Kiddie profanity

Their parents must think it cute:

Children as young as two are now dropping f-bombs, with researchers reporting that more kids are using profanity — and at earlier ages — than has been recorded in at least three decades.

So finds data presented at this month’s Sociolinguistics Symposium in the U.K., at which swearing scholar Timothy Jay revealed that the rise in vulgarity within adult culture dovetails with similar spikes in the number of youths using offensive language.

“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, a psychology professor at Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts. “We find their swearing really takes off between (ages) three and four.”

But if you want to understand why children are cussing more, he says you have to ask why their parents are, too. Jay, a profanity researcher for more than 30 years, finds two-thirds of adults with rules against swearing will themselves swear at home — a kind of lexical tick that’s knit deeper into our neurons every day.