"Ma, what does fuck mean?" -quoting a 7 year old me
Swearing, a form of self expression or noise pollution?

Today, I received a rather amusing sms from a friend which reads " Life is difficult, full of trials, sorrow, pain.... but if u fall down, just stand up straight, be confident and say " TIU NIA SING who pushed me??!!"

Well, amusing things are meant to be shared, so shared it I did =)

And what I noticed is that different people responded differently. For example, Aimee responded with a " Oi, I dont say tiu nia sing. We say wtf one!"

Which is true.

Another friend suggested to say 'deng leh keh fai".
Mei wei, whose cantonese swearword dictionary is severely lacking in substance, responded blurly "what is tiu nia sing?"

She's so cute la wei.

So there I was grinning at the message like some sort of idoit, wondering how the hell am I going to explain this to her when I hit upon the solid wall of realisation.This is because I recollected that I was told by my mom that she had heard me swearing at the ripe old age of 3. (I must say,she seemed somewhat proud and amused of my 'achievement')

THREE YEARS OLD LA WEI!!!!
WHAT KIND OF KID LEARNS TO SWEAR AT 3??!

Wasnt that the time when we should be singing along to ABC instead of running around chasing chicks and yelling " TIU NIA SING!!! come back here chickies!!" in cantonese?
Back then, the only language I KNEW was cantonese. and yeah, I was chasing some little chicks which my grandma wanted to fatten up for CNY when my mom heard me yelling profanity at the top of my lungs

For a kid who couldnt even utter a word until 2 before that, I used to speak in a weird language of my own which went like "babahbahhh" that went along with all kinds of weird hand gestures which ONLY my grandma understood I must say I did quite well indeed.

Thankfully, I do not swear like an sailor now. In fact, I hardly swear in real life. Sure I type the words wtf rather frequently, but you can hardly hear me swear. Amazing shit I know.

Swearing? Is it good or bad? A personal or a social thing? Immoral or just a form of expression?

For some people, its a real turn-off when they hear a person swear. To them, its rude, insulting, degrading and somewhat shows that you are severely lacking in vocabulary to express yourself. Thus, it makes you look rather retarded in the mentality department.

For example I heard of phrases from ah bengs which went something like this " ma hai, kam yat sien tou lan kam yong."

Direct translation: Your mother's byebye!! Today bored like dick only.
WHAT they actually mean: I am extreamly bored and frustrated with my current situation today.

Ah bengs speak in a lingo of their own indeed.

Sentence structure- okaylar.
Grammar- Very...um.. interesting.
Vocabulary- Repeated usage of the word 'hai'and 'lan' is haily recommended.
Comprehention-as long as you know what the above two words mean and have a good imagination, congratulations!

Personally, I dont care. Swearing is okay as long as it is done in moderation and at appropriate moments. After all, its pretty destressing to say "wtf!!" instead of "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" like mary poppins when shit happens.



VS



Another example:
Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious. I have another test on wednesday!!
WTF!! TEST! WEDNESDAY!

Tell me, Which one is more effective and efficient?