OPINION: Potty mouths the least of our woes

BAD WORDS?: Swear words are abhorrent to some - but there are far worse uses of the English language out there.

Apparently, New Zealand women swear too much.

At least according to The Press journalist Martin van Beynen, who lamented the overuse of four letter words by his female counterparts in a recent opinion piece.

According to van Beynen, "ladies" swearing is "demeaning", "grating" and "unappealing".

I am probably one of these fallen women van Beynen refers to -- having been accused many a time of possessing a mouth unfit with which to kiss my mother.

My parents weren't fans of curse words. "Swearing is for gutter girls" , said my Dad.

I attended a strict Anglican girls' school and swearing was commonplace in the classroom. In a restrictive, pressure-cooker academic environment, cursing was our ultimate subversion.

I find swearing is a release -- there's nothing like that visceral relief when angry or stressed. Sometimes, "oh how terrible" doesn't cut the mustard.

Of course, swearing is abhorrent to some. Because of religious persuasions. Or they find it aggressive. Or consider it simply bad manners.

Martin van Beynen points out expletives have become overused -- and have thus become tedious.

Curse words, he argues, "add a bit of spice -- but they should be used as sparingly as chilli powder and not in every dish".

We do swear unnecessarily these days -- slipping in the "F bomb" when we're describing going to get the milk, or that time a red sock made it into the white washing. Without urgency or emotion, expletives lose their punch, and become simply ... unpleasant-sounding words.

But, honestly? When it comes to language, we're hypocrites.

Stephen Fry put it beautifully in an interview: some of the worst things we do as humans are torture and murder ... but one of the best things is "making love to one another".

says Fry; "We're okay with saying 'the traffic was torture ', but when we use the F word, the word describing continuing our species, it's wicked and irresponsible."

We get offended by cursing, yet we still manage to slip oppressive words such as 'fag', 'dyke', 'tranny', or 'n*****' into our conversation.

We say women use too many F bombs, but we'll defend a chief executive who uses demeaning language to address his female staff.

We don't swear around our children, yet we've no problem using things like mental illnesses, disabilities or sexual orientations as synonyms for "bad" within their earshot.

I understand swearing does cause discomfort for some. As someone who engages with the community, respect for all walks of life is paramount -- and, sometimes, that means cleaning up my vocabulary.

But personally, when it comes to the English language -- I'd say a few four letter words are the least of our problems.