A genteel friend who dislikes cursing has found a way to do so, without really cussing. She says it assuages her conscience regarding the swearing. When the occasion calls for a bit of taboo language, she spells out the curse instead of speaking it. She says things like “where the h-e-double-l have you been.”

There are times, of course, when most of us believe that only a well-chosen curse will fit the moment.

We have a study of sorts from the Norwich Business School, in England, that even indicates that some cursing is actually quite beneficial. The study says, in the business world, some salty language boosts team spirit among the office crowd. A rowdy bunch is a happy bunch, you might say.

Now, of course, the British scholars don’t mean that workers should go around swearing at their boss, and definitely not at customers.

What they do say is that in private conversations among co-workers, swearing builds solidarity and team spirit and is useful in coping with workplace stress. Calling the boss some vile name when he’s out of earshot, for instance, is good for the rank-and-file psyche. Anyway, this is what the British school’s study claims, and who are we to doubt a decree handed down from academia? Managers, apparently, should just be more understanding toward the language used by their staff people.

One person who doesn’t buy into this idea that banning swearing could have a negative impact on the group is Sister Kathy Avery. Sister Kathy recently told her students at St. Clare’s Catholic School, just outside Detroit, that she’d better not hear any of them swearing. Apparently, even if it could mean less schoolroom stress on the kids, Sister Kathy won’t have any of it.

However, she did do something the other day that has many people wondering. Some students asked whether Sister Kathy considered certain mild epithets as real swears or just colorful parts of everyday language. That’s when the good sister decided she had to make her students know exactly what she meant . . . what didn’t she want them saying.

Sister Kathy sat down and wrote a list of all the forbidden words and phrases she could think of. Then, and this is the part that baffles many at St. Clare’s, she read her list to the students at an assembly.

Sister Kathy says the assembly got as quiet as a church.

Sometimes you can be too specific.

— Truman Taylor