Episode 86 - Chris Montgomery & regional swearing

<p><strong>Show notes for Episode 86</strong></p><p>⚠️🤬⚠️Contains swearing (obvs) and quite a lot of it…handled seriously and with academic rigour (🧐)⚠️🤬⚠️</p><p><br></p><p>Welcome to episode 86 of Lexis in which we go in mob-handed with 5 (count ‘em!) interviewers and Dr Chris Montgomery, Senior Lecturer in Dialectology in the School of English at the University of Sheffield. Lisa, Jacky, Dan, Amanda and guest interviewer, Neil Hutchinson ask him about his work on dialect and how this relates to his new project on regional swearing. </p><p><em>(We treat the subject with delicacy and restraint until about 46 minutes when it becomes something of a swearing free-for-all, in case you’re interested/want to turn it off.) </em></p><p>We talk about:</p><ul><li><p>Why swearing is interesting from a dialectology point of view</p></li><li><p>How swearing varies regionally in terms of the terms that are used and what they mean</p></li><li><p>How he is going about this research and how it came to happen</p></li><li><p>Different methodologies and their pros and cons</p></li><li><p>Dialect levelling and swearing: what needs to be done to measure this</p></li><li><p>Attitudes to academic research on swearing </p></li><li><p>The inventiveness of swearing</p></li><li><p>How you can contribute to this research</p></li><li><p>Advice to students about investigating swearing</p></li></ul><p><a href="https://sheffield.ac.uk/english/people/academic-staff/chris-montgomery" target="_blank" rel="ugc noopener noreferrer">Dr Chris Montgomery | English | The University of Sheffield</a> </p><p>Your contributions can be made here: <a href="https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSef-QCBddaJ9blKczAv_mrV3pWDHIKuPJHzDNHZ7U1IK0Rcdw/viewform"><u>https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSef-QCBddaJ9blKczAv_mrV3pWDHIKuPJHzDNHZ7U1IK0Rcdw/viewform</u></a> (🔞only sorry)</p><p>Guardian article: <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/science/2026/apr/15/swearwords-census-regional-dialects-language-britain" target="_blank" rel="ugc noopener noreferrer">From divvy to dinlo: index of insults aims to record Britain’s diverse dialects | British identity and society | The Guardian</a> </p><p>BBC feature: <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c78rr219457o" target="_blank" rel="ugc noopener noreferrer">https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c78rr219457o</a> </p><p>Independent article: <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/english-swearing-sheffield-university-midlands-merseyside-b2958087.html" target="_blank" rel="ugc noopener noreferrer">https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/english-swearing-sheffield-university-midlands-merseyside-b2958087.html</a> </p><p>Telegraph: <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/04/15/language-linguists-preserve-britain-swear-words-phrases-map/" target="_blank" rel="ugc noopener noreferrer">https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/04/15/language-linguists-preserve-britain-swear-words-phrases-map/</a>  and <a href="http://archive.today/2026.04.15-173308/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/04/15/language-linguists-preserve-britain-swear-words-phrases-map/" target="_blank" rel="ugc noopener noreferrer">http://archive.today/2026.04.15-173308/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/04/15/language-linguists-preserve-britain-swear-words-phrases-map/</a> </p><p><a href="https://moderntoss.com/" target="_blank" rel="ugc noopener noreferrer">https://moderntoss.com/</a> </p><p>Modern Toss explain the project here too: <a href="https://moderntoss.com/2/"><u>https://moderntoss.com/2/</u></a> </p><p><a href="https://www.urbandictionary.com/" target="_blank" rel="ugc noopener noreferrer">https://www.urbandictionary.com/</a> </p><p>Internet Archive version of Roger’s Profanisaurus; <a href="https://archive.org/stream/RogersProfanisaurusPreviouslyKnownAsSwearyMarysDictionaryOfFilth/Roger%27s%20Profanisaurus%20previously%20known%20as%20Sweary%20Mary%27s%20Dictionary%20of%20Filth_djvu.txt" target="_blank" rel="ugc noopener nore