LONDON—One afternoon last week at The Cock Tavern, Allan Gow and Callum Herod were on a rant about how “bollocks” shouldn’t be classified as an unacceptable word.

The 18th-century pub, close to London’s Oxford Street, recently banned the use of expletives, and the two former military men were voicing objections.

“You just can’t ban swearing in a place where they serve alcohol,” said Mr. Gow, 63, over a pint of Organic Lager. “That’s bullshit.”

“Tell whoever issued this ridiculous policy,” said Mr. Herod, 64, “to go stuff themselves.”

Samuel Smith Old Brewery, the 250-year-old brewery that operates The Cock Tavern and more than 200 other pubs across Britain, in April instituted a “zero-tolerance policy” against swearing—the first time, pub historians say, a British pub chain has sought an official ban.


The pubs’ “landlords,” as the British call tavern operators, have been instructed to refuse orders from foul-mouthed drinkers and have begun ejecting some patrons who refuse to curb their cursing.

That ban may or may not include “bollocks,” British slang for testicles and nonsense. A Cock Tavern bartender declined to comment on the word.

The Cock Tavern is part of Samuel Smith’s nationwide ban on swearing in its pubs. Photo: ALI KATE CHERKIS for The Wall Street Journal

Landlords said the edict, which wasn’t publicly announced, was communicated by Samuel Smith’s in an April memo they said doesn’t list unacceptable words.

“Where do you draw the line?” asked a landlord at a Samuel Smith’s pub in Northwest London. “Is ‘bloody’ a swear word? It’s quite confusing.”


Samuel Smith’s didn’t respond to inquiries.

Other bars clamping down on cursing include Wetherspoon’s, the U.K.’s largest pub chain, which last year expanded its management training to help landlords muzzle their more loquacious patrons, stopping short of a ban.

“The hierarchy of pub conversation is like the Ten Commandments,” said J D Wetherspoon PLC Chairman Tim Martin. “There’s a word or two that are completely off limits, but the general rule is you don’t swear at people.”

Some independent landlords are taking their own irreverent approaches, with one popular sign demanding: “No Bloody Swearing!”


The anti-profanity push, intended to lure families, is the latest chapter in a decadeslong shift in British drinking culture that has transformed thousands of traditional beer houses into bijou bars and gastropubs—establishments serving high-end food and craft beer.

Many of those changes have been popular. But the move to call time on swearing has prompted searching questions on whether pub culture and colorful language—cornerstones of British cultural life—should ever be separated.

The English are proud of the range of their profane vernacular. A popular book is “Roger’s Profanisaurus,” a 624-page dictionary of about 12,000 profanities that commentators say is a whistle-stop tour of the most disgusting expressions the language has to offer.

Moreover, “the British pub is an institution where people go to enjoy themselves, an informal place where class and salary are forgotten,” said Tom Stainer of the Campaign for Real Ale, or CAMRA, an organization that says it represents 187,000 beer drinkers around the world. “We don’t need rules to restrict that.”


Petr Knava, a 29-year-old public-health worker and longtime Samuel Smith’s patron, promised to unleash a barrage of blasphemy at the pubs to protest “this shitmonkey of a decision,” which he calls “arse-backwards twattery.”

Inside The Horse and Groom, London. Photo: Georgi Kantchev/The Wall Street

Sam Eeles, a 31-year-old software engineer, was working his way through the “The Sam Smith’s Challenge”—a tour of the brewer’s three dozen pubs in London—when he and his friends were repeatedly reprimanded for swearing.

“It feels like you’re sitting in your grandma’s lounge,” he said, “after you’ve been told to watch your language.”

Samuel Smith’s, whose website boasts of its “uncompromisingly Victorian” traditions—its pubs are known for Victorian-era décor and cheap drinks—has kept tight-lipped on the reasons for the ban.

Several Samuel Smith’s pubs visited by The Wall Street Journal displayed signs reading: “We wish to inform all of our customers that we have introduced a zero-tolerance policy against swearing in all of our pubs.”

Melissa Gillespie, a 20-year-old bartender at The Horse and Groom in London’s Fitzrovia District, polices the ban by first pointing to the sign or holding it aloft. Formal warnings follow. She said she hasn’t kicked anyone out.

“Regulars come here to take pictures of the sign because they can’t believe we would implement it,” she said. “One man I showed the sign said he couldn’t stop swearing because he had a chronic case of Tourette’s. I wasn’t sure how to react.”

At the Widow Cullens Well, a Samuel Smith’s pub in the English East Midlands city of Lincoln, manager James Piazza said he recently had to eject a “massive group of 17 blokes” for repeatedly swearing. “I’m lucky they didn’t beat me up.”

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Mind Your Manners! Over their history, English pubs have endured bans on musicians, cockfights, darts, duck baiting and indoor archery. 1189: Ye Olde Jerusalem, the UK’s oldest pub, opens its doors.

1656: Oliver Cromwell’s puritanical government bans musicians from playing in pubs.

1849: Prevention of cruelty to animals attempts to stop cock fighting and duck baiting -- a fight in a pond pitting a dog against a duck with its wings constrained -- in UK pubs. Many of the names of UK pubs -- The Cock, or the Dog & Duck -- hint at this darker past.

1917: Amid claims that productivity is being hampered by drunkenness, pubs reduce opening times and alcohol strength. The Defence of the Realm Act forbids ‘treating’—patrons’ buying each other drinks—to reduce binge-drinking in towns where munitions are manufactured.

1930s: Licensing justices in Liverpool and Huddersfield rule that darts should be banned in pubs because the game contributes to excessive drinking, drunkenness and danger.

1950s: Pubs in Southern England move to ban indoor archery after some establishments allow teams to fire arrows against a dartboard.

Despite their freewheeling reputation, British pubs for centuries sought to shape behavior according to fashions of the day. In 1656, Oliver Cromwell’s puritanical government banned musicians from playing in pubs.

During World War I, the Defence of the Realm Act forbade “treating”—patrons’ buying each other drinks—to reduce binge-drinking in towns where munitions were manufactured.

A Wetherspoon pub last year banned tracksuits and baseball caps. Some pubs have put an embargo on bare chests.

Back at The Cock Tavern, Messrs. Gow and Herod weren’t booted for their impolite words, including the bollocks.

Some drinkers noted the ban could see them ejected for mentioning the name of the pub in the wrong context. Others insisted swearing and storytelling were part of the essential nature of British pubs.

“Swearing is the language that accentuates stories. It gets across your emotional response in a visceral way,” said Matt Hill, a 30-year-old sound engineer from North London. “What better place to do that than the pub?,” he said. “For want of a better word people won’t give a shit.”

Write to Joe Parkinson at joe.parkinson@wsj.com and Georgi Kantchev at georgi.kantchev@wsj.com