What the chuffin' 'eck is this?

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Ajarn Philip
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What the chuffin' 'eck is this?

Post by Ajarn Philip »

LONDON (AFP) - Regular swearing at work can help boost team spirit among staff, allowing them to express better their feelings as well as develop social relationships, according to a study by researchers.

Yehuda Baruch, a professor of management at the University of East Anglia, and graduate Stuart Jenkins studied the use of profanity in the workplace and assessed its implications for managers.

They assessed that swearing would become more common as traditional taboos are broken down, but the key appeared to be knowing when such language was appropriate and when to turn to blind eye.

The pair said swearing in front of senior staff or customers should be seriously discouraged or banned, but in other circumstances it helped foster solidarity among employees and express frustration, stress or other feelings.

"Employees use swearing on a continuous basis, but not necessarily in a negative, abusive manner," said Baruch, who works in the university's business school in Norwich.

Banning swear words and reprimanding staff might represent strong leadership, but could remove key links between staff and impact on morale and motivation, he said.

"We hope that this study will serve not only to acknowledge the part that swearing plays in our work and our lives, but also to indicate that leaders sometimes need to 'think differently' and be open to intriguing ideas.

"Managers need to understand how their staff feel about swearing. The challenge is to master the 'art' of knowing when to turn a blind eye to communication that does not meet their own standards."

The study, "Swearing at work and permissive leadership culture: when anti-social becomes social and incivility is acceptable", is published in the latest issue of the Leadership and Organisational Development Journal.




Have I been away from the UK for too long, or is this just a load of **** ballocks?
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Re: What the chuffin' 'eck is this?

Post by gma »

Have I been away from the UK for too long, or is this just a load of **** ballocks?
Just noticed this post (nothing personal but so busy in new posts and active topics forgot to scan through unanswered topics, of which there seem to be quite a number!)

Answer is that you should ride a bus, tube or a train in London next time you comeover and try and keep your jaw from dropping - booted and suited city gents, sweet looking old ladies, teenagers and all sorts of young persons! (In fact it's a shock when near someone in their 20s or younger when their conversation isn't peppered!) As for the city boys (and worse, the girls) - whether in work, bar, pubs or just out and about they'd put a sailor to shame!!

We should have a M's M style thread to see who can find the most shocking person cursing/swearing and in what situation!

( Ifeel the omnipresence of Alan P5age and his hyper links here tho'!! No BBC staff xmas party clips, puhleeze! :lol: !)
Last edited by gma on Thu May 15, 2008 4:22 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: What the chuffin' 'eck is this?

Post by jhopgood »

I despair about the amount of money poured into meaningless research.
Immediately after leaving CH I did a student apprenticeship with Vickers Ltd, Crayford, where the first 4 months were spent in the Apprentice school. Swearing was the norm then and as far as I can see, nothing has changed. Most of my fellow apprentices were from one of the local secondary mods, where they seemed to spend most of their time avoiding lessons.
It was the mid 60's and I remember trying to explain to one lad that "sixteen vestal vergins" from "Whiter Shade of Pale", were something other than ships.
One poor lad, a Sikh, (although that has no relevance), was nearly thrown out as an apprentice as he couldn't make any part accurately. Chatting to him, I discovered that he couldn't read English. How he got through the system I will never understand.
I went to Woolwich Poly to do an HND and meet a different level apprentice, and they all swore, according to circumstances.
Normally management/worker conversations employed a lower level of profanity but there again, it depended on the location.
Shop floor - swear, Drawing Office - maybe, Manager's Office - think about it unless getting a b......ing, in which case, swearing was expected.
Managers swore or not according to circumstances, but not normally between themselves.
So what has the learned professor from Norwich Business school learned?
B..... all.
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Re: What the chuffin' 'eck is this?

Post by Jo »

gma wrote:
Have I been away from the UK for too long, or is this just a load of **** ballocks?
Just noticed this post (nothing personal but so busy in new posts and active topics forgot to scan through unanswered topics, of which there seem to be quite a number!)

