Tween J. Tan is not sure how his seven-year-old brother picked up the F-word but the latter used it on him two weeks ago.

The 12-year-old says: "He took my pencil without permission. I took it back, and he got angry and said, 'F*** you', and started crying."

His engineer father and tourism officer mother were not in, and neither of the boys told them about the incident for fear of getting into trouble for cussing, he says.

Fourteen-year-old D. Ashra let slip the same word last week when she scolded her 11-yearold sister.

Unfortunately for her, their mother heard it.

"She said, 'Say that word again and I'll put chilli in your mouth,'" says the teenager.

Most of the young children SundayLife! interviewed say they do not swear at home because their parents forbid them to, and asked that their names not be revealed.

However, among friends and when teachers are not within earshot, they mouth off freely.

S. Peh, 12, who studies in a school in Toa Payoh, says:

"Some naughty joker in class will swear. Then, other kids will think it's funny and laugh, and the joker will say some more."

The F-word tops the children's list of profanities but their vocabulary is wider.

Peer influence, uncensored films, TV shows and online channels offer them rich pickings of foul language.

The consensus is that today's children have become numb to the offensiveness of vulgarities and some do not even consider swear words such as f*** and b**** to be taboo anymore.

South View Primary School principal Jenny Yeo, an educator of 40 years, notes of children today:

"Some are using these words as exclamation marks, as if they were punctuation in a sentence. "It's worrying how they have been desensitised."

In the instances of how some words lose their sting over time, what Mrs Yeo calls desensitising may be something else altogether.

National University of Singapore sociologist Paulin Straughan says meanings change over time, so some substitutes may be a filler.

"The notion of 'bad' or 'good' are socially constructed. So today, while we have designated s*** as a 'bad' word, it may not have been so in the past.

"Having socially acceptable substitutes may be useful for moments when we need to release frustration," adds the associate professor.

Dr Carol Balhetchet, director of the Singapore Children's Society's youth services (Toa Payoh), notes: "You may catch kids, aged seven or eight, using the F-word but they don't do it so loudly.

"Among the older set, like the nine- or 10-year-olds, they use it with more volume and with more gusto - almost aggressively, and with hand gestures - for bigger impact."

Cussing among peers gives them street cred, says Dr Balhetchet. "It's like saying, 'Don't mess with me. I can speak your lingo too.'"

This gives hope that some kids may grow out of the potty-mouthed habit as they mature.

Lisa He, 18, who is waiting to enter a university here, says when she first heard her friends dropping F-bombs in secondary school, she followed suit.

"Once I reached junior college, I didn't really curse much and my group of friends did not curse much either."

Now, she swears mostly when she rants on her blog and only when she is angry.

Polytechnic student Mirabel Mok, 17, tries to control her swearing now because she thinks it is a "bad habit".

She says: "I might accidentally offend someone. I don't want the habit to hinder me in the workplace in future."

Until last year, she swore so much that her friends thought it strange if they did not hear an expletive from her.

"The words just pop up. I swear about every three sentences or so. If I go a few minutes without swearing, my friends will think something is wrong," says Mirabel, the middle child of a property agent father and housewife mother.

She said she picked up the habit from her father who "swears at people who p*** him off, which is on a daily basis".

Her father was not available for comment but Mirabel's 49-year-old mother, who wants to be known only as Mrs Mok, says: "I'm not a saint and swear sometimes when I'm angry."

She adds: "If Mirabel uses these words when she is angry or upset, it's more understandable. But why do you need to say it every minute?"

Will substitute words such as "fish" for the F-word sound less crass? Mirabel says: "I don't see any difference. It's just like using short forms such as 'lol' (laugh out loud) and 'omg' (oh my god)."

In any case, that is what Mrs Yeo plans to do - get her pupils to pledge not to swear and use substitute words instead, though details have not been drawn out, she says.

Twelve-year-old H. Xie, whose parents are sales executives, suggests: "Reward kids if they don't use vulgar language for, maybe, a week. Give them less assessment work and more time to play."

Ultimately, adults must model the change.

Prof Straughan says: "When foul language is used regularly in the child's social environment, these expressions will be normalised. So the main culprits in this area are parents and significant others in the family."

Fourteen-year-old Deviyani, who says her parents rarely swear, agrees. "Parents must be role models, so we kids can stop," she says.

While she admits to cussing among friends, she is put off by "parents who swear in public at their children".

For polytechnic student Ezreen Nurfatein Anuar, 18, the strongest swear word in her family is "damn".

"My parents have taught us that words that come out of our mouths should be more of a blessing than swearing," says Ezreen, the third of four children born to an engineer father and technical officer mother.

Her mother Faridah Halim, 49, confesses to occasionally saying "s***" but refuses to accept profanity as a norm.

She says: "Why must we use bad words? And why should using wholesome words be considered weird?"

Additional reporting by Sarah Roxanne Sim
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