The F-ing Geography of Darned Profanity

In a nice little summary of recent linguistic research, Jay Livingston explains that the swear words we predominantly use in each part of the country vary dramatically. This is not surprising, really, since each region has a unique cultural history. Immigration differences, religious differences, and economic differences all contribute to regional variety in dialects. The original research by Jack Grieve analyzed the frequency of swear words in tweets by location in the U.S.

Having lived in New York, New England, Pennsylvania, St. Louis, and California, I can personally attest to the potty mouths of the coastal folks and the more traditional tongue of the Midwesterner.

Take a good look at the maps. Can you find the places where crass language is less prevalent ("darn") and other places where asshole, shit, and fuck are common? What do you think explains these distributions?

Here are a bunch more maps of other terms for those who are interested:
https://sites.google.com/site/jackgrieveaston/treesandtweets