New Zealanders may enjoy using a bit of colourful language, but according to a new international study, we’re not nearly as foul-mouthed as some might believe.
A new study undertaken by the University of Queensland examined more than 1.7 billion words of online content across 20 English-speaking countries, specifically looking for 597 vulgar words.
Researchers narrowed down which country was swearing the most online by using computational methods with linguistics.
New Zealand came in at fifth place, trailing the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, and Singapore.
Around 0.02% of New Zealand’s written word online was found to be a vulgarity.
On the other end of the scale, the least profane nations were Bangladesh, Ghana, Tanzania, and Hong Kong.
The 20 countries in the study were Australia, Bangladesh, Canada, Ghana, Hong Kong, India, Ireland, Jamaica, Kenya, Malaysia, New Zealand, Nigeria, Pakistan, Philippines, Singapore, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Tanzania, the United Kingdom and the United States.
Across the nations, “f***” was generally a favourite but there were numerous variations with use both as a verb and a noun.
In New Zealand, some of our favourite choice words included “prick”, “bloody”, and “a***hole”.
“C***” was a favourite in Great Britain, “a**hole” dominated in the US, and in Ireland, a local twist on “f*ck” reigned supreme.
NZ not ‘particularly vulgar’
University of Auckland linguistics professor Louisa Buckingham said the findings show New Zealand isn’t “particularly vulgar”, especially when compared with its cultural cousins.
“The US and UK are much more than New Zealand, and Australia is somewhat more than New Zealand,” she told 1News.
She said swearing was more prevalent and varied in the United States and the United Kingdom, despite public perceptions to the contrary.
“The study showed the US and UK not only use more [profanity] but also use a greater variety of these forms.”
Much of the study focused on blogs which made up 60% of the data.
Buckingham said this type of text was a “bit out of date”.
“Overall, people use language in their private social media spaces in a way that is different from their use of language in daily life in-person interactions.”