Ohio leads U.S. in foul mouths

Institute’s software data report state lacks courteousness too

5/17/2013

COLUMBUS — What the @#$%, Ohio? You swear more than Illinois? More than New Jersey?

More than New freakin’ York?

That’s the finding of the Seattle-based Marchex Institute, and if you don’t like it, you probably shouldn’t tell researchers where to stick it.

They already think the Buckeye State has the tact of a drunken fool.

The institute, the research arm of mobile-advertising firm Marchex, studied more than 600,000 phone calls placed in the last year from consumers to businesses, among them car dealerships and cable companies.

The company analyzes calls for its clients, and sometimes it has a little fun with the results. This time, it used voice-recognition software that was uncanny at picking up curse words that you apparently love and that we can’t print here.

Ohio won!

Or maybe it lost?

Its residents swore more than any other state: In every 150 conversations or so, an Ohioan let loose with language that would make your grandma wag her finger.

“I was surprised by the results,” said John Busby, senior vice president of the Marchex Institute. He’s a transplanted Midwesterner whose siblings attended Ohio colleges.

Read the rest of this story at dispatch.com.