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How Swearing at Work Works · Stuff You Should Know

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  Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
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  Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff you should know
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  Speaker 1: from house stuff works dot com? Welcome to the house
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  Speaker 1: Stuff Works Podcast. I'm editor Candice Gibson, joined today by
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  Speaker 1: my trustee staff writer Josh Clark. Josh are you today great? Candice?
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  Speaker 1: How are you? I'm well? Well, that sounds like it
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  Speaker 1: can only mean one thing. Today's topic of choice? Is
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  Speaker 1: swearing at work a good thing? Josh? You seem to
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  Speaker 1: be a pretty gunghir advocate of this. Why is that? Candice?
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  Speaker 1: You remember my where your Hawaiian Shirt to Work? Campaign? Um?
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  Speaker 1: The whole thing was just a drive to get everybody
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  Speaker 1: loosen up and get to know each other. Well, it
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  Speaker 1: didn't take as well as I had hoped, So now
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  Speaker 1: I'm starting a swear at work campaign? Oh you can?
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  Speaker 1: I know exactly where this came from. This article you're
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  Speaker 1: it called is swearing at Work a good thing? Yeah? Yeah?
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  Speaker 1: And this is based on an actual study. We're not
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  Speaker 1: just like tossing own words for fun here. This came
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  Speaker 1: out of Great Britain, the University of East Anglia, where
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  Speaker 1: essentially some researchers looked at what happened to people who
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  Speaker 1: swore in the workplace? Yeah, they hung around a mail
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  Speaker 1: order warehouse. Yeah, and they were looking to see if
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  Speaker 1: swearing at work alienated coworkers or if it actually brought
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  Speaker 1: them closer together with you know, all the salty language
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  Speaker 1: and people really showing their true colors. Sure, sure, I
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  Speaker 1: could see a lot of cheeky Brits running around the
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  Speaker 1: mail order warehouse just cursed in up the storm. You know.
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  Speaker 1: It had to have been a really fun study to do,
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  Speaker 1: I imagine. Well, I think so. And it was pretty
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  Speaker 1: successful too, because the hypothesis was correct. It really did
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  Speaker 1: establish better relationships among employees because they could feel like
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  Speaker 1: they were really expressing themselves and really communicating with everyone
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  Speaker 1: in an authentic way. Sure, it's a it's pretty much
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  Speaker 1: basic social bonding theory. The more you share of yourself,
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  Speaker 1: the more you can establish social bonds like trust. I mean,
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  Speaker 1: how can you truly trust a co worker if they've
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  Speaker 1: never heard you swear? I mean, think about how much
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  Speaker 1: closer you and I are thanks to the word son
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  Speaker 1: of you know that kind of thing. I know I
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  Speaker 1: say this every time you turned an article to me.
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  Speaker 1: But it's interesting, especially about this study is that the
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  Speaker 1: mail room workers, like you were referring to these sort
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  Speaker 1: of lower level employees. Yeah, they really let it rip
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  Speaker 1: all the time. But when they examined how the executives
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  Speaker 1: behaved and spoke to each other, no one really cussed
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  Speaker 1: that much. It was a little bit more reserved and refined. Right. Well,
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  Speaker 1: the studies authors were saying that they hope that while
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  Speaker 1: management might not swear, uh, they they want to see
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  Speaker 1: hr directors maybe look the other way or even encourage
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  Speaker 1: it because it does develop social bonds. But you know,
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  Speaker 1: the East Anglia study really didn't, you know, put the
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  Speaker 1: whole thing to rest. This is a pretty whether or
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  Speaker 1: not we should allow swearing in our culture, whether it
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  Speaker 1: be on work or television or radio, is a pretty
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  Speaker 1: big ongoing battle. It really is. And I now, for instance,
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  Speaker 1: I was looking at the FCC and some of the
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  Speaker 1: rules that they have about swearing and the idea of
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  Speaker 1: a fleeting expletive, which is essentially when you just say
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  Speaker 1: like hot pie and it's not really in context with
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  Speaker 1: anything relating to sexual content or bathroom humor. Sometimes the
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  Speaker 1: sec will lett networks get away with it. But when
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  Speaker 1: you're talking about and there's a toilet in the same sentence.
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  Speaker 1: That's not gonna fly. No, I agree. Um. And the
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  Speaker 1: FCC is actually as strict as you might think their
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  Speaker 1: standards are. They're not strict enough for some people. Have
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  Speaker 1: you heard of the Parents Television Council? Yes? Some more? Okay,
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  Speaker 1: Well they actually you may be upset about this. They
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  Speaker 1: went after the producers of one of your favorite shows,
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  Speaker 1: Gossip Girl, because they had a they who are you
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  Speaker 1: really getting the hang of this swearing it or campaign? Well,
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  Speaker 1: you know that I've had to take off my Hawaiian
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  Speaker 1: sure in mine as well. Yes, I appreciate that too. Um.
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  Speaker 1: So they go after Gossip Girl for this kind of
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  Speaker 1: steamy ad promo campaign that they came up with, and
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  Speaker 1: they all so didn't like. Um thirty rocks milf Island episode.
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  Speaker 1: Did you see that one? It was a good one,
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  Speaker 1: but the Parents Television Council didn't like it. Actually, these
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  Speaker 1: people are pretty scientific. They've released studies of how much
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  Speaker 1: of an increase in profanity there's been on television over
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  Speaker 1: a set number of years. So for instance, and this
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  Speaker 1: is during the Family Hour, which is eight to nine pm, Um,
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  Speaker 1: there is a increase from two thousand one to two
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  Speaker 1: thousand six in in Profanity Right, they found eight hundred
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  Speaker 1: and fifteen foul wards in a hundred and eighty hours
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  Speaker 1: of programming, which is four point five three swears an hour.
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  Speaker 1: The most amazing thing is that somebody actually sat there
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  Speaker 1: and watched a hundred and eighty hours of television programming
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  Speaker 1: counted everyone of the swears. Well, clearly I'm in the
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  Speaker 1: wrong business. But if you want to check out more
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  Speaker 1: of our research, re Josh's article on is swearing at work?
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  Speaker 1: A good thing? On how stuff works dot com. It's
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  Speaker 1: been great. For more on this and thousands of other topics,
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  Speaker 1: visit how stuff works dot com. Let us know what
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  Speaker 1: you think. Send an email to podcast at how stuff
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  Speaker 1: works dot com. Brought to you by the reinvented two
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  Speaker 1: thousand twelve camera. It's ready, are you