Important Breaking News -- the kids are cursing more

It is generally accepted that teenagers are terrible, terrible people, at least among the groups who decide such things, which are, in order, The Media, conservative commentators and organizations with the words "Parent" and "Concern" in their titles. If you had recently arrived here from another planet, like Ralph Nader, and turned on the TV, you could very quickly start believing that all teens do is spend most of their days punching each other, listening to terrible music, manufacturing babies like reproductive tommy guns and finding new and exotic ways to alter their mindstates, most of which, since I am over 30, I have never heard of.

The problem is that like all assumptions, these can be unfair, with the exception of the one involving terrible music (children, please listen to me: Fergie is awful). The one about the babies is untrue also, unless of course, you're Jamie Lynn Spears, the girl from "Whale Rider" or, of course, Juno.

So it's with a heavy heart that I must confirm a shocking preconception you may have about the young people: Teens Are Cursing More.

I know, I know -- you're thinking, "Teens are using bad language to gain attention from parents and peer groups? Get right out of town, crazy newspaper man!"

Indeed, this will be stunning news mostly to anyone who has spent the last few years being some degree of dead (other recent developments include Everything Was Better When I Was Little, You Kids Play Your Music Too Loud, I Can't Believe What Passes For A Bathing Suit These Days and I Never Did That When I Was Young So It Must Be Immoral). The rest of us might recall that this story, or some permutation thereof, has been written EVERY SINGLE YEAR since swearing was invented, back in 1926 by President Calvin Coolidge. (People say he didn't do a lot in office, but he's responsible for nearly all of the delightful swear words you uncork when someone cuts you off on 278).

According to psychology professor and author Timothy Jay, one of the leading scholars on cursing in the United States (others include the cast of "Deadwood," the Insane Clown Posse and my grandfather, who could send lifelong sailors scurrying back home to their mommies in tears), says that adolescents and preteens are swearing more than ever. It's the "conversational swearing" that's on the rise, says Jay. (Remaining thankfully static are the levels of monologue swearing, holler-swearing and swearing that takes place in polka songs.)

In the same story, Michael Leahy, a counselor at a junior high school in California, says that kids are even -- gasp -- making up their own words. "In the hallways, the kids are in their own little worlds, and all sorts of language is flying every which way," he says. "I think that the lines between public and private language have become blurred." This is absolutely true. For example, I learned just this week that "pimp" is now a noun, verb and adjective, and I'm starting to think it's not that teens are cursing more, it's that they're angry because they're running out of words. Maybe we can import some from China.

There are a lot of reasons for this plummeting social etiquette, and most of them are the Internet and the rap music, but it's also that language values are changing, and words that used to be the sole purview of dirty films and poker halls are now acceptable in prime time and at local John McCain campaign rallies. Perhaps this explains why this story and its attendant incredulous tone appears under a giant banner that reads PAGE SIX, GET YOUR GOSSIP FIX and directs me to a newspaper page with a headline about "Prince's Peep Show" and a very popular headline about Lindsay Lohan's nude photo shoot. Or it's possibly that when you tell teens not to do something, it throws up a giant flaming red flag that they should probably do it as quickly as possible, even if involves wearing lime-green shorts, being Jamie Lynn Spears or listening to Fergie.