Once upon a time in Hollywood, an extensive list of restricted words and phrases included “hell”, “damn”, “pansy”, “tom cat” and “hold your hat.”

Fifteen years ago, there were ructions between the Motion Picture Association (MPA)’s ratings board and the makers of The King’s Speech, the lovely tame film in which the king discovers that his stutter stops when he uses swear words, chiefly the f**k word. Though integral to the plot, they limited the film to an R rating (under 17s must be accompanied by an adult) for “some language.”

In the PG-13 (parents strongly cautioned) cut for cinemas, all but one of the offending expletives were dubbed over with “s**t.”

How quaint, you may be thinking. A few weeks ago, arguing against the shamrock ceremony in the White House, I recommended a three-word riposte instead. The first word was “go” and the third was “yourselves”; the middle one was obvious.

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Vulgar, yes. Pragmatic, no. Of their time, maybe. Either way, my words will not incite a war, mass murder or global economic mayhem. And this is not the US, where the F-word retains such potency that in a 2023 survey of American parents, six in ten felt films containing the word should have an R rating.

So from........

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