SO HERE'S the thing. A whole column to write and I can't use the word that set me off.

I don't know if anyone's counting, but there seems to more swearing these days.

You often hear what still has to be rendered in print as the F-word, or translated into a row of stars.

Would you prefer me to use the four-star version which robs the word of all its letters, or the slightly less coy "f" followed by three asterisks? Or do you find you couldn't give a f** (that's a fig, by the way). Or would you rather I didn't talk about swearing at all? If so, I'm sorry to disappoint.

Two things brought these foul-mouthed thoughts to mind. One was news of a documentary which is causing a stir in the United States.

The other was watching celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay on television spitting out F-words like a nail-gun firing pointy objects.

The new film is called, well, that's the thing - I can't tell you what it's called, because its title is "F***", followed by a word that is a little like documentary, only amended at the front, losing the doc' and gaining something rude.

I like this new coinage, because it could refer to all sorts of television programmes, in particular "reality" shows in which it is more or less obligatory to swear often and bitchily.

In television terms, the F-word is creeping into the mainstream. It used to be the province of late-night shows on Channel Four-letter-word, but now it is pushing at the boundaries.

The F-word remains a difficult area - a cause of argument and fascination. Once it was shocking, a word used rarely in public and never on television. Now it is common currency among some, particularly the young (and, ahem, stressed-out journalists and even perfectly calm journalists) - yet it still offends and upsets many people.

The American director Steve Anderson says he started working on his film as a joke, and because he wanted to get to the bottom of the word's power as "rowdy and contentious".

"I thought it would be fun to make a documentary about the word," Anderson has been quoted as saying. "A word that so many people love to use."

His film muses on the etymology of the word, and features such well-known users as the writer Hunter S Thompson, rapper Ice Tea, singer Alanis Morisette and our own Billy Connolly, a comedian who loves the F-word ("It's a brilliant word, it's onomatopoeic. It sounds exactly what it is").

So here's what I think. Swearing is both a curse and a guilty pleasure. I don't swear too often, so long as you discount "bloody", which has an old-fashioned Prince Philip ring to it, and the two b-words, especially the longer one that the Sex Pistols weren't minding about all those years ago.

Oh, and the word that is said to hit the fan - I do use that.

As for the F-word, that is mostly restricted to occasional use under my breath at times of stress in the office (Thursday morning, as it happens). Or in private at home, behind drawn curtains and not in front of the children, who are teenagers anyway so probably know more swear words than I do.

Too much swearing on television isn't good. It doesn't offend me so much as bore me, especially when Ramsay is using his motor-powered potty mouth. Too effing much already, Gordon. Give it a rest.

Yet swearing can release tension, and it can be creative, shocking and funny. It's telling that Anderson's film should have been made in America, a land divided between the God-fearing and good cursing.

American swearing in TV series such as The Sopranos can have an almost poetic ring. Take as an example one often-used phrase. Can you image Tony Soprano asking everyone to pipe down a little. No, he demands that they shut well, I can't say what he asks, but you get the picture.

As news stories in this newspaper often ask, what do you think?