I love it when the news is filled with pointless surveys. One out this week has looked at the list of the UK’s most popular swearwords. It’s a difficult topic to write about seeing as I can’t use any of the words but here goes.

Previously the most used naughty word was a B one. I know there are a lot of B-words but they’re often not too harsh.

I wouldn’t use one in church if I were you but you could mumble one if someone has just pushed in front of you in a Post Office queue, especially if it’s teamed up with its favourite companion “hell”.

Sadly the use of that mild swearword has seen an 80 per cent reduction. The new winner is one that starts with the sixth letter of the alphabet.

Hackney Gazette: Steve Allen has been studying recent surveysSteve Allen has been studying recent surveys (Image: Steve Allen)

That’s a bad word. If you hear someone saying it you find yourself on edge. Do we want to be so aggressive?

Then I realised the popularity of the new top swearword could be because it is so flexible. It works as an exclamation, like a lot of swearwords. It’s also a verb. You can put it before the word “off” and have great effect.

If something hasn’t gone well you can use the past tense to describe it. If things are really bad, pop an “up” after the past tense and you’re really cooking on gas.

Conjugate it with an “ing” at the end and you can put it anywhere in a sentence. In the classic typing sample “the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog,” the only places you can’t use it is before both of the “the” words.

There is some hope. Overall swearword usage has dropped 27 per cent over 20 years.

With the year we’ve had that’s a conjugated swearword miracle.