Yours Toothfully by Dr Chan Joon Yee

Last night, as I was watching the Olympics, Mark Richmond said that a team was going for … Jade Seah said gold and Mark said: “Now that’s one four-letter word you can say.” They laughed and so did I. The duo has improved a lot since Day 1.

And I thought that was a smart way diffuse the tension around a little unhappy episode.

I’ve never been a fan of Jade Seah. She might look good in a bikini, but I thought her sports presentation was awful and to make matters worse, she uttered the F word when some technical hitch caused her microphone to be kept on when she was fumbling with the Hanyu Pinyin pronunciation of a platform diver’s name – Feng. Realising her mistake, she said the F word. It was recorded by viewers and posted on YouTube. See below. You need good earphones to hear it properly.

You know what happens when such things happen in Singapore. People quickly mounted their moral high horses and started throwing stones. They admit that they swear too, but they excuse themselves because they are not sports presenters and insist that they would never say such things over the air intentionally or unintentionally (if they ever get the chance). A vindictive few even made it sound like the lady deserves to go to jail for that. Apparently, they have very different standards for Singapore’s star blogger, Xiaxue. This woman doesn’t mince her F words and Singaporeans love her so much that she doesn’t even need a real job.

For me, I’m more worried of my children seeing Xiaxue’s videos and reading her blog than an unintentional slip of the tongue in a sports programme. To be frank, I didn’t even notice that Jade Seah had said that word. I’m sure my children didn’t. Maybe it’s because I don’t have a HD TV. Maybe it’s because I don’t put everything I see under a microscope or wear earphones when I watch TV to pick out something that may offend me.

Check out the YouTube clip again. Jade Seah’s little blooper is really easy to miss out if you don’t listen carefully with a good pair of headphones. One of the videos even inserted text to get you ready for the fleeting F word.

Why?

Are Singaporeans so conservative and easily offended? Why are they so easily offended by an unintentional expletive while they Or are they just so bored, so repressed that they need to throw stones at people in the limelight once in a while to pass their dateless nights?