Progress or Something

Children are learning to use profanity — swearing — at an earlier age, according to research presented at the Sociolinguistics Symposium this month. And the researchers found children are also swearing more often than children did just a few decades ago.

First of all, say "Sociolinguistics Symposium" five times fast. Doing it faster and doing more of it, it's the American way.

Just how early?

"By the time kids go to school now, they're saying all the words that we try to protect them from on television," says Jay [who presented the data]. "We find their swearing really takes off between (ages) three and four."

3 and 4. That's Sesame Street ages, right? Maybe Katy Perry wasn't that out of line... But note that he named the favorite bogey man of whatever's wrong with our kids, television. That's gotta be it, right? More and more of it on TV, so more and more of it in kids' mouths. Bzzzt.

Kids aren't learning swearing at an earlier age from the television they watch. The rise in cursing mirrors the rise in cursing among adults in the past thirty years that Jay has been studying the psychology of swearing.

Ooops. In fact, it's monkey-hear, monkey-do:

"As soon as kids can speak, they're using swear words," says Jay. "That doesn't mean they know what adults know, but they do repeat the words they hear."

Eh, what's it matter? Bunch of silly Victorian sensibilities becoming more obsolete is all.

Swearing is not a trivial matter about an occasional profanity slipping past a child's lips. Previous research into swearing has shown it has a significant impact with problems at home, in school, and at the workplace.

...not to mention it's lazy and largely uncreative.

The bit of silver lining on this effen gray cloud? Edited a skosh to keep this sfw.

Children do not appear to be yet using worse swear words than in the past — just common swear words more often, according to the new research. Although there are over 70 different common taboo swear words in the English language (some of which also vary from English-speaking country to country), 10 frequently used words account for over 80 percent of common swearing — fbleepk, sbleept, hbleepl, dbleepn, gbleepn, Jbleeps Cbleept, ableeps, oh my gbleepd, bbleeph and sbleeps.

What, really, that last one counts? Gulp.

The original article is here, and then Jay's very interesting website is here.