Democratic Senator Carl Levin of Michigan holds a Goldman Sachs document with underlined sections in April. He lambasted the investment firm for a series of internal emails, including one that described a transaction as 'one shitty deal.' (Charles Dhaparak/Associated Press)

Goldman Sachs workers are likely wondering WTF is appropriate anymore after the New York investment bank informed employees that profanity is no longer acceptable in electronic messages.

The bank has been verbally telling employees that a whole host of words are no longer allowed to be used in correspondence, the Wall Street Journal reported Thursday. The move comes in the wake of the bank being raked over the coals for one employee's well-publicized use of the word "shitty" to describe investment deals it was selling to clients.

At a U.S. Senate hearing into the causes of the subprime mortgage crisis in April, regulators took issue with Goldman executive Tom Montag's email describing a transaction the firm was working on: "Boy, that Timberwolf was one shitty deal," the email read.

Michigan Democratic Sen. Carl Levin lambasted the firm for its cavalier attitude. While the focus was on the bank's selling of assets it knew were toxic, not its use of profanity, the bank is now cracking down on the language that helped add to the negative publicity about it.

It is not clear what the punishment for breaking the rule might be, but software will be installed to monitor the email accounts of all 34,000 Goldman employees from now on.

"Of course, we have policies about the use of appropriate language, and we are always looking for ways to ensure that they are enforced," a Goldman spokesperson was quoted as saying.

Under the new regime, Montag would have been unable to send the email that attracted so much attention, as the message would have been undeliverable. Even phrases with asterisks in place of key letters are verboten in the new system.

Stock exchanges also restrict profanity

While blanket disclosure policies are commonplace at businesses in the digital age, the move toward more propriety is particularly significant in the financial industry, which has long been known for flaring tempers in the trading pit.

Most major stock exchanges moved to rein in profane language after cable news networks began broadcasting from the trading floor several years ago. CME Group, which owns the world's largest futures and options exchange, specifically bans the "use of profane, obscene or unbusinesslike language on the trading floor."

Violators face fines of up to $20,000 US per infraction. Rules 476(a)(7) and 401 of the New York Stock Exchange's code of conduct allows for fines of tens of thousands of dollars for "indecorous" language on the trading floor in New York.

TMX Corp., owners of the Toronto Stock Exchange, did not reply to a request for comment on the exchange's profanity policy.

Several Bay Street firms already employ software to weed out controversial phrases, making it impossible to send out an email with a profanity.

"Many companies have been doing this for years," Toronto-based business etiquette consultant Linda Allen said. "And those that weren't are tightening their policies now — unfortunately, only after they've had an incident."

The rise of social media such as Twitter has helped reinvigorate corporate concern over acceptable communication.

"There's all kinds of new ways to send the wrong message now," Allen said.

Nobody was available for comment on the profanity policy at Toronto-Dominion Bank, but the practice is already in place at major U.S. financial firms.

Citigroup Inc. and J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. have policies against using certain profane language in company emails while Morgan Stanley has a language policy but it is not restricted to profanity.

In 2003, Merrill Lynch & Co. analyst Henry Blodget famously described a company as a "p.o.s." in an email communication. He later accepted a lifetime ban from the securities industry for disparaging companies in private that he was publicly recommending.