I don’t know if I agree that swearing tolerance is going down in the US workplace, as this FT article suggests. Either way, here are guidelines on how to eff your way to peer solidarity at work, British style.

“There are a few simple principles that we should follow. Don’t swear too much, as the impact is lost on repeated applications. Don’t swear at anyone, particularly not a boss or a customer. Swearing is safest in the company of people at a similar level. Senior people may swear in private but should be careful about doing it in public.”

It all depends on where you work and when the eff bomb gets dropped. Non-directional swearing as a method of expressing general frustration is widely accepted, not, though, swearing in the context of name calling (”she’s a bitch”) or directed at someone in any fashion (unless in confidence). I’ve noticed that senior people often use swearing — in small groups — to establish “cool” or a comradely feel with junior people (of course not by swearing at them). Conversely, I think junior people use swearing in the presence of a senior person to show that they are “hard.” I personally would never swear in a large meeting. I can only imagine how the following suggestion would play out at a bank:

“Indeed, in the US there is a regrettable backlash against any swearing at all. One anti-swearing consultant, writing in the US press this month, suggested that workers should set up a system of self-regulation. He recommended that employees should give a swift thumbs-down to any colleague caught ’stepping over the profanity line’.”

Yet in the UK, tolerance for swearing is going up, opines this FT columnist. Almost anything is acceptable these days, it seems:

“Shit, bollocks, bugger and bloody are all increasingly acceptable. Fuck, while off-limits 20 years ago at work, is now accepted in many offices. Cunt, on the other hand, is acceptable in almost none. Blasphemous words – damns and hells and Jesus Christs – are oddly becoming less acceptable than they used to be, especially in the US.”

Experiment: instead of our old standbys, why not try inserting a “bugger” or “bollocks” — see how that goes over, eh?