Answer is that you should ride a bus, tube or a train in London next time you comeover and try and keep your jaw from dropping - booted and suited city gents, sweet looking old ladies, teenagers and all sorts of young persons! (In fact it's a shock when near someone in their 20s or younger when their conversation isn't peppered!) As for the city boys (and worse, the girls) - whether in work, bar, pubs or just out and about they'd put a sailor to shame!!

We should have a M's M style thread to see who can find the most shocking person cursing/swearing and in what situation!

( Ifeel the omnipresence of Alan P5age and his hyper links here tho'!! No BBC staff xmas party clips, puhleeze! :lol: !)
Reminds me of when I was visiting family in Ireland a few years ago, and a couple of very prim and sedate elderly spinster sisters who were friends of the family took me out for lunch. One of them was a little deaf and spoke quite loudly. She was bemoaning the lack of standards amongst today's youth.. "they say 'f*ck' all the time, you know". (never mind the modesty asterisks that the forum software insists on, she actually came out with the f word itself). Yep, my jaw well and truly dropped. Did I really hear her correctly or did I misunderstand her accent? But it went on......"f*ck this, f*ck that, f*ck, all the time. And I don't like that word". I wanted to say "for someone who doesn't like it, you don't seem to mind repeating it over and over", but thought better of it. But my flabber was well and truly gasted :roll:
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Re: What the chuffin' 'eck is this?

Post by Wuppertal »

Reminds me perhaps unfortunately of my 4 year-old cousin!

My uncle, Bangkok resident of 20 years, gets extremely stressed on a daily basis by the maniacal driving. When someone cut him up or pushed into a non-existant gap in front of him or threatened to wipe him out, he sometimes used to exclaim "for f**k's sake!" But his son sadly began to pick up the phrase, and when he saw what he thought to be a bad other driver, he would say the same exlamation! So my uncle stopped the swearing and instead changed it to something like "silly driver". He also explained to his son that the f-word and phrase is strictly for grown-ups only. But now, when an incident happens on the road and my uncle utters, "silly driver", his son corrects him and says "no, Daddy! You're a grown-up, you're supposed to say "for f**k's sake!""
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Post by Ajarn Philip »

Wuppertal wrote:Reminds me perhaps unfortunately of my 4 year-old cousin!

My uncle, Bangkok resident of 20 years, gets extremely stressed on a daily basis by the maniacal driving. When someone cut him up or pushed into a non-existant gap in front of him or threatened to wipe him out, he sometimes used to exclaim "for f**k's sake!" But his son sadly began to pick up the phrase, and when he saw what he thought to be a bad other driver, he would say the same exlamation! So my uncle stopped the swearing and instead changed it to something like "silly driver". He also explained to his son that the f-word and phrase is strictly for grown-ups only. But now, when an incident happens on the road and my uncle utters, "silly driver", his son corrects him and says "no, Daddy! You're a grown-up, you're supposed to say "for f**k's sake!""
I didn't realise it at the time, but I used the word 'dipstick' to describe incompetent drivers (i.e. everyone behind a wheel except me). It obviously struck a linguistic chord with my daughter, who chose the library to reveal how much she liked the word...
dipstickdipstickDIPSTICKDIPSTICKDIPSTICKDIPSTICKDIPSTICKDIPSTICKDIPSTICK

At moments such as that my parental tactic was to step back a pace or two and ask anyone around whose child this was...
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Re: What the chuffin' 'eck is this?

Post by J.R. »

Wuppertal wrote:Reminds me perhaps unfortunately of my 4 year-old cousin!

