Should we really give a &%$* about swearing in sport?

If, as a Sunday amateur, you've shanked a golf shot into the water, flubbed a forehand at break point or miskicked a crucial penalty, then it's probable that you're familiar with a specific set of words which in your youth might have made your mother produce a bar of soap.

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To spell it out with symbols since this is a family newspaper, you *&^%#$ it up.

Athletes curse, cuss, blaspheme. This is true from before the 16th century when that famous four-letter word was first used. Even Roger Federer stumbled coarsely and used one in conversation with an umpire. Of course we know this because he, like all professional athletes, is followed by something amateurs never are.

Microphones.

In modern times we've affixed them to bikes, stumps, umpires and intruded into huddles and dressing rooms. Why? Because we wish to travel deep within the audible theatre of sport, to feel its raw, unfiltered insides, to intimately experience its emotional pulse. And what we unsurprisingly find is that at 1-1 in the 86th minute, with four hectic minutes remaining, no one's thinking of the Queen's English.

Profanity is in the air ever since International Automobile Federation (FIA) president Mohammed Ben Sulayem called for less swearing on radio in Formula One but picked an unfortunate analogy. Let's not be like rap music, he said, to which Lewis Hamilton raised an inquiring eyebrow at this racial stereotyping.