Victoria University researchers, Emma Wollum has been investigating our use of profanity, how it is changed, and what is says about us.
She says common swearing is made up of a very small number of word forms that are used in some very creative ways and The F word is the most common expletive word.
She also found that swearing is connected to our emotional vocabularies; people who know a lot of swear words tend to also have a better vocabulary overall.
Malcolm Tucker cornering a colleague, in the TV show, The Thick of It Photo: BBC
