Singaporeans are the most frequent users of colorful words in English after Americans, Britons, and Australians, according to a study reported by CNN. As native English speakers, Americans, Britons, and Australians naturally use English expletives more often than non-native speakers from places like India or Pakistan. But Singaporeans use such words more frequently than even native English speakers from New Zealand and Canada. “English in Singapore is increasingly seen not as a second language, but as a native language,” the study notes.

Singapore has indeed appropriated the English language as its own. This sense of ownership comes through powerfully in Catherine Lim’s book Romancing the Language.

“It’s said that even if you speak several languages, there’s only one in which you live — your mother tongue,” she wrote. “The language in which I live, breathe, think and dream is, by that definition, not the Hokkien of my parents and their parents, and their parents’ parents, all the way back to the southern Chinese province of Fujian, where we came from, so long ago. It is English. English is my mother tongue in the fullest, most meaningful sense of the word.”

She recalled her first encounter with English at age six when she attended a convent school in the town of Kulim in what was then Malaya. “The sheer excitement of the new language had instantly relegated the Hokkien of my birth and upbringing to secondary position. It seemed that I was walking into a brave new world.”

Not every child experiences this dramatic transition from one language to another in Singapore now that English has become the first language for so many people. According to the Department of Statistics, Singapore, almost half the population speaks English most frequently at home.

However, people generally mind their language, both in Singapore and abroad. Bad words are rarely used, according to the CNN study. Based on web data (excluding social media and private messaging), the research found “vulgar words” made up just 0.036% of all words in data from the United States, 0.025% in Britain, 0.022% in Australia, and 0.021% in Singapore. The incidence was even lower in New Zealand (0.020%), Malaysia (0.019%), Ireland (0.019%), Jamaica (0.017%), and Canada (0.016%).

Given its clean image, Singapore might have been expected to be more discreet in its language. But the study suggests that “youthful swearing in Singapore” could be a r...