Marketplace®

Daily business news and economic stories

Pardon my (economic) language

Here's a new economic indicator for you: The frequency of CEO profanity.

Apparently, and this kind of stands to reason, the use of profanity by CEOs varies with economic conditions.

Bloomberg actually went through and did a word search of earnings call transcripts for the past 10 years. Profanity peaked in 2010, dipped a bit, shot up again in 2012 and has been declining ever since.

I know you want to know what the words are, but I really need my job.

There’s a chart that’ll give you the details, though:

A screenshot of Bloomberg’s graphic on CEO cursing. For more detail, see the full graphic. (Courtesy of Bloomberg)

Related Topics

Collections:

Latest Episodes

View All Shows
  • Marketplace Tech
    an hour ago
    8:28
  • Marketplace
    12 hours ago
    25:32
  • Marketplace Morning Report
    20 hours ago
    6:50
  • Make Me Smart
    2 days ago
    21:16
  • This Is Uncomfortable
    3 days ago
    4:41
  • Million Bazillion
    a month ago
    32:45