British swear words - what you can say and when you can say it

Well, here's a thing. Ofcom, the British regulator of communication (including television and radio content) has released a huge 126-page document discussing ... swear words. It purports to list every swear word and insult in the English language and to rank them in order of offensiveness. It does so in the legitimate interests of regulating British television and radio broadcasts, and what can be said when, but it does make for some riveting and salacious reading.

Now, I'm not going to list the words here, not out of prudishness, but mainly because I don't want my blog to be flagged as offensive. For the detail you will have to follow this link to the source material, and, if you want to cut to the chase, the ranked lists appear on pages 44 to 56. The words cover categories like General Swear Words and Body Parts, Sexual References, Offensive Gestures, Older People, Religious Insults, Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity, Mental Health and Physical Disability, and Race and Ethnicity.

The first three of these categories are divided into the following grades: Milder Words (generally of little concern), Medium Words (potentially unacceptable pre-watershed but acceptable post-watershed), Strong Words, (generally unacceptable pre-watershed but mostly acceptable post-watershed) and Strongest Words (highly unacceptable pre-watershed, but generally acceptable post-watershed). Incidentally, the "watershed" for television is considered to be 9pm.

Interestingly, though, the categories of Older People, Religious Insults, Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity, Mental Health and Physical Disability, and Race and Ethnicity are graded differently: Milder Words (of limited concern), Medium Words (potentially unacceptable), Strong Words, (generally unacceptable) and Strongest Words (highly unacceptable at all times, strong contextualization required). This suggests that the bar is much lower for these kinds of insults than it is for more general swear words and sexual references.

Also interesting is the fact that there are a whole bunch of words I don't even recognize, and of which I have no idea of their meaning or significance. Clearly, I have been out of the UK for a long time.