The following are rankings in terms of occurence on the World Wide Web, as determined by searches using the Google engine.

1. Fuck -- 7.3 million matches. The big daddy, king-hell four-letter word is still the most popular bad word in the world -- presumably because of its versatility and frequency of use in two of the Internet's most lively enterprises (porn and flaming). Assorted derivatives: "fucker" shows up 182,000 times, "motherfucker" 122,000, "fuck you" has 310,000 matches, "fuck off" has 150,000.

2. Hell -- 6.2 millon matches. In contrast to fuck, hell (the mildest thing that still counts as a swear word, I reckon) is probably popular precisely because a lot of people who don't otherwise use profanity will still say hell. Plus, of course, there are undoubtedly an awful lot of religious sites popping up there -- something not true of any of the other words on our list.

3. Cock -- 4.9 million. Again, the versatility factor -- it's a derogative, but also a porn word. Of course, it's impossible to factor out the legitimate agribusiness or sporting uses of the word ("cockfighting," "cocks and hens," etc.). Interestingly, "penis" shows up only 2.3 million times, establishing once again (as if there were any doubt) the primacy of the Saxon anatomical references over the Romance languages.

4. Shit -- 3.5 million matches. An impressive showing for the ol' excretory expletive. Going by the math, does this mean shitting is only half as popular as fucking?

5. Damn -- 2.9 million. Same factors going for it as "hell," I guess. But it's probably just not strong enough for most profaners these days. "Goddamn" shows up 176,000 times, and "God damn" another 82,500.

6. Cunt -- 1.8 million. Kind of a shocker here, frankly. What with the prominence of straight male porn on the Web, I would've thought this would be neck-and-neck with cock. The massive differential cannot be simply attributable to gay sites. It's probably partly because, outside of sexual references, "cunt" is used a lot less as a derogative. Even guys seem to find it offensive to say. (The exception is in the U.K., where it's a common term of disparaging endearment: "Ah, he's a right cunt, he is." This is the usage Rev. Jack referred to some months ago.) "Vagina," meanwhile, shows up 1.1 million times -- again only half as often as "penis." Hmm...

7. Asshole -- 656,000. Bringing up the rear (I'm sorry, can't help myself) is our favorite derrierey dismissive. Not a surprise it has so few matches, really -- once you can say it on TV, it kind of loses its street cred.

And there you have it. Tune in next week for more useless information.

jfm