Abstract
The Guardian's Readers' Editor Ian Mayes recently (Guardian October 31) spelled out his paper's attitude to the use of four-letter words. It was a remarkably illumanating essay. In it he wrote: "Not to beat about the bush there have been more than 400 pieces in The Guardian since October 10 last year in which the words fuck or fucking appeared at least once ... in the same period there were 28 references to cunt in the The Guardian. Our nearest rival was The Independent, almost 100 items behind in the use of fuck or fucking and offering only nane pieces in which the word cunt occurred. The Times and the Telegraph by comparison are expletive free-zones..." So KEITH WATERHOUSE set out to examine what the hell is going on in our four-letter world.....
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.