However, Australia\u2019s online swearing came second for breadth and creativity, with Britain topping this \u201cbetter indicator\u201d showing \u201crichness of repertoire\u201d, Schweinberger says. The Brits topped the list for many finely grained phrases that were \u201ca little bit weird\u201d, he says. \u201cOne was \u2018knob-gobbler\u2019. I thought, that\u2019s beautiful.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bronson called Ines \u2018a cunt\u2019 at the commitment ceremony in Married at First Sight Australia in 2019. The word wasn\u2019t bleeped out. Photograph: Channel Nine<\/p>\n
\u201cAustralians were [also] very creative in the number of forms they use [such as] bloody, crap, idiot, damn. Whereas Americans, when they use vulgarity, they focus on fuck and shit,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
Overall, the British used \u201ccunt\u201d much more than Australians online, according to the study, but importantly the database used statistics collected in 2012 that did not include Australian blogs or social media posts. While Schweinberger agrees \u201ccunt\u201d has \u201clost its misogynistic meaning in Australia\u201d, he adds: \u201cI wouldn\u2019t be sure about that in the US because they really shy away from it. It\u2019s a very harsh word there.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lexicographer Amanda Laugesen, the director and chief editor of the Australian National Dictionary, says popular culture \u201cdoes help to break down taboos\u201d. \u201cIf you are hearing more of that in popular culture or online, it does help to shift the nature of what we think is acceptable.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kath & Kim pushed boundaries in 2003 on the ABC when Kim shouted, \u201cChardonnay, Chardonnay, you pack of shunts\u201d \u2013 but by 2019, contestants on Australian versions of The Bachelor and Married at First Sight were uttering the word \u201ccunt\u201d without being censored in the edit.<\/p>\n
Laugesen predicts Australians\u2019 \u2018creativity with swear words\u2019 will continue to \u2018flourish\u2019. Photograph: Ashley St George\/The Guardian<\/p>\n
\u201cTV stations were playing on controversy,\u201d Laugesen says. \u201cThey made a big deal about it in the commercials that somebody was going to say this word.\u201d<\/p>\n
Laugesen is about to release a second edition of Rooted: An Australian History of Bad Language<\/a>, noting that since the book\u2019s first publication in 2020 evidence has emerged of \u201cyoung [Australian] people identifying the amelioration of the C word and the creative uses of the C word as being particularly Australian, which is fascinating\u201d, citing the example of the portmanteau \u201cshitcunt\u201d for a particularly bad person.<\/p>\n Laugesen is referring to a 2025 thesis<\/a> by Monash University PhD philosophy student Dylan Swayne Hughes which used online survey data and recorded commentary from 49 students and seven teachers across three Victorian high schools. In it, Hughes writes: \u201cFor some participants, cunt even seems to have undergone a process of enregisterment<\/a>, becoming evaluated as a significant part of Australian culture and identity.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cSome of the older feminists I\u2019ve spoken to still felt that was a misogynistic word,\u201d Laugesen says. \u201cBut as with many words, that baggage and meaning shifts across time, so it\u2019s lost that kind of cultural meaning or even people thinking of it as a bodily descriptor. Now it\u2019s really just an insult.\u201d<\/p>\n Laugesen sees our broader use of swearing as a \u201cperformance of Australianness\u201d arising from Australians\u2019 self-perception as \u201cmore informal\u201d and \u201canti-authority\u201d compared to other predominantly English-speaking countries. Emerging from convicts, bushmen and \u201cDigger\u201d soldiers in the first world war, vulgar vernacular is celebrated in Australia today in phrases such as \u201cI\u2019m not here to fuck spiders\u201d (meaning, \u201cI don\u2019t have time to waste\u201d) or \u201ccunning as a shithouse rat\u201d, she says.<\/p>\n \u201cLanguage is very much tied to ideas of Australian identity in a way that you wouldn\u2019t say, I think, of the US or the UK,\u201d she says. \u201cThere\u2019s an argument to say, what else does Australia have in terms of an idea around itself, around the Australian character and Australian values? Language is one of those things we use to make up an idea of what is Australian.\u201d<\/p>\n
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