The law

Fuck and the law

Is it illegal to say it? In the United Kingdom, not as such, but there are half a dozen laws under which saying it in the wrong place can cost you. Elsewhere the answer ranges from "constitutionally protected" to "a fine on the spot". Nothing here is legal advice.

England and Wales

Public Order Act 1986, section 5

The main one. It is an offence to use "threatening or abusive words or behaviour" (the word "insulting" was removed in 2014) within the hearing or sight of a person "likely to be caused harassment, alarm or distress". Two things matter: the words must be abusive, not merely rude, and someone must actually be likely to be distressed. In Harvey v DPP (2011) a young man in Hackney who had said "fuck this man, I ain't been smoking nothing" and similar during a police search had his conviction quashed: the High Court held that police officers hear the word too often to be distressed by it, and that there was no evidence anyone else within earshot was. The case is regularly summarised as "you can swear at the police", which overstates it. Swearing at a member of the public, in a residential street at night, in front of children, or as part of an aggressive confrontation is still routinely prosecuted, usually with a fine of a few hundred pounds. Section 4A (intentional harassment, alarm or distress) carries up to six months.

Other routes

• Communications Act 2003, section 127: sending a "grossly offensive" message by a public electronic network. Swearing alone rarely qualifies, but the section has been used against abusive tweets and emails.
• Public Spaces Protection Orders: since 2014 some councils have made swearing in a defined area a fixed-penalty offence. Salford's 2016 order against "foul and abusive language" on the Quays drew national ridicule and a legal challenge; several others were withdrawn.
• Football banning orders and railway byelaws both cover offensive language.
• Contempt of court: swearing at a judge will get you a night in the cells, whatever section 5 says.
• Obscene Publications Act 1959: the law under which Lady Chatterley was tried. The word on its own has not been treated as obscene since 1960; the test is whether the whole work tends to "deprave and corrupt".

Scotland and Northern Ireland

Scotland's common-law offence of breach of the peace, and since 2010 the statutory offence of threatening or abusive behaviour, cover the same ground more broadly; Scottish courts have historically been less tolerant of swearing at the police than English ones. Northern Ireland's Public Order (Northern Ireland) Order 1987 mirrors the English act.

Broadcasting and film

The Ofcom Broadcasting Code, made under the Communications Act 2003, requires that "the most offensive language" not be broadcast before the 9pm watershed on television, or at times when children are particularly likely to be listening to radio, and that it be justified by context afterwards. Ofcom's own research places the word in its "strongest" group. Breaches lead to published findings, and repeated or serious breaches to fines. The BBFC's film classification guidelines are described under Film and TV; the Video Recordings Act 1984 makes it an offence to supply an unclassified film or to supply a classified one to someone under age.

Advertising

The Advertising Standards Authority's code bans advertisements likely to cause "serious or widespread offence". The word in full is effectively unusable; the ASA has ruled against FCUK (see Places and brands) and against numerous posters that spelled it with a symbol, on the basis that the audience read the word anyway.

Employment

There is no rule. Tribunals have upheld dismissals for swearing at a manager (the question is whether it was insubordination, not vocabulary) and have found dismissals unfair where swearing was the workplace norm and the employer suddenly objected to one instance. The consistent thread is context: what the culture of the workplace was, whether the word was directed at someone, and whether the employer applied the same standard to everyone.

United States

The First Amendment protects the word in almost every context. Cohen v. California (1971) held that a jacket reading "Fuck the Draft" in a courthouse was protected expression; Justice Harlan wrote that "one man's vulgarity is another's lyric". The exceptions are "fighting words" directed at an individual likely to provoke immediate violence (Chaplinsky, 1942, narrowed almost to nothing since), and broadcasting, where FCC v. Pacifica (1978) allowed the regulator to restrict indecency on daytime radio and television. The FCC's later attempts to punish single "fleeting expletives" produced FCC v. Fox (2009 and 2012), which left the policy standing on procedure but vacated the fines. In Iancu v. Brunetti (2019) the Supreme Court struck down the bar on "scandalous" trademarks and FUCT was registered. Several states still have disorderly-conduct or profanity statutes; they are rarely enforced and regularly struck down when they are.

Elsewhere

• Australia: state offensive-language laws are actively enforced, with on-the-spot fines in New South Wales; the courts have several times held that the word is no longer offensive in ordinary contexts.
• Canada: causing a disturbance by swearing is an offence under the Criminal Code; the Charter protects most other uses. The Canadian Broadcast Standards Council allows the word after 9pm.
• Ireland: the Criminal Justice (Public Order) Act 1994 covers threatening, abusive or insulting words; feck is not covered by anything.
• Russia: a 2014 law banned obscene language (mat) in films, theatre, books and public performance, with fines.
• United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, and much of the Gulf: swearing, including in text messages, can be prosecuted, and foreigners have been jailed or deported for it.
• Germany: Beleidigung (insult) is a criminal offence and "fuck you" directed at a police officer has drawn fines in the hundreds of euros.