Standing in a crowded elevator recently, I was privy to a conversation going on between two college students in front of me. The young women were casually chatting about their day while repeatedly using a once-verboten word as an adjective, seeming unaware that if filmed for TV, the conversation would violate the FCC’s rules regarding obscene, indecent and profane broadcasts.
No one in the elevator reacted or objected.
That was not the case when Franklin Graham heard Donald Trump deliver a speech that was peppered with expletives last year.
Graham, the president and CEO of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association and the humanitarian aid group Samaritan’s Purse, later wrote Trump a letter asking him to please stop using profanity. In an interview recently, Graham told me he intended for the letter to be private, but Trump later mentioned it at the Republican National Convention and in other speeches. The president said Graham had written, “I love your storytelling. I think it’s great in front of the big rallies. ... But sir, please do me one favor … Please, don’t use any foul language’.”
And Graham, the eldest son of the late evangelist Billy Graham, thinks that the letter has had an effect. “It seems like when he slips momentarily, my letter comes to his mind, and he tells the audience about it, so it must have struck a chord with him,” Graham said.
Speaking on behalf of the shrinking number of Americans who are bothered by public profanity, perhaps Graham could also write letters to some podcasters, and broadcasters like Anderson Cooper, and teams like the Philadelphia Eagles and organizations like the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences?
The sweary young women in the elevator aren’t an anomaly, but a byproduct of a culture that has become increasingly profane while at the same time becoming inured to the change. The proverbial frog in the profanity pot is not boiling, but desiccated, with even media superstars swearing on their shows. Consider the evidence of just the past few months:
— The movie that won “Best Picture” at the 2025 Academy Awards was so filled with profanity that Conan O’Brien, the host of the awards show, noted that a single expletive had been used 479 times in the film. And yet the film, which was also sexually explicit, had an R rating, not NC-17.
— After the Philadelphia Eagles won the Super Bowl, the players swore so much during a celebration at the Philadelphia Museum of Art that listeners had a hard time hearing the speeches because of the constant apologies from the broadcast team.
— In a broadcast on CNN, host Anderson Cooper used an expletive to chastise the former governor of New Hampshire, Chris Sununu. (He later apologized.)
— U.S. Sen. Tina Smith, a Democrat from Minnesota, used multiple expletives in a social media post criticizing Elon Musk. Other members of Congress have also used expletives in a professional capacity with increasing frequency of late.
— A conversation between Trump and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau ended in profanity, The Wall Street Journal reported, and Fortune magazine reported this month that profanity is becoming mainstream in the business world, even among CEOs.
Profanity is becoming so pervasive that even scholars who have written in defense of expletives are expressing a degree of concern. Michael Adams, a professor at Indiana University who published “In Pr@ise *of Pr#fanity” nearly a decade ago, told me, “I don’t think it’s defensible to just not care what people think of what you’re saying — that attitude, ‘I can get away with anything, I can say whatever I want, and you people will just have to live with it,’ is not a thoughtful or kind way of living in the world.”
And yet there are plenty of studies and books championing profanity. Arguments against it are harder to come by, but they generally come down to showing respect for others, having respect for language, and preventing children from hearing (and saying) these words. Syndicated columnist George Will has said, “The English language is the most rich and supple vehicle of communication the world has ever devised. Why we need to resort to this kind of language, given the resources of the English language, is a mystery to me.”
And even Benjamin K. Bergen, a professor of cognitive science at the University of California, San Diego, and a defender of profanity use generally, is against the use of profane slurs, and has written, “If using language is likely to cause others harm, then maybe don’t do it?”
But with a generation of young Americans who have grown up in a sea of expletives — 74% of young Americans say profanity use doesn’t bother them at all or only a little, according to a 2023 Deseret News/HarrisX poll — is there any hope of reversing the trend? And if so, how?
The nation might not want to give Trump any more power than he already has, but both defenders and supporters of profanity say that as the president goes, so could the nation — to some degree, anyhow.
What makes a word profane?
As Franklin Graham told me, societies have been grappling with profane speech as long as humans have organized themselves into groups. “Profanity is as old as the Bible,” Graham said. “The Bible warns us about our speech, about taking God’s name in vain, so this isn’t something new. It goes back to the beginning of time.”
The late comedian George Carlin, famous for his profanity-laden routine “The 7 words you can’t say on TV,” argued that “There is absolutely nothing wrong with any of these words in and of themselves. They’re only words.” But the origin of the word “profanity” suggests otherwise.
As Benjamin K. Bergen wrote in his 2016 book “What the F,” the word comes from the Latin profanus, and “literally means ‘outside the temple,’ denoting words or acts that desecrate the holy.”
“For some people, the use of religious words in secular ways constitutes blasphemy — a sin against religious doctrine — and this is the pathway that makes these terms taboo,” Bergen wrote. This is true for using the name of God, in any faith tradition, as an expletive. Other profane words include those derived from sexual words or bodily functions and slurs.