My uncle, Bangkok resident of 20 years, gets extremely stressed on a daily basis by the maniacal driving. When someone cut him up or pushed into a non-existant gap in front of him or threatened to wipe him out, he sometimes used to exclaim "for f**k's sake!" But his son sadly began to pick up the phrase, and when he saw what he thought to be a bad other driver, he would say the same exlamation! So my uncle stopped the swearing and instead changed it to something like "silly driver". He also explained to his son that the f-word and phrase is strictly for grown-ups only. But now, when an incident happens on the road and my uncle utters, "silly driver", his son corrects him and says "no, Daddy! You're a grown-up, you're supposed to say "for f**k's sake!""
Or eldest grand-daughter, on learning to speak suddenly came out with............

"For Duck Steak !!"

We were in hysterics !
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Re: What the chuffin' 'eck is this?

Post by cj »

In the past I have been fairly free with my language, which is fine by older daughter (13) who acts as the moral guardian of the house by spelling out all the rude words when repeating a story, but decided I ought to set an example when I heard younger daughter (4) exclaiming "b*gger" and, worse, " f*ckit" when she dropped something. One of our favourite activities when she was 2 was getting her to say the word 'pink' as it came out sounding like 'bitch'. I like a bit of inventive swearing and abuse though. My Dad used to call people snotgobbling rats which I rather liked, and was by far and away the most clean of his sayings.
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Re: What the chuffin' 'eck is this?

Post by Ajarn Philip »

I try to put as many obscene words together as possible - somehow it doesn't sound quite so awful. Unfortunately it would be ridiculous to try to reproduce on this rather prudish (sorry, but it ain't half bl**dy true) forum, but I'm sure you can imagine. I also quite like "May the fleas of a thousand camels infest your armpits" which is quite inoffensive (unless you believe in curses) and must appeal to lovers of The Sheikh (so to speak).
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Post by Katharine »

Ajarn Philip wrote: At moments such as that my parental tactic was to step back a pace or two and ask anyone around whose child this was...
I always found that a bit difficult as I had two very fair haired boys in Sabah, Borneo. It was very rare that I could ever disown them!
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Re: What the chuffin' 'eck is this?

Post by Tim_MaA_MidB »

Fword warning....

http://www.nailmaster.ru/****.html

[edit]
haha couldnt post the link... replace asterisks for the word with the letters k, u, c and f in it.
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Post by sejintenej »

Ajarn Philip wrote: I didn't realise it at the time, but I used the word 'dipstick' to describe incompetent drivers (i.e. everyone behind a wheel except me).
I like to be moderately controlled, at least when in company. When I am annoyed by something I merely pronounce "Sugar". However, when the crime is even worse I fall back on the outpourings of a certain CH master (I think it was Mr Bourne) who had done time in India and would mutter in a loud voice "ooloo" (which I understand is 'mentally deficient idiot' in some Indian language.)

What I come out with when alone is for my ears only - and competes with the outpourings of some of the floosies where I used to work like the "c" and "a" words (and are way beyond what any sailor would dare utter).
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Post by midget »

A few days ago, there was a TV programme of outtakes from messed up interviews, news items etc, mainly people having fits of the giggles, but my lasting memory will be of the normally po-faced Saint Huw Edwards looking straight at the camera and very clearly saying "*ucking *ell".
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Post by nastymum »

When marking English essays I have lost count of the number of 'Montagues and Copulates' and 'Catholics and Prostitutes ' I have ignored but I still smile at the Art teacher who berated a seemingly benign child who when questioned about her picture had said it was ' a pile of sh@t'. He was forced to grovel for several terms when he realised she had really drawn ' a pirate ship'.
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Post by cj »

And the year 1 child who asked her teacher how to spell 'sex'. After the initial shock, the teacher asked why she wanted to spell 'sex'. "Well, I'm writing about insects and I've got as far as 'in' " came the answer.

On a visit with a group of 8 year old primary children to Hampton Court, one of them nearly got me going when they asked about the people wandering around in Tudor costume, specifically pointing to a rather large and uplifted cod piece and asking what it was for. A bit of quick thinking on my part produced the answer 'it's a sort of pocket'. The children seemed quite happy with that. Phew!
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