Pardon my French

"Pardon my French."

I heard a co-worker utter this phrase recently, after making an angry statement punctuated with any number of obscenities. It made me wonder, "What do the French say when they curse?" So I emailed my counterpart in our France office and asked him.

He responded that the French swear pretty much constantly, and feel no particular compunction to apologize for this character trait. He speculated that the French equivalent for "shit" was likely their most commonly used word. He concluded that this was quite possibly the explanation behind the habit of both Brits and Americans to cite the French whenever spewing forth vulgarity.

No shit? "Pardon my French."