Euphemisms for expletives also become profanity, because the mind is always cognizant of the original word, scholars of profanity say, which is why many people who eschew profanity are bothered by “OMG” and “Let’s Go Brandon.” When students at Brigham Young University, for example, chanted “Let’s Go Brandon” at a football game at LaVell Edwards Stadium a few years ago, they provoked strong negative reactions
And Adams, at the University of Illinois, understands why. “That argument about ‘Let’s go Brandon’ is actually spot on. Everybody knows what that represents,” he said. And the sponsoring organization of BYU, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, has been the target of profane cheers at both football and basketball games featuring the Cougars. That’s brought apologies from the leadership of the opponent schools.
“We want to cover ourselves with the fig leaf of euphemisms, but that’s not going to work. Most of the time, the euphemism simply triggers an association in the listener’s mind with the actual swear word — you’re using the swear word, but it actually causes, at least in the mind, the person listening to swear.”
An erosion of civility
But the problem confronting America right now isn’t the use of euphemism for expletives. It’s the tearing down of standards that used to govern public behavior, not only in how politicians and other public figures speak, but in how ordinary people treat each other.
“There is clear evidence that rudeness is increasing,” University of Florida professor Amir Erez told The (U.K.) Standard, adding, “Rudeness acts like the cold virus. It spreads from one person to others without people necessarily know that they are infected and spreading it to other people.”
And since his first term in office, some have been accusing Trump of making the entire nation less civil with his own behavior.
“Regardless of political persuasion, I think one has to accept that ... the current president is a fairly vulgar person, and so are many people who work around him, and that has had an enabling effect, I think, for people,” Adams said.
“People in the media noticed, and scholars confirmed it, that after Trump’s first campaign, politicians were swearing in stump speeches and in formal political settings more than they had been before. And one thing they noticed was that women politicians were suddenly swearing, which they hadn’t been able to do before.
“Hillary Clinton couldn’t have gotten away with it — we know that she swears in private, but it would have been dangerous at that particular juncture, to start swearing up a blue streak in public, because it would have made her, a woman, seem unpresidential.” But the political climate changed so much in less than a decade that Vice President Kamala Harris was able to use profanity, with little reproach, before a gathering of college students last year.
Why is swearing increasing?
There are many reasons, of course, why Americans are using profanity more often, seemingly without regard for what other people think. Timothy Jay, a longtime scholar of profanity, says the trend is part of a growing casualness in all parts of life, including how we work and how we dress. But increasing levels of anger also play into it since about two-thirds of swearing come from anger and/or frustration, he said in an email exchange.
“We are the only animal that can express anger symbolically, abstractly through swearing or gesturing. It’s actually an evolutionary advantage to be able to express anger from a distance rather than tooth and nail like wild animals. It is better to blow off steam by swearing than ‘going postal’ with a firearm,” wrote Jay, professor emeritus of psychology at the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts in North Adams, Massachusetts.
The idea that profanity provides a needed emotional release is part of the pro-profanity movement, fueled by studies that conclude that using profanity can make us seem more powerful, help us handle rejection and even deal with pain. And yet such studies don’t deal with the problem that, when using profanity, we are often directly hurting or offending others.
Adams, who says he is “not against profanity, per se,” notes that there is a difference between swearing with others (as in so-called locker-room talk) and swearing at others, as in the Anderson Cooper incident (for which the broadcaster later apologized).
“I do think there are times when people need to be called out. And I do think there are times when if you don’t use strong language, people won’t pay attention to the criticism.” But that incident, he said, “might be a little bit over the edge” and even people who see nothing wrong with profanity need to be more thoughtful about how they employ it, he said, adding that although America rightly values free speech, “we should still not assume that other people have to put up happily with whatever we say.”
In January, the president’s press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, was asked about Trump’s use of profanity the previous day. She replied, “I think one of the things that the American people love most about this president is that he often says what they are thinking, but sometimes lack the courage to say themselves. And I think yesterday at this podium, you heard President Trump express great frustration, perhaps even anger with the previous administration’s policies, many of which have led to the crises that our country is currently facing and that this president is focused on fixing.”
How can we stop the profanity?
While people who speak out against increasing profanity are often derided as pearl-clutchers, the onus is on both people who abhor profanity, and those who justify it, in order for anything to change.
“We probably would benefit from being more straightforward about, not just how things offend us, but on the other side of the equation, being more thoughtful about who we offend,” Adams said. He also believes that leaders who don’t swear, and don’t tolerate profanity around them, might help change the culture around swearing.
“If we had a president who was firm about civil discourse, and who refused both in her own speech or the speech of others around her, to use profanity, then that would set an example, and it might tamp down some of the more exhibitionist or performative aspects of profanity,” he said.
Graham, likewise, believes that our current president could make a difference, if Trump heeded his advice (and, reportedly, the advice of his wife). He thinks Trump has modified his language in recent months, and said he is going to continue to urge him to do so.
“The president, his pulpit — his microphone — is huge, and it carries a lot of weight. So I’m going to continue to try to encourage him. He’s not just the president of this country. He is a world figure that other nations, other presidents, other people, look up to and want to emulate ... That microphone goes a long way.”
While some schools, cities and even countries have tried to reduce profanity use by making it illegal, Bergen argued in “What the F,” that bans on profanity are ineffectual, and may lead to greater use because the words derive power from the fact that they’re taboo. “Profanity is a monster of our own perpetual creation,” he wrote.