanity rip on the street. We've compared current data (3,190 taboo words in the adult sample) with a similar study from 1986, and we've also broken it out between the sexes.
One major takeaway? Women like to say "Oh My God" while men, you know, are partial to the utilitarian "Fuck."
Jennifer Baumgardner/Esquire
John Hendrickson is the Deputy Editor of Esquire.com, where he oversees the site's 24/7 news operation as well as all politics coverage.
