Australians are surprisingly swearing less online than people in other countries but researchers suspect the nation is saving it for face-to-face interactions.
The University of Queensland study examined more than 1.7 billion words of online content across 20 English-speaking countries, specifically looking for 597 vulgar words.
Model Lara Bingle asked the world “so where the bloody hell are you?” in the infamous 2006 tourism campaign.
Using computational methods with linguistics, researchers narrowed down which country was swearing the most online.
Even though Australia holds a reputation for swearing regularly, the US came out on top followed by the UK.
“Some may find it disappointing,” said Dr Martin Schweinberger, lead researcher from the university’s School of Languages and Cultures.
“Australians really see vulgarity, swearing and slang as part of our culture – we’re very invested in it.”
Loading
Swear words are normalised in Australia’s everyday language, with even tourism campaigns featuring them, including the famed slogan “So where the bloody hell are you” asked by model Lara Bingle.
The ad was banned in Canada, from TV and billboards in Britain and censored in Singapore.
Read the full article here
