18 ★ FINANCIAL TIMES Monday5 August 2019Does it matter if you swear a bit at
work? What about the odd crass
vulgarity?
These questions have been on my
mind ever since a friend told me in
vibrant detail how exuberantly a senior
executive in her office swore.
I grew up on an Australian sheep
farm and once worked on a fishing
boat, but this was impressive stuff.
Lavish gusts of filth, in person and on
social media. It had been the subject of
much gossip in my friend’s office but
had not caused any obvious bother for
the executive, who had been
repeatedly promoted.
I thought of my friend’s story when
Boris Johnson became Britain’s latest
prime minister. Mr Johnson is well
known for being an adulterous old
Etonian with hair that looks as if a
large cat just slept in it. But what also
sets him apart is his mouth.
He has brushed off corporate fears
about Brexit with the words “f**k
business”. He has called the president
of Turkey a “wankerer” (in a limerick
where it had to rhyme with Ankara).
He is especially fond of turds, a term he
reportedly used most recently to
describe Theresa May’sBrexit planand
thegovernmentof France.None of this stopped him from
becoming a member of parliament, the
mayor of London or the British prime
minister. In fact it probably helped
him.
Researchers say people who swear
can seem morehonest,credibleand
persuasive. There is, of course,
swearing and swearing. AUS studythat
found profanity could be persuasive
arrived at the conclusion after testing
people’s reactions to “damn”, a word so
mild it barely qualifies as an obscenity
in many offices.
Context also matters. A four-letter-
word howl at a jammed printer is more
acceptable than one hurled at a boss.
And when workers are asked if they
approve of bad language in the office,
they invariably say they do not.
Yet fruity language need not be an
obstacle to career success, which is
something a lot of smart business
leaders have long understood.JPMorgan ChasebossJamie Dimonis
thelongest-servingbank chief
executive on Wall Street and a
bracingly blunt speaker in a sea of
corporate timidity. He has publicly
complained about the “stupid shit” in
the US political system and the critics
he has “pissed offpissed offpissed off”. A few months ago”. A few months ago
he chortled that, unsurprisingly, he
sometimes leaves his bank’s lawyers
and PR people “scared shitless”.
As it happens, finance is only the
second-worst sector for swearing. It is
slightly worse in the healthcare
industry,datashow.
But does location matter? The other
day, I did a cursory trawl through
earnings call transcripts of S&P 500
and FTSE 100 companies since 2007
that revealed a trove of r-rated blather.
I had expected to find a lot more in
the UK, where it has been claimed the
average Brit swears14 timesa day. But
I was wrong. In the US, a slew of
executives have been “beating the shit”
out of rivals for years, or deriding them
for being “full of crap”, or gloating
about having “kicked ass”.
A more extensive2016 analysisof
conference call transcripts by CNBC
journalists in the US found the
incidence of corporate profanityseemed to be on the rise that year
compared with 2014 and 2015, though
levels had been higher in previous
years.
This chimes with the findings of
academics, who spend an astonishing
amount of time studying swearing.
Hundreds of papers have been written
on the topic since 1900, according to
two expertswho said—in 2012 — there
was not much evidence the culture was
deteriorating when it came to
profanity. More recent US research
suggests swearing might be on the rise
at work, especially amongmillennials.
Either way, one should understand
that no matter how old you are, where
you live or where you work, there are
some places where swearing is not only
frowned on but illegal in public places.
The rapper 50 Cent discovered this a
few years ago when he was fined for
cursing onstage in the Caribbean island
of St Kitts. He still thought the show a
success, but in thememorable wordsof
his representative, he was going to
make sure that on any future trips to St
Kitts, he “leaves the motherf**kers in
the United States”.[email protected]
Twitter:@pilitaclark“As it happens, finance is
only the second-worst sectorfor swearing. It is slightly
worse in the healthcareindustry, datashow”
Smart people
understand
whyitpaysto
swear at work
CROSSWORD
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1 Some show interest in
Napoleon’s Russian nemesis?
