People in Redcar swear the most in the UK (on Twitter)

Some of us (not me of course, I would never) have been known to let out our frustrations on Twitter from time to time with a crass well-placed swearword. Or two. Or three. In fact, Dr Hannah Fry and Dr Ed Manley from University College London’s Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis were so curious about where in the country the biggest potty mouths live that they analysed 1.3m Twitter messages that included location info to find out (you know, for science).

And it turns out that people do not like to live beside the seaside, as the coastal town of Redcar in North Yorkshire is home to the most virulent swearers in the UK. (Or the most virulent swearers who tweeted that week and have geo-tagging switched on, at least.) As The Independent reports, Scotland was another sweary area, with Clackmannanshire, East Ayrshire and Falkirk scoring high on the profane-o-meter.

South of the border, the citizens of Blackburn, Mansfield and Rochford also needed their mouths washing out while Oxford, Orkney, and Kensington were at the bottom of the scale. Perhaps surprisingly, people were more likely to tweet-swear in rural areas than in cities.The sweariest time was 9pm on 1 September, when Manchester United forward Danny Welbeck signed for Arsenal. (Football + swearing? That’s hard to believe!) F-bombs were the most popular while the c-word was the least.

But despite how much we hear about Twitter trolls and how heated people get over #GBBO, the researchers found that overall, only 4.2% of tweets contain swearing. That’s either a sign of a civilised society, or an invitation to try harder…

Image via Roger Gregory’s Flickr.

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Diane Shipley

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