Irish Examiner view: Context matters

A judge in the UK has said expletives were 'fairly commonplace'. Picture: iStock

Will industrial language ever be the same again?

Those who disapprove of cursing in public may be interested in the determination of a UK employment tribunal judge on proceedings in a recent unfair dismissal case.

Part of the case centred on the use of an expletive in a business meeting, and whether that word was appropriate for an office setting. 

The judge said such words were “fairly commonplace” and couldn’t be considered to “carry the shock value they might have done in another time”.

There are no absolutes when it comes to bad language, of course. What the Victorians found beyond the pale, the Elizabethans would have found polite, if one uses Shakespeare as a judge; go back as far as Chaucer and the boundaries of acceptable language are even looser.

It’s interesting that the case in question related to workplace norms and standards, and whether some terminology is offensive or not. 

Much would depend on the particular context. It would have been interesting to use some potentially offensive terminology in addressing the judge in this case to see whether those words carried the shock value they might have done in another time, to use his own phrasing.

One suspects the judge might not welcome that kind of language, just as a patient might prefer a diagnosis without swear words or a wedding service delivered without cursing.

Or perhaps the judge was right, and no one really gives a damn.