Dear Sir,

It is most distressing to hear the level of public profanity commonly used everywhere in this community on a daily basis, notwithstanding children, women or even our aged population being present. This kind of behaviour has become so much a part of the Bermudian culture that we hear it and give very scant concern as to its negative impact for our children and for a quality destination for our visitors.

What we seem to fail to appreciate is how this has such a detrimental effect on our proper use of language skills in other areas of life such as public speaking and does not encourage a well-rounded vocabulary for employment opportunities in so many job categories.

Also, it does not seem to matter that offensive and obscene words are against the law. It is heard in our neighbourhoods and you dare not object for facing the wrath of what we fondly refer to as a “few choice words” or asking for their “French to be excused” after uttering the most vile and filthy curse words with the expertise of a hardened and misguided drill sergeant during boot camp.

Spare a thought for the French, referring to the use of loud, boisterous, four-letter filth as needing to be pardoned as English and therefore understandable. You may feel that I am making entirely way too much of this subject until you hear it issued from the mouths of our children.

Sir, in your daily publication, it was deemed necessary to champion the cause for outlawing dark-tinted visors on crash helmets with great merit. Perhaps a similar campaign to reduce public potty mouth with a red line through a circle showing our disdain for profanity pollution in our lovely Island.

Bad habits are hard to break, for sure, but I believe this subject should at the very least get its 15 minutes at the top of this new year. The things that we practise are what we become very good at, even if these things are bad. Now that social media is the way to communicate in this information-driven age, we see the same tendency for the use of foul and unnecessary abbreviations to swear while we text or e-mail.

Talk radio is no exception, where the use of letters by callers who simply cannot give opinions without nasty intent is common; added to that, there is usually no rebuke from the host on the other end. We need to clean up our acts and provide better examples for our young people to follow. Please give very sore and embattled ears a break.

WAYNE B SCOTT