To some, swearing is a bad habit, an involuntary reflex in a moment of pain, excitement, or anger. According to research, the average American cusses 80 to 90 times a day, or about five words every waking hour. And, as time goes on, swearing is becoming more acceptable both online and off – from everyday life to music, film, and TV, rude words are hard to miss.
But what happens behind a screen, where no one is around to take offense? BonusFinder.com analyzed the top ‘Hot’ posts for key state subreddit pages to determine which states have the worst potty mouths.
The states with the worst potty mouths
|
Rank |
State |
Number of posts |
Number of cuss words |
Cuss words per post |
|
1 |
Texas |
691 |
4,743 |
6.9 |
|
2 |
Ohio |
833 |
5,601 |
6.7 |
|
3 |
Florida |
726 |
4,723 |
6.5 |
|
4 |
Tennessee |
578 |
3,578 |
6.2 |
|
5 |
Missouri |
880 |
5,381 |
6.1 |
|
6 |
Iowa |
930 |
4,837 |
5.2 |
|
7 |
Indiana |
905 |
4,366 |
4.8 |
|
8 |
Louisiana |
881 |
4,103 |
4.7 |
|
9 |
Oklahoma |
766 |
3,284 |
4.3 |
|
10 |
Idaho |
957 |
4,061 |
4.2 |
*Each post includes comments
BonusFinder.com can reveal that in first place is Texas, with more than 6.9 cuss words used per post – that’s an astonishing 4,743 swear words from 691 posts. Texan’s favorite cuss word is ‘sh*t’, shared with 48 other states, with the fan favorite accounting for 20% of the swear share in the state.
Following closely in second is Ohio, with an average of 6.7 cuss words per post. This equates to 5,601 cuss words overall. Sharing the same favorite word as Texas, ‘sh*t’ is used 18% of the time, closely followed by ‘f*cking’ used 16%.
Flordia comes in third, with 6.5 swear words per post with 4,723 uses overall. 18% of the time, Floridians use ‘sh*t’ to express themselves.
Rounding off the top five is Tennessee in fourth with 6.2 and Missouri following with 6.1 swears per post.
Meanwhile, the state with the least fiery language is California, with just 0.2 cuss words per post.
America’s favorite curse words
|
Rank |
Word |
Percent of cusses used |
|
1 |
Sh*t |
19% |
|
=2 |
f*cking |
14% |
|
=2 |
f*ck |
14% |
|
4 |
h*ll |
7% |
|
=5 |
da*n |
6% |
|
=5 |
a*s |
6% |
|
7 |
sh*ty |
4% |
|
=8 |
bullsh*t |
3% |
|
=8 |
f*cked |
3% |
|
10 |
cr*p |
2% |
The most used cuss word in the US is ‘sh*t’ which appears 19% of the time. The States’ love for homonyms continues with ‘f*cking’ at 14%, alongside ‘f*ck’. ‘h*ll’ earns the third spot, with 7% usage across all states.
Interestingly, every state’s favorite cuss word is ‘sh*t’ apart from Colorado which favors ‘f*cking’, and Californians love to use ‘h*ll’.
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Methodology
-
BonusFinder.com researched to find the most foul-mouthed states.
-
A list of US State subreddits was collated.
-
The top ‘Hot’ posts and their full comment tree were scraped for every subreddit using URS, the max number of ‘Hot’ posts used is 1,000 per subreddit.
-
Raw post data was extracted and hierarchically structured in preparation for sentiment analysis. The comments were structured using parent and comment IDs to get the average sentiment for the comment/post chain, not just the individual comment.
-
A profanity lexicon was used to extract, count, and collate 88 profanities per subreddit. Sentiment analysis per post-comment chain was also run to get the average sentiment score per subreddit to see which states are the most negative.
-
Data correct as of 16th October 2023. Please find the full dataset here*.
*the total number of ‘Hot’ posts retrieved from each subreddit varies due to subreddit popularity
