The overwhelming consensus was I should keep on cursing:
The other day, I heard from a reader that the daily emails I send keep going into quarantine.
When I write, I use the occasional swear word, just as I would when I’m talking to family, friends and clients face-to-face, but I needed to check it wasn’t getting in the way of people’s enjoyment of my content.
So, I purposefully sent out a completely clean email to canvas opinions, and here are some of the responses (cleaned up for social media purposes):
“Just so you know I’ve not had a problem receiving your emails through Gmail.”
Thank you Gmail, you bl**dy diamond!
“I don’t seem to have a problem getting your emails Vicki, so from my perspective - keep them as they are!”
Mint.
“I think you need to swear more. Frankly I’m disappointed your emails have never gone into my spam (said the actress to the bishop)”
I obviously need to up my game!
“My spam filter is so forking rubbish it lets bludy everything through. I don’t give a s it how much you swear it all adds to the colour of your fabulous emails.”
Aw! I appreciate that!
“I love your f***ing language, Vicki”
F***, yeah!
“My f***ing spam filter lets your emails slip right the f*** through x”
Likewise! Thank you, F***ety Mac T*tW*nk!
And this one made me chortle:
“Hilariously this email was blocked by our spam filter but none of your sweary ones ever have been!!! Maybe our spam filter LIKES swearing ”
I love this! The only email I was very careful not to swear in wasn’t allowed through the door!
I’d like to add that all the people who took the time to respond are fine, upstanding members of the community (well, most of the time) who run established businesses and are held in high regard by their clients and team.
They aren’t on their sofas right now in dirty trackie bottoms, chugging back voddie and Red Bull from a chipped mug, catching up on Eastenders whilst reading all the latest Corrie news in Inside Soap.
(Hmmmm…I haven’t checked that out for sure, so don’t hold me to that…)
Far from what we were told as kids by our sexually repressed deputy heads, intelligent people do swear, and that doesn’t mean we’re lazy with our vocabulary.
We simply choose to add colour and fun to our days by dropping the odd F, P, S, W and even C bombs.
And that’s OK!
So, in order to keep serving my lovely readers what they want, I need to give new subscribers ample warning that they might need to fish me out of the email gutter a few times and tell their spam filters that, despite appearances, I’m actually a nice, helpful lady after all.
If they can’t be arsed to do that, then they don’t qualify to be part of my awesome f***ing gang!