Ever wondered just how many cuss words people are saying on Twitter? FastCo reports the work of some researchers from Wright State University who just analyzed some 51 million tweets by 14 million English language users to figure just how exactly people use profanity on the platform.

"Fuck" is by far the most frequently used:
The most popular curse word is fuck, which covers 34.73% of all the curse word occurrences, followed by shit (15.04%), ass (14.48%), bitch (10.34%), nigga (9.68%), hell (4.46%), whore (1.82%), dick (1.67%), piss (1.53%), and pussy (1.16%).
Fuck and shit account for nearly half of all the profanity on Twitter. According to the study, one in 13 tweets contains a bad word. That shouldn't really be that surprising, considering we swear a whole lot more in real life.



The study points out that in real life, people tend to swear in a more relaxed environment because they are less likely to be called out by people around them. Here's the study's conclusion:
We find that users do curse more in relaxed environments, but the differences across different environments are very small, partly due to the fact that Twitter messages are posted in virtual digital world.
How often do you cuss on social media? [Knoesis.org via Fast Company]