Hopefully you have already read our post about Australian culture, swearing and taboo language from 2021.
Well, get ready for the 2022 edition because Aussies just can't stop swearing!
In February 2022, the Winter Olympics kicked off in Beijing. Unfortunately, Aussie snowboarder Belle Brockhoff crashed out of both her events, but not before she gave us some great examples of swearing to discuss.
Left: Australian snowboarder Belle Brockhoff said that she had 'a shit time trial' in her post-run interview. The use of the taboo adjective allowed her to express strong emotions about her performance, and was seen as acceptable given the sporting context.
Furthermore, the Channel 7 Olympics social media team also decided that the language was appropriate to post on their Facebook page, indicating that public attitudes towards the use of this expletive are becoming much more accepting.
Right: Similarly to above, after her fourth-place finish in the snowboard cross event, Brockhoff described the experience using the compound adjective 'shithouse'.
Like Channel 7, ABC Sport deemed the use of this lexical choice acceptable for their social media content.
Both these examples demonstrate how certain types of taboo language, namely mild swear words, can be used in public language without issue.
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Like our Aussie athletes, Dan Andrews is a serial offender when it comes to swearing in public.
Left: Andrews shares an ad for Victoria's plan to build new offshore wind farms. The ad features the plural compound noun 'shitloads' to emphasise how many jobs this plan will create.
Additionally, it uses syntactic patterning in the form of parallelism, repeating 'shitloads' at the start of each phrase. This highlights the intentional usage, suggesting that the ad is specifically using taboo language to connect with its target audience; everyday Aussies.
The use of such language reinforces our cultural value of laidbackness, seen here in our relaxed attitudes towards potentially offensive language.
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