- Linguists at the University of Sheffield have launched the UK’s first-ever national repository of regional swear words, capturing how people really speak in everyday life across the country
- The project invites the public to contribute the swear words and phrases they commonly use in their local areas, creating a “linguistic census” of authentic English in 2026.
- Regional dialect words are disappearing so experts hope the repository will provide an important unique cultural and historical snapshot of modern UK regional language for future researchers, historians, and linguists
- In collaboration with Modern Toss, the data will also be transformed into public exhibitions celebrating the humour, creativity, and reality of how people speak across the UK
The UK’s first national repository of regional swear words - an initiative that aims to document how people across the country actually speak in their everyday lives - is being launched by linguists at the University of Sheffield.
At a time when language is evolving faster than ever, the project will create a unique linguistic snapshot of the English language as it is spoken in 2026. By gathering contributions from people in towns and cities across the UK, researchers hope to preserve a vivid, honest record of contemporary speech for future generations at a time when regional dialect words and phrases risk disappearing.
The repository will function similarly to a linguistic census, inviting members of the public to submit the swear words and phrases they commonly use in everyday life in their local areas. Contributions will help build a rich, diverse database reflecting regional variation, cultural nuance, and the creativity of informal speech across the UK.
As well as capturing commonly used expressions, the project is particularly interested in regional terms, swear words and insults that are specific to particular towns, cities or areas of the UK, recognised locally but largely unknown elsewhere. These hyper-local expressions often carry deep cultural meaning, reflecting the history, humour and identity of the communities that use them. As recent University of Sheffield-led research has shown, AI can often struggle to understand regional accents and non-standard English, so there is a need to capture data on regional variations in language to aid the development of technology and ensure regional language isn’t excluded.
Researchers emphasise that the project is not about promoting offensive language, but about capturing the role regional swear words play in people's everyday expressions and communication. By documenting this often-overlooked aspect of language, the repository will offer future generations of linguists, historians, and cultural researchers an invaluable resource for understanding life in the UK at this moment in time.
In collaboration with the satirical arts practice Modern Toss, the data will inspire a series of exhibitions across the country, showcasing the reality of how people speak in towns and cities throughout the UK - raw, humorous, and unmistakably human.
Dr Chris Montgomery, who is leading the project from the University of Sheffield’s School of English, said: “Swearing is a fundamental part of how everybody expresses emotion, identity, humour, and social connection, yet it is often excluded from formal records of language. We also know very little about how swearing varies in local areas. This project recognises that to truly understand English as it is lived and spoken, we must include all of it - not just the polite or standardised forms.
“Some traditional regional dialects might be disappearing, and this project is about celebrating the regional language that people actually use and preserving a record of it, so future generations can get a real insight into people’s lives in 2026 and how people communicated in towns and cities across the country.”
The researchers, which will include second year English Language and Linguistics students at Sheffield as part of a sociolinguistics module, are calling for the public to take part.
Dr Montgomery said: “We want to hear from everyone. Whether you’re in Glasgow, Sheffield, Cardiff, or a small village in Cornwall - your voice matters. This is a chance to contribute to a living record of language and culture.”
Jon Link, from Modern Toss, said: “We’re delighted to be working with the University of Sheffield. At Modern Toss we’ve spent years turning filthy data into charts and interactive art, and this collaboration finally lets us map the UK's isolated linguistic pockets with proper academic rigour, yeah? The end goal is to join up these hidden worlds into a definitive, push-button, wall-mounted map of the national swear mind.”
Submissions are open now, and participation is free. Contributors can share their most commonly used swear words and phrases as part of what researchers hope will become one of the most revealing linguistic archives ever created in the UK.
To submit a swear word, visit: http://tinyurl.com/swearmap
