Sweary Lineker

The Grannies favourite in the making Gary Lineker got into a bit of trouble recently for using the F-word on Twitter when expressing his sheer excitement and disbelief at his team Leicester City destroying the historically more mighty Manchester United.

'So what?', you might be thinking. In actuality, Lineker was only doing what billions of other people - football fans or not - do every day... in some cases in every other sentence.

Certain media outlets though found his comments to be inappropriate, given that there is no age censorship effectively in place on Twitter. Blimey if they thought a couple of F-words from Lineker were bad, they REALLY haven't been on Twitter that much!!!

The Telegraph story

Lineker himself laughed it off. After all, if you can't swear in joyous context after such a rare moment of sporting exhilaration, when indeed can you?

The real story here though is the impact of the F-word itself.

As a child, it was an absolute no-no at home.

I'd heard it at school from my friends who had older siblings... and subsequently I told my younger brother to "F*** off!" when I was about 6 years old. I didn't get told off too much, but my parents made it clear it was not a word to use full stop as it shows a 'lack of intelligence, when other words are available.'... and many people still feel the same way about it - which is nice.

Anyway, in spite of my friends continual use of it, being a compliant sort, I did not.

Imagine my parents shock when I dropped the C-Bomb when I was 8 or 9... again my little brother was the recipient (I loved him really)

This time though it was explained to me what it meant and the offensiveness it carried. Soon after I got told about the birds and the bees, and all became clear.

If anything it put me right off!

Funnily enough though, I remember the very few times I heard my parents say the F-word and I always found it very unpleasant. Some things you just shouldn't hear from your mum and dad I guess?

As times have moved on, the use of such top drawer swearing on TV has changed massively. Yes you'd hear it in some films after the 9pm watershed, but on mainstream TV? Not much - and often certain words were dubbed.

Readers of a certain age might recall watching Die Hard get ruined by Bruce Willis exclaiming "yippie-ki-yay, kemo sabe" - not quite so impactive as the original quote. I doubt Joe Pesci would have had a career at all, given the dialogue in films such as Casino and Goodfellas. Man if ever a guy knew how to swear impactively, it's him!

On TV though, people like Harry Enfield and Paul Whitehouse used to delightfully mock such dubbing:

Harry Enfield & Paul Whitehouse - Badfellas

But as we moved into the new millennium, it slowly crept in to regular broadcasting - and not only TV drama and Big Brother (which must take much of the blame/credit) but even on chat shows too.

It became less shocking as it became the norm, and I guarantee that whatever network you watch TV on tonight, you will hear the F-word as a given and a rule, rather than an exception. And in 10 years, whether you like it or not, the C-bomb will be of the same status.

"No f***ing chance!" I hear you say...

I blame Canada.