Grasping how to swear is a crucial skill to any English-speaker, but it can be a tricky business. Owing to the rich and complex history of swearing, a single word can have a host of different meanings – from expressing surprise, excitement, anger, celebration, disgust or simply that you’re f****d off. If you don’t get it right, you could really be in the shit.

How to Swear, by graphic artist and swearing-connoisseur Stephen Wildish, uses all manner of charts and flow diagrams to teach you all you need to know, including: the building blocks of an effective insult; the adverbial uses of various types of animal excrement (horseshit, apeshit etc); and the different parts of speech a swear word can fulfil: ‘Fucking fuck, the fucking f****r’s f****d’. This charming (and rude) book will take you right to the heart of the wondrous world of swearing, with a lot of laughs on the way.