• Issue 3
• Arts & Entertainment

It wouldn't be out of the question to imagine that celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay's first syllable spoken on earth might have been four-letters long beginning with the sixth letter of the alphabet. Listening to Ramsay, who uses the word f*ck more times than he adds spices to his dishes, is a pleasure because he puts so much passion into his poetic deliverance of the ‘f' word.

It's no coincidence the rather eloquent and super-charged cook was given a show on Channel Four (TV's equivalent of a juvenile delinquent) simply called ‘The ‘F' Word. The show revolves round how many times Ramsay can say f*ck and cook, while parading on a litany of A-F list celebrities.

Cursing on television has always been a contentious issue. The Americans take a strong-arm approach to the use of expletives - if it weren't for HBO the landscape of American television would be a sterile, unrealistic place of clean-mouthed villains.

Over on this side of the Atlantic once the kiddies are in bed it's more or less a free for all as to how much 'strong language', as it is euphamistically labelled by programmers, is uttered.

One reason why the acerbic Ramsay stands out from the posse of foul mouthed night time TV stars is that he uses the ‘f' word with such ease - and that as a chef, much like a comedian, using expletives and shouting obscenities is an occupational human right.

Ramsay can start and finish a sentence with the word f*ck and use it all the way through the same sentence and still convey his emotions on seeing a pair of hapeless lambs slaughtered at his hands.

When Ramsay uses the ‘f' word he doesn't come off like he's trying to be cool or deliberately offensive, rather it's just a visceral expression. Like, 'f*ck me there's a lot of crab meet on this f*cking crab.'

When Bono used the ‘f' word a few years ago live on American television during an acceptance speech at the Golden Globes - he sounded like a k***. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) were so concerned they immediately steam rolled through an indecency policy to safeguard the nation from bad words. They could have instead banned Bono.

A recent decision by the US Supreme Court looks set to relax these laws in favour of free speech, upholding the constitution.

There are two broad schools of thought when it comes to opining about swear words on television. The first school, which always has the upper moral hand, sees swearing as crass, offensive and an inchoate attempt at expression.

The other school, in their frankness, is inclined to think ‘f*ck that'. Does the addition of the word 'sh*t' in a sentence necessarily mean that the speaker is a coarse individual?

After all President Bush was heard muttering to Tony Blair 'we need to get Syria to get Hezbollah to stop doing this shit' at last year's G8 summit.

Swearing on television suffered heavily as the vicissitudes of the PC brigade took effect during the past two decades. Television programming was almost wiped clean of offensive and swear words in a bid to cleanse the modern world of obscenities.

Television is often nothing more than a mirror to society - hence the explosion of reality television programming. In the real world people constantly scream and shout obscenities and expletives while stuck in traffic, fighting, having sex, expressing happiness - the ‘f' word has probably been uttered as the last word in life.

There is a place for swearing in the slickly controlled world of television. Swearing is a lot like adding spices to your food; for some people it's too much to stomach while others like the heat turned up.

The last show in the current series of The 'F' Word is on Channel 4 this Tuesday.