American graffiti is taking over

YOU know you are middle-aged when you start to think about the ills of modern society which, to my way of thinking, are getting worse.

Jellett salt

YOU know you are middle-aged when you start to think about the ills of modern society which, to my way of thinking, are getting worse.

And I might start with the Americanisation of our language with the use of expressions such as "go figure". And don't get me started on sports, math and airplane. Airplane! It's aeroplane, generation Y. Aer-o-plane. Why doesn't this two-syllable description of a plane offend your ear the way it assaults mine?

It's only a matter of time before we lose all self-respect and omit the "and" when verbalising numbers beyond 100 as in "one hundred ten" instead of "one hundred and ten". I am told that the recently popular usage of the word like by teenagers, as in "he's, like, so totally hot", is a derivation of Valley speak that originated from the middle-class suburbs of Los Angeles.

And while I'm on the subject of blaming the US for the ills of modern Australian society I also blame American GIs for popularising the use of the f-word. Apparently the f-word was the preferred profanity of US troops when they were stationed in Australia during World War II. Our boys preferred English profanities (and no I'm not going to explain) but they were soon seduced by the f-word's delights.

I will admit that the f-word is highly versatile and can be moulded to fit any occasion: noun, verb, adjective, you name it, the f-word is eager to spread its offensive gospel at every turn.

Personally I have never been a fan of the f-word. And yet it is everywhere in modern society. It's on the television, in newspapers, in popular music; it infiltrated Hollywood long ago. And yet no one dares speaks against its presence. The f-word is like a vulgar guest at a party that no one is game enough to ask to leave.

Lately I have noticed that the f-word has weaselled its way into the vocabulary of middle-aged parents. (Psst: they use the f-word to prove they are with it.) But the odd thing is that when the aspirational middle class use the f-word they deliberately rhyme it with dark. They think it sounds classier than rhyming it with duck. A duck sounding f-word is vulgar. A dark sounding f-word is stylish. It hints at a raffish Bohemian past.

You see, this is what I mean about the ills of modern society. Here we are discussing the posh pronunciation of the f-word.

But if the Americanisation of our language and the tacit acceptance of the f-word are indicative of modern society's ills then surely the scourge of modern life must be graffiti.

I know, I know. We bad baby boomers have failed young people to such an extent that they are disaffected and disillusioned and are forced -- forced I tell you -- to seek an outlet for their repressed creativity by spraying paint on public property. (I have an uncharacteristic urge to use the f-word at this very moment.) No. No. No. There is no artistic merit to gratuitous graffiti scrawled over fences, lamp posts and public buildings.

Why do we accept it? There is no obvious graffiti in Tokyo, Helsinki, Singapore, Vienna, or in the arrondisements of Paris. Graffiti is a blot on the urban landscape just as the f-word is a blot on common language.

That's what I mean about the ills of modern society; these things don't seem to offend young people but they very much offend the middle-aged.

Follow KPMG Partner Bernard Salt on facebook.com/BernardSaltDemographer, twitter.com/bernardsalt, bernardsalt.com.au, [e-mail]