What The Bleep! Study Ranks Md. 2nd Most Potty-Mouthed State, 3rd Most Polite

BALTIMORE (WJZ)—Have you noticed more people around you using curse words more often?  Well, you've come to the right place. Marylanders, according to one group, are getting a reputation for our use of foul language.

But as Mike Schuh reports, we do so very politely.

This is a tale about good and a little bit of evil.

First off, thank you Julie Scharper with the Baltimore Sun for reporting on how bad we are.

It appears Marylanders are pretty good at cursing.

Scharper points to a Marchex study that scanned for curse words in hundreds of thousands of recorded customer service calls.

They scanned over a half a million of those calls, and where do you think Marylanders ranked in the times they heard curse words?

"Number one!" said Sierra Williams.

No, we're not first, but we are second.

"It doesn't really surprise me," Williams said.

Why the bleep not?

"A lot of people like to use a lot of colorful metaphors I guess," said Geza Hamiiker.

Ohio is first. It seems we need to stoop a little lower if we want to gain that crown.

On the positive side, we're pretty courteous.

According to the study, Marylanders may know our way around a sailor's vocabulary, but we apparently are as polite as nuns when we curse at you.

Of all 50 states, Maryland is ranked third when it comes to saying "please" and "thank you."

It kinda makes your head want to explode, doesn't it?

"In America, I find it very polite. Everyone 'please, thank you,' opening doors for people," said Laura Parker, who is on vacation.

"I opened the door for someone at the 7-Eleven, and they said 'thank you,'" Hamiiker said.

In that survey, 66 percent of those who curse are men, and the incidence of cursing greatly increased if a customer service call was longer than 10 minutes.

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