From the f-bomb to the b-word, Joe Biden has unabashedly dropped one profanity after another in public. In a recent appearance at Harvard, Biden cut an audience member’s question off when he found out the asker was student body vice president. “Ain’t that a b****,” he said, his face bursting into that Jack Nicholson grin of his. The student laughed uncomfortably as Joe explained that he actually loves his job and his boss.

Biden’s potty mouth hardly ever gets him in trouble, although his truthfulness is another story. In fact, his unapologetic cursing, if anything, makes him more endearing, especially to younger voters who chuckle at his shenanigans, tweeting photos of the aviator-clad national leader with an ice cream cone, or sharing listicles of the 15 expressions he made during the president's latest speech.

Is it just something about Joe that exempts him from public outrage? Not by a long shot. While there hasn’t been a clear-cut public response when it comes to politicians who routinely swear, Biden isn't the first to get away with it. Supporters typically pat party members on the back when they drop an expletive; opponents point and “tsk” at their unrefined manners. Few liberals felt warm and fuzzy feelings towards then Vice President Dick Cheney when he cursed out a Vermont Democrat in 2004, but several conservatives approved Cheney’s — for lack of a better word — instruction, calling it a sign of a tough attitude rather than cause for sensitivity training.

As we saw with Mitt Romney, relatability matters. And what better way to relate and show you’re human than freeing your sense of humor and running your mouth? That’s not to say every politician should employ swearing as an effective campaign strategy. There’s a time, place and personality for that — it's likely that Romney’s offensive 47 percent statement would have prompted even more outrage if he threw in some foul-mouthed adjectives.

But, in some cases, swearing could actually help with public image. A 2014 study published in the Journal of Language and Social Psychology found that Italians who were given candidate’s vulgar blog posts to read were more likely to support them than Italians who read the same post with the offensive language taken out.

Biden certainly hasn’t authored the most colorful, inappropriate phrase to describe the vice presidency. Franklin D. Roosevelt’s VP, John Garner, still seems to be the front-runner in that game when he supposedly said, "the vice presidency is not worth a bucket of warm p***." But who knows — Joe has another two years left to top the record for the most ill-judged phrase said by a vice president about the office. If that happens, let’s just hope there are no kids around. Either way, he'll probably get away with it.