(6)
4 Appear more excited, as your
setter well might! (8)
10 TTTender feeling having it ender feeling having it
injected by IV (9)
11 Crew’s importance diminished
without its leader (5)
12 Some trouble over a pupil (4)
13 TTTemperature endlessly upset emperature endlessly upset
old deaf aid (3,7)
15 “Exit, exit”, Light Brigade’s
fatal order, e ectively (2,2,3)
16 Catholics protect the High
Priest’s remains (6)
19 The wicket is too hard (6)
21 For provider of meals
regularly chant “Hear, hear!”
(7)
23 Bury arranges draw, say, and
acts as umpire (10)
25 A contrarian article rejected it
(4)
27 Frequent and popular meeting
place (5)
28 Mostly crooked gas- and oil-
rich Russians? (9)
29 Works as junior journalist, in
bed fully dressed! (8)
30 A licence is invalid without
one (6)DOWN
1 Famous story we associate
with non-U studies
surprisingly (4,4)
2 She would choose best butter,
presumably (5,4)
3 Selection of recipes served up
is most impressive (4)
5 One who chooses whether
spades lead or not (7)
6 Central Chinese feature good
communists condemn (10)
7 Find out which is mine (3,2)
8 TTTake turns at interrupting ake turns at interrupting
usual procedure (6)
9 What pupils can do in unusual
detail (6)
14 Outlined a judgment made
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17 Record long-lasting dock
member (9)
18 TTTeaches French and is a eaches French and is a
favourite with boys (5,3)
20 Hurry up? Reason for fall
downstairs (4,3)
21 Believe in direct action (6)
22 Silly things always shorter in
summer (6)
24 A day with Doctor Tom? (5)
26 Half of half doubled for a
surprising boundary (2-2)Inside Business
Boeing’s troubles highlighttheperils of the buyback boom
ZCOMPANIES & MARKETSPilita Clark
Business Life
Research has shown
swearers are perceived
to be more persuasive,
honest and credibleAltering nerve activityRehabSensorsNeurotech market forecast
Worldwide neurotechnology market ( bn)ProstheticsSources: The Market for Neurotechnology: - , Neurotech reports { }
Neural lace sounds like a dress material
for androids. The term, as used byElon
Musk, reflects grander ambitions. The
Teslaboss believes humans can be
improved by implanting meshes of
ultra-thin electrodesinto their heads to
speed the flow of data to and from the
brain. People risk being left behind by
artificial intelligence, he says.
The erratic tech entrepreneur is the
last person most of us would want
poking around under our hoods.
Worries about AI eclipsing humans are
overdone, moreover. Computers that
could mimic human intelligence would
be the size of aircraft hangars and use a
million times more power than the
brain, saysSteve Furber, pioneer of one
of the world’s most widely used chips.
Indeed, there is a lot the brain can
teach its electronic counterpart. A huge
supercomputerthat mimics spikes of
electrochemical energy from neurons
has been developed at Manchester
University.IntelandIBMare trying to
emulate neural structures. Such
“neuromorphic” computing promises
“incredible leaps in performance and
power efficiency”, says Intel’s boss
Robert Swann.
Blurring the lines between tech and
biology has big potential in medicine.
More than 300,000 people havecochlear implants made by groups such
asSonovaof Switzerland. Deep brain
stimulation devices for diseases like
Parkinson’s have long been made by
the likes of New York-listedMedtronic.
Further advances are coming. The
Food and Drug Administration has
announced rules to spur innovations
like prosthetic limbs controlled by a
patient’s thoughts.CTRL-labs, a start-
up backed byGoogleandAmazon, is
developing an armband that reads the
nervous signals travelling from the
brain to the fingers. Facebook is
working ontechnologythat would let
people typestraight from their brain.
Mr Musk argues people are already
cyborgs. They treat smartphones —
with their vast memories — as
extensions of themselves, he says. The
utility of this argument is in giving an
insight into how Mr Musk thinks:
mechanistically.
Able-bodied people will not be
queueing up for brain implants. Brain-
computer interfaces worry them more
than gene editing, surveys suggest.
Ethical concerns have dogged brain
implant studies for the past 50 years.
Unless justified on medical grounds, the
more invasive variants of neuro
technology will remain in the realms of
science fiction.Brains/AI/Elon Musk:
neural knit works
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