Swearing isn’t big or clever. But let’s be honest, sometimes a situation calls for a little bit of effing and jeffing.

Problem is, the Apple iPhone has an annoying habit of autocorrecting curse words into safe-for-work alternatives – sometimes to comical effect.

Fortunately there is a way to prevent this.

To ensure your next four-letter profanity makes it through uncensored, head to Settings > General > Keyboard > Text Replacement.

This menu lets you create automatic substitutions and allows you to override the in-built autocorrect system.

Press the + button in the top right-hand corner of the screen.

In the Shortcut text field write the word Apple usually autocorrects – ducking, for example.

In Phrase, simply write your chosen obscenity. And voila!

Once saved, you will never have to accidentally send the wrong word again.

Although, make sure you double-check any messages where you don’t intend to swear (talking to your boss about a “whit”, for example) since this could lead to some horrific misunderstandings.

Keyboards tend to avoid pre-programming swear words exactly for this reason.

VP of Mobile Products for Nuance Communications – the firm behind best-selling third party keyboard, Swype, Aaron Sheedy explained the problem to Engadget.

"The risk of having profanity in the dictionary is too high for most users," he said.

"If someone wants to send a professional email, or send a text to their mom, they will be extremely displeased if the word they are trying to write 'duck, whit, etc' gets replaced by a swear word.

"From a usability perspective, it's better for a user to add their own words to the dictionary so that they can anticipate the possibility of those words coming up, instead of surprising their friends or family with them."