GREAT MOMENTS IN ACADEMIC RESEARCH

Marc Abrahams, Guardian - Expletives of Lower Working-Class Women, published in 1992 in the journal Language in Society, is a rare sociolinguistic study of this inherently provocative topic. "This article," wrote author Susan Hughes of the University of Salford, "sets out to look at the reality of the swearing used by a group of women from a deprived inner-city area."

Hughes surveyed six women in Ordsall, a part of Salford said to be characterizedocial malaise".

"My observations of these women," Hughes wrote, "showed me that, contrary to some theories, they use a strong vernacular style . . . These women are proud of their swearing: 'We've taught men to swear, foreigners what's come in the pub.' Yet they do differentiate between using swearwords in general conversation and using them with venom and/or as an insult."

That traditional reality of womanly swearing, if it is to survive, must deal with challenges. Fifteen years after the study was published, a corrupting influence came to town. A home insurance firm announced that Ordsall had attained a place on the company's young affluent professionals index. Ordsall, they said, had become a "property hotspot" attracting wealthy young professionals.