Modern Family F-bomb creates outrage in the US

  • Breaking
  • 18/01/2012

Anti-indecency organisations in the US are furious about an upcoming episode of Modern Family in which two-year-old Lily says the F-word.

The episode, which will be broadcast on TV3 as part of Modern Family's third season, features Lily uttering the profanity with the sound bleeped out.

The storyline is centered around Lily's parents, Cam and Mitchell, who are attempting to clean up their daughter's language before she appears as a flower girl at a wedding.

A Parents Television Council spokesperson in the US said that the storyline is "in poor taste", and may hit close to home for many parents today.

Interestingly scientists say that two years is approximately the age when children start using "adult" language.

"Kids say swear words as soon as they talk," says Timothy Jay, a psychologist who studies psycholinguistics and obscenities at the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts.

Jay and his colleagues have data going back into the 1970s of words that day care workers, schoolteachers, and other adults who work with children report hearing.

"We have one- and two-year-olds who say 'f---' and 's---' in our sample."

According to Jay, children mimic words early on and realise quickly which words are "bad", even if they don't know the exact definitions of those words.

TV3.co.nz

source: newshub archive