CLEVELAND – If you think you and/or the people around you drop a lot of f–, s– and a– bombs, your assessment is right in line with a study that found Ohioans swear the most in the U.S.
The Marchex Institute studied more than 600,000 calls consumers placed to businesses over the last year. The types of businesses monitored include cable and satellite companies, car dealerships, pest control centers and more.
And from that data, the institute concluded that Ohioans spoke more profanity than anyone else – with an average of at least one curse word in every 150 calls – giving it the No. 1 slot in the “sailors” category.
States that followed Ohio’s lead in the category include Maryland, New Jersey, Louisiana and Illinois.
Unfortunately, Ohio also made another not-so-pleasing list in the same study: the least courteous. The Buckeye State ranked No. 5 here, behind Wisconsin, Massachusetts, Indiana and Tennessee.
The “least courteous” category was determined by the frequency of the words “please” and “thank you” spoken while on the calls. Most of the states that scored high on the courteous list are in the South.
Ohio was the only state to be ranked in both “sailors” and “least courteous” categories.
The study also determined these interesting tidbits:
– 66 percent of the profanity came from men
– The longer the call, the more likely cursing would happen. Most cursing came from calls 10+ minutes long
– Time of day seems to matter: calls made in the morning are twice as likely to produce profanity as calls in the afternoon or evening
