Well, dang. This state sure loves a good cussing.
This State’s Residents Curse the Most (Hint: It’s Not New York!)
Updated Aug. 22, 2024
In some cases, swearing makes you feel better. No, really! There’s science behind it. Research shows that profanity can help keep your emotions in check and positively correlates with honesty. It can even reduce your perception of pain. Pardon our French, but cursing comes in handy, gosh darn it!
So if you can’t help but swear, well, that’s not such a bad thing. Still, swearing isn’t for everyone. In fact, a new survey shows that residents of some states use more profanity than others.
To find out which U.S. state is the “sweariest” of them all, WordTips analyzed 1.7 million English-language geotagged posts on the social platform X (formally Twitter) and used a database of 1,600 profanities to uncover the most and least foul-mouthed places. Read on to find out which states’ residents curse the most and which are most likely to refrain from using profanity.
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Which state’s residents curse the most?
While it might be easy to assume that major cities with potty-mouth reputations (ahem, New York or Boston) might bump up their respective states’ swearing average, that’s not the case. As it turns out, neither New York nor Massachusetts even made the top five.
The state with the most residents who swear is Maryland. With an average of 66.3 posts on X per 1,000 featuring profanity words, Marylanders are more inclined to swear to express emotions than X users in other states.
Even at the city level, Maryland is still tops: Baltimore residents were the most inclined to swear, with an average of 78.2 posts on X (per 1,000) including swear words.
What other states round out the top five?
Along with Maryland, here are the states that tend to use the most curse words online (plus their average number of curse-word-laden posts):
- Maryland (66.3 posts on average)
- Louisiana (61.7 posts on average)
- Georgia (57.4 posts on average)
- Virginia (47.6 posts on average)
- Ohio (47.3 posts on average)
After Ohio, many other states averaged in the 45-post range, including Mississippi (45.9), Pennsylvania (45.7), New Jersey (45.5), Nevada (45.5), Michigan (45.3) and Illinois (45).
Which states curse the least?
If swearing isn’t your thing and you’d rather express yourself in more wholesome ways, you may want to consider living in the following states. Here’s who curses the least on X, along with the average number of posts that include swear words:
- South Dakota (21 posts on average)
- Vermont (24.3 posts on average)
- North Dakota (26.3 posts on average)
- Minnesota (26.8 posts on average)
- Rhode Island (28.1 posts on average)
In terms of cities, Burlington, Vermont, residents are the least likely to swear, with an average of 24.3 posts on X featuring curse words. So next time you want an online interaction sans swear words, chat up someone from South Dakota or Burlington, Vermont. You may even be rewarded with a few polite phrases from these folks.
Sources:
- WordTips: “Which Countries Swear the Most?”
- Array Behavioral Care: “Swearing Can Be Beneficial to Your Mental Health”
- Depression Research and Treatment: “Profanity as a Self-Defense Mechanism and an Outlet for Emotional Catharsis in Stress, Anxiety, and Depression”
