A Kent council caused a stir when it recently revealed plans to issue fines for swearing.

But KentOnline columnist and self-confessed potty mouth Melissa Todd says language is important, and the “dubious” idea will unfairly penalise the working class…

I was in Portsmouth when I heard about Thanet District Council’s plan to ban swearing in public places.

“Ah, Broadstairs! Isn’t that the place where one can’t exclaim imaginatively on stubbing one’s toe?” my colleague asked. Gosh, is it really? I said, the so-called Thanet-based journalist, thus removing any lingering doubt I was committed to either journalism or Thanet. Um. I dunno. Later, amid the peace of some fine Portsmouth porcelain, I googled. Oh yeah. £100 a profanity? How on earth is that going to work? Is it even legal or moral to try to control the words people use? And anyway, why bother?

I like swearing. I swear heaps, with gusto and flair. If you buy my new book, Americaned, you’ll find half the words contained within should probably incur a fine. Swearing has been proven to benefit mental health, providing a similar emotional release to crying.

People told not to swear in stressful situations cope with the stress less well than those who are allowed to let rip with the potty talk. Swearing helps expel negative emotions, like frustration, annoyance, which will otherwise fester internally. This research was conducted among surgeons in operating theatres, and if a surgeon needs to exclaim while he’s chopping me about, I shall wholeheartedly encourage it.

Increasingly it appears the only crimes that are ever noted or solved are those that bring easy money. Dropping a cigarette end, parking an extra five minutes, yelling flip when you forget your mother’s birthday, all likely to cost you around £100: but burn 72 people to death at Grenfell, you’ll probably get away with it. Creating crimes designed to raise money, rather than protect human life, seems a dubious direction for society to heed.

It’s class war too. The working classes often have a tendency to use swear words as punctuation. And policing those words has always been a large part of controlling the lower orders.

Growing up, we were all aware that naughty words deliberately poked a finger in the eye of teachers, policemen and parents. That was the point of them, their chief delight. My step-dad used the foulest epithet as a term of endearment, a word I couldn’t even use after 9pm on Channel 4 without special permission and a trigger warning. He didn’t mean anything unpleasant by it. This was how he used language. It reflected the way he approached the world, a bit cheeky-like, and it made him charming.

Those who grow up in more hostile environments tend to have only a few hundred words at their disposal by the age of 16, many of them sounding aggressive to bourgeois ears. This isn’t because those young people are stupid, but because using those words helps them feel less vulnerable.

Swear words are employed, often, where the middle classes might say “umm”: they give you a chance and moment to think, for if you hesitate when speaking you’ll be seen as weak, and others will jump in to talk over you.

We all learn to speak in a certain way in order to fit in with our families and peers. The words we choose root us to a particular community, class, peer group, at a time when many of the other elements that used to unite us - work, geography, family, ambition - are being eroded. Where there is no wider purpose and no clear future the language chosen by a group of people becomes a unifying force, providing a cultural boundary and signifier, binding them together in their uncertainty. It’s a lousy time to choose to undermine anything that provides stability, certainty, creativity and connectivity. Don’t you think?