Use vulgarities? Think again.

Sim Lim salesman sacked for cursing – The Straits Times, January 29 2011

Link to article and video: http://www.straitstimes.com/BreakingNews/Singapore/Story/STIStory_629657.html

Salesman, Mike, was taped using vulgarities when questioned about his price breakdown of camcorder bought by Chen Tao. When comparing prices with others stores, Chen suspected he was overcharged by Mike. The taped confront was known by Mike, therefore, vulgarity was used knowingly.

In our current  generation, vulgarities are just an expression of emotion. It can be both positive and negative, but somehow, naturally, Singaporeans took vulgarities in its negative intention. Have we ever thought how ironic we Singaporeans can be? When we hear Caucasians swearing, we think it’s a norm for them and waived it off easily. But when it’s a Singaporean swearing, our perspective starts setting in, thinking that they are either ah lians or ah bengs– generally bad company, with low moral values and not respectful.

So what’s the view of vulgarities to most Singaporeans? Many argued the relation of vulgarities to sex. So does it mean using vulgarities in public means having sex in public? Maybe this could be another explanation in Singaporeans inability to accept the use of vulgarities.

But in this article context, vulgarities was not the only issue. Mike, as a salesperson, has his social responsibilities. In the service line, it’s widely known for the fact that,’ Customer is always right.’ policy. No matter how demanding and aggressive customers are, serviceman just have to swallow his/her pride down and smile.

Soon after the ‘upheaval’ of incident, Mike’s boss, Seow, sacked Mike due to his unethical behaviour towards Chen. If the dismissal was solely based on Mike’s moment of folly, could it be due to the social pressure? Is this dismissal fair to him then? I believe it takes 2 hands for an argument to blow. Noted from the interview at the later part of video, Chen’s friend admit to be provoking Mike, resulting in the use of vulgarities. Therefore, Mike used vulgarities under a provoked emotion– his expression of emotion. But his way of expressing his emotion was seen inappropriate due to his social responsibility and role as a salesman.

As we know, even though there is no law implemented to restrict the use of vulgarities publicly, they do exist in other forms of restrictions. For example, this article that I would like to bring attention to- Man pleads guilty to pushing, using vulgarities on driving centre tester, 2 Mar 2010

With reference to the article, Eric Lim Guo Yong, could be jailed for up to a year or fined a maximum of $5,000, for threatening, abusing or insulting a public servant. And for using criminal force on another person, he could be jailed up to three months and fined a maximum of $1,500.

Instead of passing a statement of using vulgarities in public, he was judged as threatening and insulting the driving centre tester.

From these 2 incidents, I agree much with the social constructionist perspective of communication. It seemed quite clearly that culturally Singaporeans are not able to accept the use of vulgarities in public on others even in this modern time era. It’s deemed as an insult or threat. How did we unknowingly cultivated this norm? Vulgarities=insulting others.

As such, our local cultural tradition of minding our languages in public resulted in Mike’s dismissal. If using vulgarity is deemed to be so unacceptable in Singapore, should a law be implemented to control our use of language? Or should moral education in school emphasis the use of language, the shoulds and should-nots, to cultivate us since child? What do you think, Singaporeans?